SPRINGFIELD, Ore. — A 32-year-old man who told hospital workers in Springfield that he had killed his former girlfriend faces a murder charge, police said.
Robert Cromwell went to the McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center Saturday with self-inflicted injuries and told emergency room workers about the killing, Springfield police said.
He lived in a rented house with 26-year-old Casey Lynn Wright a block from the hospital, but their relationship had ended a few weeks ago, Springfield police Sgt. David Lewis told the Eugene Register-Guard (http://bit.ly/1aZIdwR).
Shortly after Cromwell went to the hospital, officers went to the rental house and found Wright’s body in a bedroom,
She suffered “obvious trauma, and a weapon was found at the scene,” Lewis said. He declined to specify the injuries or the weapon.
A family member had picked up Cromwell outside the home and drove him to the hospital for treatment of injuries that Lewis described as “very superficial.”
Doug Thompson, a neighbor, said he had heard Cromwell and Wright arguing inside the house three or four times. “It was always loud,” he said.
John Dowell, a restaurant owner in downtown Eugene, said Wright had worked for him for several years, and Cromwell helped her land a job at a metal fabrication plant in Springfield.
She was an equestrian who kept horses, said a friend, Janice Ketsche, who was among those gathering at Triple Crown Farm in Pleasant Hill after hearing of her death.
Cromwell was held at the Lane County Jail with a court appearance scheduled Monday. An autopsy of Wright’s body also is scheduled Monday.
