Horror, and lingering questions, in Salem murder of Malaysian human trafficking victim
Kim Cheen Low is a murder victim without a voice.
The victim of human trafficking had no family present in Marion County Court Monday, the first day of the sentencing trial for Cody Roy Hilliard, 27, of Salem, who admitted murdering her in the Days Inn Black Bear hotel on March 6, 2018.
Prosecutors know little about the 38-year-old woman. Low was from a remote part of Malaysia. They don't know if her family is aware she died at the hands of Hilliard, who choked her before bludgeoning her to death with a tire iron.
Hilliard found her through an online Backpage ad and was directed to her hotel room, according to prosecutors and his statement to police after being arrested.
Someone with a California area code had reserved the hotel room for Low, which she paid for in cash.
Prosecutors believe her pimp was probably watching.
A hotel front desk staffer received multiple frantic, anonymous phone calls trying to connect with Low and asking about her safety. When police arrived for a welfare check, a car exited the hotel's parking lot, driven by a white man and an Asian woman who appeared upset. Investigators have been unable to track the driver down.
"That's really all we know your honor," Prosecutor Matt Kemmy told Judge Mary Mertens James.
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Kemmy also showed the court pictures of her life: hotel receipts, a pair of flip flops, a cereal bowl and coffee cup.
"These pictures remind us that her life, no matter how sad and difficult it was, was hers," Kemmy said in his opening remarks.
Hilliard's sentencing for aggravated murder is expected to continue all week. He also pleaded guilty to raping and sodomizing Low after she died.
Few answers in murder
The morning after the murder, Hilliard placed a phone call to an Independence police sergeant, Tino Banuelos.
By then, he had entered Low's hotel room at 1600 Motor Court NE twice the previous night, paying for sex each time after looking her up on Backpage, according to statements Hilliard told police and court testimony.
Hilliard told Sgt. Banuelos that after he returned a second time, he choked and beat Low until she died.
He had known the police sergeant, a former school resource officer, since his boyhood. Hilliard was on the run in a stolen 2005 Trailblazer as the phone call unfolded.
Banuelos kept him on the phone, looking up Salem's police calls to see if a murder had indeed happened.
With one phone, he texted information to Salem detectives. With another, he recorded the call and kept Hilliard on the line until Oregon State Police troopers pulled him over on Interstate 5 near Eugene.
"I grabbed her by the throat," Hilliard told the Independence police officer, according to a recording of the call played in court.
Hilliard told police he didn't know why he started choking her and that he turned her over and bashed the back of her skull with a tire iron so he wouldn't have to look at her, according to court testimony, including his interview with Salem detectives.
After murdering her, he told police, he showered in the hotel room before leaving with her clothes and makeup. The items were later dumped along a roadside.
Police never recovered them.
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Opposing sentencing arguments
Prosecutors have signaled their intent to argue for a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. Hilliard's defense plans to argue — probably Tuesday — for a lighter sentence of life with the possibility of parole after 30 years.
A newly passed Oregon law redefining what crimes qualify as aggravated murder briefly put Hilliard's conviction and sentencing date in question.
In the week leading up to the sentencing trial, prosecutor Matthew Kemmy and defense attorney Geoffrey Gokey argued over whether Hilliard's sentencing should go forward.
Judge Mary Mertens James ultimately ruled that Hilliard had no legal right to postpone his sentencing.
The law in question, Senate Bill 1013, takes affect Oct. 1 and will narrow Oregon's use of the death penalty by paring down the number of crimes that qualify as aggravated murder — the only offense punishable by death.
Previously, about 20 circumstances made a homicide qualify as aggravated murder, including murder for hire, murdering multiple people, torturing before killing, the murder of someone under 14 and murder during the course of a felony crime.
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Hilliard's slaying of Low qualified as aggravated murder because he killed her during the course of a burglary and attempted robbery.
Oregon legislators voted to limit these aggravating circumstances to only four: terrorist killings of two or more people, the premeditated murder of police officers, the murder committed in a prison or jail by someone who was already convicted murder, and the premeditated murder of a child under the age of 14.
If committed today, Hilliard's crime, which does not include these circumstances, would be charged as first-degree murder instead of aggravated murder.
Gokey argued that this means Hilliard could've faced a much shorter sentence if pleaded guilty on a later date.
Kemmy said this is not true.
He said under the new law, Hilliard would be charged with first-degree murder and would be facing the same sentencing range of life with a 30-year minimum to true life.
Hilliard was arrested March 7, 2018, more than a year before SB 1013 passed.
He has an almost decade-long criminal history in Marion and Polk counties, starting with an arrest for possession of a control substance in 2009.
Ben Botkin covers Oregon state government. To support his work, subscribe to the Statesman Journal. You can reach him at bbotkin@StatesmanJournal.com, 503-399-6687 or follow him on Twitter @BenBotkin1