Chewing gum has helped the US Police to catch a murderer 44 years after he committed the crime!

The case of a rape and murder of a college student in 1980 in the US State of Oregon remained unsolved for more than four decades. In the third week of March 2024, Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt issued a statement, mentioning that 19-year-old Barbara Tucker was “kidnapped, sexually assaulted and beaten to death near a campus parking lot by Robert Arthur Plympton” on January 15, 1980. She was a student of Mount Hood Community College in Gresham at the time of her murder. Barbara’s classmates discovered her body inside a classroom the next morning. After 44 years, the 60-year-old Robert has been found guilty on one count of first-degree murder and four counts of second-degree murder.

District Attorney Schmidt has claimed that although it was an old case, the investigation has never been closed. In a statement, he stressed: “In 2000, vaginal swabs taken during Tucker’s autopsy were sent to the Oregon State Police (OSP) Crime Lab for analysis. The Crime Lab developed a DNA profile from the swabs.” The District Attorney added: “In 2021, a genealogist with Parabon Nanolabs identified Robert Plympton as a likely contributor to the unknown DNA profile developed in 2000. Detectives with the Gresham Police Department found Plympton living in Troutdale and began conducting surveillance. When they saw Plympton spit a piece of chewing gum onto the ground, detectives collected the gum and submitted it to the OSP Crime Lab.”

The statement read: “The lab determined the DNA profile developed from the chewing gum matched the DNA profile developed from Tucker’s vaginal swabs. On June 8, 2021, Plympton was taken into custody and lodged at the Multnomah County Detention Centre.” Chief Deputy District Attorney Kirsten Snowden and Senior Deputy District Attorney Todd Jackson represented the State at the trial that took place in the presence of Judge Amy Baggio from February 26 to March 15, 2024. Justice Baggio delivered her verdict on March 15, as she found Robert guilty of one count of murder in the first degree, and four counts of different theories of murder in the second degree.

Currently, Robert is in custody, waiting to be sentenced. The hearing of the case is scheduled for June 21, 2024 as Justice Baggio shall deliver the final verdict on that day.

Meanwhile, Robert pleaded not guilty as his Attorneys Stephen Houze and Jacob Houze said: “We will appeal, and we are confident that his convictions will be overturned.”

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das