The suspect in the murder of a young model whose dismembered body was found inside luggage packed in the trunk of a BMW in Oregon is an ex-con who was recently released from prison and moved back in with his mother, according to a report Tuesday.
Jeremiah Johnston, 35, was taken into custody late Thursday, just hours after investigators with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office found the mutilated body of 28-year-old Sara Zghoul packed into two suitcases in a black BMW parked near the home of Johnston’s mother in Aloha, just west of Portland, law enforcement sources told the Oregonian.
Johnston tried to slash his throat and wrists just before police found him in a ravine in nearby Beaverton. The ex-con, with multiple drug convictions in the Portland area dating back to 2014, remained hospitalized as of Tuesday and was awaiting charges.
Officials would not confirm the suspect’s name because he had not yet been formally charged. Deputy Jeff Talbot, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, declined to provide the man’s location or an update on his condition.
Court and public records obtained by the Oregonian show that homes belonging to the families of Johnston and Zghoul are just a half-mile from each other in Aloha, where Johnston had been living with his mother since his release from prison three months ago.
Johnston was sentenced in July 2015 to 23 months in prison for charges that included the delivery of cocaine. He was also arrested last August for cocaine possession and pleaded guilty in September, receiving a year and a half of probation. He was allowed to enter a treatment program at the time, according to court records.
Investigators spent Saturday at the home of Johnston’s mother, public records show.
A Facebook page for Zghoul, meanwhile, said the married mother of one worked as an actress, model and voice-over artist. But her relatives, in a statement, said she worked as a pharmacist and graduated from the University of Portland, where she studied pharmacology.
A spokeswoman for the University of Portland, however, said the university does not offer a pharmacology degree and said Zghoul’s name did not appear in a university database. A spokesman at Portland State University said he could not find any record of Zghoul ever being enrolled at the college.
One witness, Michael Larsen, told KOIN he heard someone repeatedly screaming “Help me” late Thursday outside his Beaverton apartment. Larsen said he and his wife went outside and saw a man in the shadows, but he did not respond to their repeated shouts, so they called police.
“I was shocked,” Larsen told KOIN. “I read the news the next morning and yes, they were related, he was a suspect.”