Cutlip: Inside the Life of a Serial Killer

by Ethan Underhill                                                                       March 11, 2014

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS GRAPHIC SUBJECT MATTER AND MAY NOT BE APPROPRIATE FOR SOME YOUNGER READERS.

Jeffrey Paul Cutlip grew up in an average home in Lake Oswego, Ore. He had two caring parents, a brother and a sister. Considered an attractive man, he married Virginia Rush on March 29, 1980. They divorced two years later. In late July 2012, Cutlip called 911, claiming responsibility for the murders of four women.

On Aug. 6, 1975, the United Nations declined South Korea’s membership application and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was extended. That day, Cutlip got away with murder for the first time. Marlene Claire Carlson, age 44, was found dead in her apartment at 715 SW. 15th Ave. Cutlip lived in an apartment down the hall.

Less than six days earlier, Cutlip had been prowling around his apartment building, trying every doorknob. When one finally turned, Carlson was inside asleep. Cutlip demanded that Carlson perform oral sex on him. Upon being denied, he wrapped a telephone cord around Carlson’s throat, strangling her to death. Cutlip then sexually assaulted her corpse. When he was finished, Cutlip placed a padlock on Carlson’s door and returned to his own apartment. He moved out soon after to avoid the police.

Cutlip was a physically attractive man but he was anti-social and suffered from depression. Nobody in his apartment building knew him well since he had few friends and kept to himself. To add to his alienation, Cutlip was a registered sex offender.

Cutlip’s parents had always known he was a sociopath. He was cold, calculating, manipulative, unsettling and unnaturally smart. His siblings avoided him, but his parents constantly pushed for family togetherness. Frequent trips to mental hospitals further detached Cutlip from a normal childhood. No amount of mental care could fix the broken child.

Cutlip claimed that he still thinks fondly of his childhood. He recalled his parents’ care and support for him, but even with their encouragement, Cutlip could not be molded into a normal human being. He already had a tainted record by 14 after he held a teenage girl at gunpoint until she managed to escape.

Within the next 10 years, Cutlip refused to pay his bills, stole, burglarized, took illegal drugs and committed numerous sex crimes. Cutlip was constantly in and out of prison. After every release, he went back to his life of crime without hesitation.

“He became more skilled in committing his crimes,” Don Rees, Chief Deputy District Attorney and prosecutor in Cutlip’s case, said. “He was more careful about concealing his crimes.”

Less than two years after the death of Carlson, Cutlip killed again. This time, the victim was 15-year-old Julie Marie Bennett.

On April 4, 1977, Bennett was declared missing. She was in the park with her friends. Cutlip was nearby playing the guitar. Bennett approached Cutlip to discuss his guitar playing and he offered her a bottle of beer. Once he had gotten her drunk, he lured her into a cabin with the promise of jewelry. He then sexually assaulted her for two hours. When she threatened to tell the police, he held her underwater in Johnson Creek until she eventually stopped moving. Two days later, she was found dead, her death labeled an accidental drowning.

Cutlip lived only a few blocks from where the body was found, leading the police to suspect him. Additionally, one person claims to have seen him walking off with Bennett in the park and a bartender recalls serving Cutlip drinks earlier that day, not far from the crime scene. The police searched Cutlip’s house and questioned his girlfriend, but came up with nothing. Cutlip then moved to avoid detection.

A year later, Cutlip was living on Northwest Pettygrove, across from Jackie Warrington. One night, Cutlip broke into her house and began to attack her.

“He basically started to try and overpower me,” Warrington said. “I was trying to fight him off.” Warrington claimed that at one point, her daughter woke up and began to scream, which caused Cutlip to flee.

On March 29, 1980, Cutlip married a woman named Virginia Rush. At the time of their marriage, their daughter, Don Cutlip, was 2. Rush thought her husband was suspicious and the couple divorced two years later.

“He was my ex-husband and father of a daughter,” Rush said online after hearing of the murders. “I am horrified at how he could have been so evil, I am so sorry to the families of the victims. I hope he gets the justice he deserves.”

Cutlip spent most of the ‘80s in prison. In 1982, he broke into a woman’s home, restrained her and sexually assaulted her for six hours straight. The act got Cutlip arrested and officially registered as a predatory sex offender. He spent 11 years in prison.

Cutlip was released in 1993 with parole at the age of 43, though he appeared much older due to his years of drug abuse. Once again, Cutlip went back to his criminal ways without hesitation.

Cutlip remained unsuspected for the murders of Bennett and Carlson. Evidence and leads began to fade away, and the chances of Cutlip ever being caught went with them.

A month after Cutlip was released from prison he met 33-year-old Nilene Laurabelle Doll at a bar in Spokane, Wash., where she was a dancer. Doll had been married twice and had four children.
Cutlip had learned from his past mistakes and had begun to commit his crimes outside of the counties where he was known by the police.

Cutlip drew Doll away from the bar by offering her drugs, and she willingly followed him. Doll was found dead in the woods by SE Bull Run Road in Clackamas County by a jogger, nearly a month after she was reported missing.

“When the police discovered the body, they actually thought it was a Clackamas County case, and it was handled by the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office,” Rees said. “They didn’t have a connection to Jeffrey Cutlip, who was over here in Portland. I think he did that because he had, over time, learned from his mistakes and learned to avoid being caught.”

Two years later, in 1995, Cutlip was arrested again. This time, he publicly threatened two people using a shotgun at a Fred Meyer ATM machine on 39th and Hawthorne in Portland.

It is possible that the arrest was intentional on Cutlip’s part, because he needed the help that the prison system could offer. He needed food, a bed, safety and a surrounding of people just like him. Cutlip was a hardened veteran in the vastly different world of prison life.

By the time of his release, five years later, Cutlip’s face was bony and wrinkled, his body skinny and withered and his eyes sunken and wide. All that remained of his hair were long wisps on the back of his head. A walrus mustache covered his inward curled lips. He wore a set of glasses on his head. His body was too frail to overpower anyone and his charm and good looks had long since been replaced with a repelling appearance. Nobody would ever take care of him. He was alone, weak, tired and had a burning desire to continue his life of crime, but his parole kept him under constant watch. Despite his appearance, Cutlip was only 50 at the time. Desiring freedom, Cutlip did the only thing he could do; he ran.

In April of 2001, Cutlip left Oregon without consulting his parole officer. Police issued a warrant for his arrest, but any trails that Cutlip left had vanished. Although it is unknown what happened in the following three years, it is assumed that he traveled south, possibly to Texas or New Mexico. During those three years, the police received a letter from Cutlip that attempted to justify the violation of his parole. He claimed his parole officer had “too many conditions to follow” and “verbally and emotionally abused him.” Cutlip claimed he had been working at a homeless shelter and an elder care center in New Mexico.

“I (also) toured Texas doing (musical) one night stands,” Cutlip claimed. His new life was unsustainable and Cutlip returned to Oregon in 2004 in order to reinstate his Social Security disability benefits.

Upon his return to Portland, he was promptly arrested and imprisoned for four months and was released in Dec. of 2004. Only six months later, he was arrested for groping a teenage girl on a MAX train, and was sent back to prison for three more years.

During his imprisonment, a psychological assessment of Cutlip’s behavior labeled him as “cunning, manipulative behavior, shallow effect, callused lack of empathy, poor behavioral controls, irresponsible, parasitic lifestyle.” When he got out of prison again in Nov. 2007, Cutlip claimed to have settled down in Villa Ridge near Tigard, Ore. Cutlip’s parole officer followed a lead suggesting he was not living in Villa Ridge, but instead with a girlfriend, who was also a sex offender. When Cutlip caught word that the police were looking for him, he fled to Bakersfield, Calif. Remaining in a cold climate like Oregon’s was no longer an option for Cutlip’s weak body. He did not last long in Bakersfield though, and was caught and arrested one week later. Cutlip was released from prison again on July 28, 2010.

Cutlip had been pushed past his limit. He was a hardened criminal, softened by age yet left unshaken and unchanged from failed rehabilitation attempts. In Jan. 2011, he left Portland and the Portland Police issued a nationwide arrest warrant for him.

Jeffery Paul Cutlip on bench at Market Square 2011 (photo by Javier R. Garcia)

In April 2012, Portland police Officer Sara Clark was checking a list of unregistered sex offenders, when she noticed that Cutlip was listed. Using numerous online databases, Clark compiled a list of potential locations that Cutlip could be residing. The most likely result was Brownsville, Texas. Clark called the Brownsville Police Department to warn them about her discovery.

“Brownsville, Texas is nice, warm, dry and sunny,” Rees said. “So if you’re going to be out on the street, better there than out here.” Rees explained that Cutlip, in his old age, continuously sought out warmer weather because it was less harmful to his health.

In late July of 2012, Cutlip called 911, claiming responsibility for the murders of four women: Marlene Carlson, Julie Bennett, Nilene Doll and an unknown victim. Cutlip had called to talk to detectives about what the Brownsville Police said to be “some bad things he had done in the past.”

“It’s been eating me ever since,” Cutlip said. “I can’t stand it. I can’t stand the idea that people will hate me.”

Officials had sufficient evidence to support Cutlip’s claim about his first three victims, but found no records about the alleged fourth victim. This led officials to believe that the victim’s death was falsely labeled, the body was never found or the murder happened elsewhere.

“What the police did in this case, when (they) had this person who is confessing, and knowing that it’s not enough to have a confession to a crime,” Rees said. “(They) had to prove it with other evidence.”

Cutlip’s confession fit like the last piece in a giant puzzle left unsolved for 20 years. The confession held up, and while the police were unable to convict Cutlip of his fourth murder, he would be held responsible for his other three. He was sent back to Portland on Aug. 16 and returned to jail for the final time in his life, without bail.

Many people who were close to Cutlip found it hard to believe he could have been a murderer.

“I’m totally amazed,” Brian Cutlip, Jeffrey Cutlip’s cousin, said in an interview with KGW staff. “I had no idea he’d do anything like that. I’m shocked.” He went on to say, “I thought he was just as normal as could be.”

On Oct. 9, 2013, Cutlip formally confessed to his murders, with the families of the victims present. Rees revealed that most of the family members of the victims are demanding privacy at this time, but Rees summarized their general reactions.

“There’s been a sense of relief,” Rees said. “And closure… … But there’s also anger, and sadness that someone would commit these horrible crimes just to satisfy his own desire.”

Jan Terry, Bennett’s sister, was especially vengeful.

“He’s going to pay for what he did,” Terry said in an interview with OregonLive. “He won’t be able to hurt anybody else and the family is very grateful and thankful.”

Although Cutlip’s reasoning in returning to prison was the desire to stay alive, being convicted of three murders would almost surely get him capital punishment. However, Cutlip and his lawyers managed to get the death penalty off the table. On Jan. 17, Cutlip pleaded guilty to his three known murders and was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences.

The fall of Jeffrey Cutlip was long and slow. The once strong, able-bodied man had been corrupted by his own choices until he began to deteriorate into an empty shell of a man. The rest of his life will be spent behind bars.

(© REUTERS/Brownsville, Texas Police Department/Handout)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ethan Underhill

Ethan Underhill is currently a freshman at Northwest Academy. He is a dedicated fan of the storytelling arts and has a strong interest in politics. Ethan first became interested in pursuing journalism when he wrote a series of parody newspapers last year.