GRESHAM, Ore. (AP) — A suburban Portland man accused of beating a 58-year-old woman so severely that she later died of her injuries has been charged with aggravated murder.
Gresham police who found 45-year-old John Coleman Hardaway in an apartment with the badly injured Barbara Nadine Smalley on May 20 initially arrested him on a parole detainer. He said he was the woman’s live-in boyfriend.
Officer John Rasmussen says Hardaway has now been charged with aggravated murder. The Oregonian reports the man was arraigned Friday in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
Smalley was pronounced dead on May 28.
The newspaper says a neighbor who called 911 reported hearing sounds of a beating that lasted nearly 30 minutes. Police found the woman lying beside a coffee table that had all four legs broken off.
