On October 22, 2016, Mitra Mehrabadi, a 36-year-old woman who had immigrated to the United States from Iran four years prior, was found dead in her Portland, Oregon, office. She was discovered at the Liberty Center building on Northeast Holladay Street, where she worked for Liberty Mutual Insurance. An autopsy later confirmed that she had died from multiple gunshot wounds in what was ruled a homicide.
The investigation into her death quickly connected to another incident that had
occurred earlier the same day. Just after 10:00 a.m., police responded to a call about a suspicious person with a gun in a car about a mile from the Liberty Center. As officers arrived, they heard a gunshot from within the vehicle and found the occupant deceased from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The man was identified as 51-year-old Jimmy Allen Morgan of Gresham.
Detectives soon determined that Mehrabadi and Morgan were coworkers at Liberty Mutual Insurance and that their families were acquainted. The Oregon State Police crime lab confirmed that the gun Morgan used to take his own life was the same weapon used to kill Mehrabadi. Investigators believe that Morgan shot and killed Mehrabadi at their workplace before driving away and committing suicide.
The motive for the murder-suicide was not definitively established in the initial reports, but some accounts suggest Morgan may have had an unreciprocated romantic interest in Mehrabadi. Friends and family of Mehrabadi were shocked by the violent act, describing her as a kind and beloved person. She and her husband had moved to the United States with their young daughter in search of a better life. The families of both Mehrabadi and Morgan were described as being close, often spending time together. In the wake of the tragedy, Liberty Mutual closed its Portland office temporarily to support its employees.
