A great-grandma was found dead at home after failing to pick up her daughter at the airport.
Patricia Jimerfield, 78, was found strangled to death at her home in Oregon with investigators believing she was killed while her daughter was in the plane flying in to see her.
The daughter made a frantic call to her aunt after failing to receive responses from her mother about being picked up at Portland airport, which is located roughly 10 miles south of Vancouver.
At 9:41 pm Tuesday, Clark County Sheriff's Office deputies received a medical call from the victim's sister. At a house located at the corner of Northwest 26th Avenue and 99th Street, in the unincorporated area of Hazel Dell, north of Vancouver, Washington, deputies and firefighters discovered Jimerfield's lifeless body.
The same day she was found dead at her home, the victim had reported fraudulent charges to her bank and realized her wallet was missing, leading her to file a fraud report with the local sheriff's office.
Initially labeled as a "suspicious death" by police, it was later confirmed by the Clark County Medical Examiner's Office on Friday that the elderly woman had been strangled to death with a ligature - a medical term for a wire or cord. "I don't know, it feels personal," her distraught daughter told Portland-based CBS affiliate KOIN.
"We were supposed to grow old together, and I was supposed to take care of her," the grieving daughter said.
"I landed here at 7:30. Started texting her and calling her, and she never answered," the grief-stricken daughter recounted to the television station. "I called my aunt, who lives in town, to come up to the house because something was wrong, and she found her."
It appears the murder took place while the daughter was en route from Phoenix to the Pacific Northwest.
"I told Mom I was taking off, and she hearted it, so I knew she saw it," her daughter explained in an interview with KATU. "She never responded. I texted, texted, texted; I called her home; I called her cell number - no answer - waiting about an hour."
There were no obvious signs of break-in when authorities discovered the victim's body, as confirmed to both KOIN and KATU by the police. However, Jimerfield's daughter insists her mother's residence was unlawfully entered the previous day.
"She was nervous," she revealed to KOIN. "She didn't know how they got in. She told our friend that she was not scared. I think deep down, she probably was."
Officials have confirmed the case is still under active investigation. Relatives are struggling to come to grips with the surreal nature of the crime. "You watch a TV show about it, see a movie, but it's just not, it's not something that's real," said Jimerfield's grandson during his interview with KATU.
Jimerfield is remembered as a cherished great-grandmother and a dedicated retired nurse. The victim's daughter has shared with Fox affiliate KPTV in Portland that her mum had been living in the same house since 1984, painting a picture of a life turned upside down by tragedy.
Devastated by loss, she said: "They took away my heart, my rock, my soul, and I don't know how to go on," pleading for public assistance: "If anyone sees anything, saw anything, knows anything please call the police, I really want whoever did this to get caught."
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