Oregon City, Oregon

From Portland’s OregonLive.com of August 10, 2006

Wife won't be tried in husband's shooting

Milwaukie - Prosecutors think Rose Perez, 50, killed her spouse in self-defense in January

A 50-year-old Milwaukie woman who said she killed her husband during an argument over a child he'd fathered with another woman will not be prosecuted.

A spokesman for the Clackamas County district attorney's office said Wednesday that after a seven-month investigation by police and prosecutors his office believes Rose Perez killed Juan Gabriel Perez Solis, 36, in self-defense as he was beating her with a stick.

Authorities learned Juan Perez was dead after a hysterical Rose Perez ran to a neighbor's house about 7:30 p.m. Jan. 19 to say she'd shot her husband with a rifle, said Greg Horner, a spokesman and chief deputy district attorney.

The neighbor called Milwaukie police to the Perez home in the 10900 block of Southeast Myrtle Street. Juan Perez wasfound dead from a bullet wound to the chest in the couple's kitchen.

He was holding a wooden dowel or stick in his hand, and Rose Perez's hair was intertwined in his fingers as though he'd pulled it from her head, Horner said.

Rose Perez told investigators that she and her husband had been arguing because he told her he was going to move out of their home and into the home of their daughter-in-law, who was pregnant with Juan Perez's child.

Horner said the couple's argument was considered as a possible motive for murder, but investigators also saw that Rose Perez had been badly beaten. She had severe bruising to her head, including a black eye and wounds to her cheek and forehead, Horner said.

Horner said his office also believes that Juan Perez had beaten his wife in the past. Prosecutors had filed charges against Juan Perez last year after Rose Perez reported to police that he'd assaulted her. But when the trial date arrived, Rose Perez recanted her previous statements and said the injuries she suffered were self-inflicted. Prosecutors were forced to drop the case.

Officer Kevin Krebs, a spokesman for Milwaukie police, said police investigators spent months working on the case because it was complicated and they wanted to be thorough. Also, police didn't consider Rose Perez a flight risk.

Police forwarded the case to the district attorney's office last month for consideration of possible charges, Krebs said.