Cesar Francesco Barone: Oregon Serial Killer and Rapist
Background
Cesar Francesco Barone, born Adolph James Rode Jr. on December 4, 1960, in Florida, was an American serial killer and sexual predator whose known crimes stretched from Florida to Oregon. Barone accumulated a long history of burglary, sexual violence, and assaults before becoming responsible for a series of killings in the Portland metropolitan area during the early 1990s. Oregon juries ultimately convicted him in connection with the deaths of four women. More than three decades after one additional killing, modern DNA testing conclusively linked him to a fifth victim, Elizabeth Wasson.
Barone's crimes did not follow one completely uniform method. Some victims were attacked after he entered their homes, while others were abducted or confronted while traveling. Sexual assault, threats with weapons, strangulation or suffocation, and shootings appeared in different cases. Several women also survived violent sexual assaults attributed to him. His attacks demonstrated that he was willing to target women of different ages and use whatever level of violence was necessary to overpower them.
Early Violence and the Alice Stock Case
Long before the Oregon murders, Barone was connected to serious violence in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. As a teenager, when he was still known as Adolph James Rode, he broke into the home of neighbor Alice Stock and attempted to sexually assault her while armed with a knife. Stock survived that encounter, and Rode spent time in juvenile custody.
After serving a prison sentence for burglary, Rode was released in November 1979. Fifteen days after his release, Alice Stock was found raped and strangled in her Fort Lauderdale home on November 29, 1979. Investigators immediately had reason to consider Rode because of his previous attack on the same woman, but authorities did not believe they had enough evidence to successfully prosecute him at that time.
Years later, after Barone had been identified as a serial killer in Oregon, Florida investigators reopened Stock's murder. Prosecutors eventually charged him with her killing. The case never resulted in a conviction, however. In 2000, Florida prosecutors dismissed the murder charge because of evidentiary problems associated with the decades-old investigation and because Barone was already under multiple death sentences in Oregon. Stock therefore remains a suspected rather than judicially confirmed victim of Barone.
The Murder of Margaret Schmidt
On the night of April 18, 1991, Barone entered the Hillsboro, Oregon, home of Margaret Helen Schmidt, an older woman who lived alone. According to the evidence later accepted by the Oregon courts, Barone sexually assaulted Schmidt and then killed her by smothering her with a pillow. Her body was discovered by a caregiver the following day.
The murder initially appeared to investigators to have involved a robbery, and it remained unsolved while Barone continued committing violent crimes. Evidence gathered after later killings eventually brought investigators back to him. He was prosecuted for Schmidt's death and convicted of aggravated felony murder. The Schmidt case became one of the killings for which Barone received a death sentence.
The Murder of Elizabeth Wasson
Elizabeth Burtis Wasson, 82, was murdered in her Hillsboro home on September 23, 1992. Wasson was a pastor's widow who was well known in her neighborhood as the local "Avon Lady." Investigators examined Barone as a possible suspect during the original investigation, particularly after his other crimes became known, but the forensic technology available in the early 1990s could not establish the necessary connection.
The Wasson murder remained unsolved for more than thirty years. In 2023, Hillsboro police reopened the evidence and submitted material retained from the crime scene for modern forensic testing. Laboratory technicians recovered male DNA, and subsequent analysis linked that DNA to Barone. On February 10, 2026, the Washington County District Attorney's Office and Hillsboro Police Department publicly announced that Barone had been forensically linked to Wasson's murder and that the cold case was considered solved. Because Barone had died years earlier, there could be no prosecution, but the DNA evidence established Wasson as an additional victim beyond the four women involved in his Oregon convictions.
The Murder of Martha Browning Bryant
During the early morning hours of October 9, 1992, 41-year-old nurse-midwife Martha Browning Bryant was driving home from work near Hillsboro. Shortly after 3:00 a.m., authorities received reports of gunfire on Cornell Road. Police found Bryant's abandoned vehicle riddled with bullet holes and blood inside.
Less than half a mile away, officers found Bryant unconscious on 231st Street. She had been shot in the back and head. Investigators determined that the attacker had fired repeatedly at Bryant's vehicle, forced her from the car, abducted her, and attempted to sexually assault her before shooting her in the head. Bryant never regained consciousness and died several hours after the attack on October 9.
The investigation eventually centered on Barone. Evidence presented at trial included forensic evidence and testimony connecting him to the crime. In December 1994, a Washington County jury convicted Barone on four counts of aggravated murder involving Bryant's death. He was subsequently sentenced to death in January 1995. His conviction and death sentence were later upheld by the Oregon Supreme Court.
The Murder of Chantee Woodman
During the early morning hours of December 30, 1992, 23-year-old Chantee Woodman accepted a ride in downtown Portland from Barone and Leonard Darcell. Court records also identify Woodman by the name Dantee Elise Oshita and the name Chantee Alyce Woodman.
Instead of taking Woodman safely to her destination, Barone and Darcell beat and sexually assaulted her. They eventually left her along U.S. Highway 26 and started driving away. When the men realized that Woodman was still alive and moving, Barone returned to her. He struck her with the butt of a pistol, shot her in the head, and threw her body over a guardrail. A highway worker discovered Woodman's body later on December 30 along U.S. 26 near Vernonia, Oregon.
Darcell was separately convicted of felony murder for his participation in the crime. Barone was prosecuted for the kidnapping, sexual violence, and killing of Woodman and was convicted of aggravated felony murder. He received another death sentence for Woodman's murder.
The Death of Betty Lou Williams
During the early morning hours of January 6, 1993, Barone was drinking with Betty Lou Williams at her Portland-area apartment. When Williams entered her bathroom, Barone followed her, produced a weapon, and began sexually assaulting her.
During the attack, Williams suffered a fatal heart attack. Barone left her partially clothed body in the bathtub and fled. Williams' son discovered her body the following day. Although her immediate physical cause of death was a heart attack rather than a gunshot or strangulation, prosecutors established that her death occurred during Barone's violent sexual assault. Barone was convicted in connection with Williams' death and received a lengthy prison sentence.
Possible Death of Joyce Marie Scarbrough
Another death investigated because of Barone was that of Joyce Marie Scarbrough, his former mother-in-law. Scarbrough was found dead in her Hillsboro home on February 4, 1993. Her death initially did not produce clear evidence of homicide, but suspicions increased after Barone's arrest and the discovery of his broader pattern of violence.
Scarbrough's remains were later examined as investigators attempted to determine whether Barone could have been responsible. The medical examination did not establish evidence sufficient to classify her death conclusively as a homicide, and Barone was never charged with killing her. She therefore remains a suspected or disputed possible victim rather than a confirmed murder victim.
Confirmed and Suspected Victims
- Margaret Helen Schmidt — Died April 18, 1991, Hillsboro, Oregon. Barone entered her home, sexually assaulted her, and smothered her with a pillow. Barone was convicted of her murder.
- Elizabeth Burtis Wasson — Found murdered September 23, 1992, in her Hillsboro, Oregon, home. Modern DNA testing linked Barone to her murder in 2026, and authorities closed the case as solved.
- Martha Browning Bryant — Died October 9, 1992, after being attacked near Cornell Road and found on 231st Street near Hillsboro, Oregon. She was shot in the back and head after being abducted and subjected to an attempted sexual assault. Barone was convicted of aggravated murder.
- Chantee Alyce Woodman, also identified as Dantee Elise Oshita — Killed December 30, 1992. She was abducted from downtown Portland, sexually assaulted, beaten, shot in the head, and left along U.S. Highway 26 near Vernonia, Oregon. Barone was convicted of aggravated felony murder.
- Betty Lou Williams — Died during Barone's sexual assault during the early morning hours of January 6, 1993, at her Portland-area apartment in Oregon. She suffered a fatal heart attack during the attack. Barone was convicted in connection with her death.
Suspected or Disputed Victims
- Alice Stock — Killed November 29, 1979, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Stock was raped and strangled in her home approximately fifteen days after Barone, then known as Adolph Rode, was released from prison. Barone had previously attempted to sexually assault Stock as a teenager. He was later charged with her murder, but the charge was dismissed in 2000 without a trial conviction.
- Joyce Marie Scarbrough — Found dead February 4, 1993, in Hillsboro, Oregon. She was Barone's former mother-in-law. Her death was investigated after Barone's arrest, but medical examination did not conclusively establish homicide and he was never charged.
Arrest and Prosecution
Barone was arrested in February 1993 as investigators began connecting him to the violence that had occurred in and around Washington County. The investigation expanded rapidly as detectives compared evidence from the Bryant, Woodman, Schmidt, and Williams cases and examined additional sexual assaults committed against women who had survived.
The Bryant murder was tried separately. Barone was convicted in December 1994 and sentenced to death in January 1995. The remaining murder cases involving Schmidt, Woodman, and Williams were subsequently prosecuted, resulting in additional convictions and two more death sentences. Oregon's highest court reviewed the capital convictions automatically and upheld the Bryant conviction and sentence in 1998 and the remaining convictions and death sentences in 1999.
Other Surviving Victims
Barone's known criminal history extended beyond the women who died. Oregon authorities established that he had sexually assaulted and strangled or attempted to strangle several additional women who survived. Those attacks were important to investigators because they demonstrated a continuing pattern of breaking into or gaining access to women's homes, using weapons and physical force, committing sexual assaults, and attempting to silence his victims through potentially lethal violence.
The surviving victims also demonstrated how easily Barone's murder count could have been higher. His violence was not restricted to situations in which he deliberately used a firearm or suffocation to kill. The Williams case in particular showed that the terror and physical stress created during one of his assaults could itself result in death.
Death and the 2026 Cold Case Breakthrough
Barone remained imprisoned at the Oregon State Penitentiary while his death sentences remained in effect. He never reached an execution date. On December 24, 2009, the 49-year-old Barone died in the prison infirmary in Salem after suffering from serious illness involving a cancerous tumor on his heart.
His death meant investigators could never prosecute him for additional crimes that might later be solved. That became especially significant in the Elizabeth Wasson investigation. Evidence preserved from her September 23, 1992 murder eventually produced the forensic answer that investigators in the 1990s had been unable to obtain. The February 2026 announcement formally connected Barone to Wasson's killing through DNA, increasing his confirmed victim count beyond the four Oregon deaths for which he had originally been convicted.
Legacy of the Investigation
Cesar Francesco Barone's criminal history illustrates how a violent offender can remain dangerous across different periods of his life and across state lines. His documented behavior began with burglaries and attacks in Florida, progressed through repeated violence against women, and culminated in the Oregon murder series of the early 1990s. The confirmed cases involved home invasion, kidnapping, sexual assault, suffocation, shooting, and a fatal heart attack caused during a sexual attack.
The posthumous identification of Barone in Elizabeth Wasson's murder also demonstrated the continuing importance of preserving evidence from unsolved crimes. More than thirty-three years after Wasson's death, forensic testing provided the connection that investigators had suspected but could not prove during Barone's lifetime. As of 2026, Barone is considered responsible for five confirmed killings, while the deaths of Alice Stock and Joyce Scarbrough remain separate suspected or disputed cases in which his responsibility was never established by a conviction.
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: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/or-supreme-court/1458809.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com "STATE v. BARONE (1999) | FindLaw"
