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OREGON CITY, Or. -- Eliazar Martinez-Rodriguez was sentenced to 300 months in prison Tuesday for killing a man in an act motivated by jealousy and for later assaulting a jail inmate after being charged with the murder.
Martinez-Rodriguez, 35, and the victim, Jefferson Smith Cates, were romantically involved with the same woman.
Martinez-Rodriguez had occasionally stayed with the woman, who lived at the Crown Court apartments on Southeast 97th Avenue. He was unaware that the woman also had been intimate with Cates.
When Martinez-Rodriguez learned of Cates involvement, he became enraged.
On June 22, 2024, the woman and Cates returned to her apartment and encountered Martinez-Rodriguez.
Cates was unnerved by Martinez-Rodriguez’s behavior and walked away.
Ultimately, Martinez-Rodriguez located Cates elsewhere at the apartment complex and stabbed Cates in the heart.
Witnesses described hearing a “blood-curdling scream,” said Senior Deputy District Attorney Rusty Amos.
Cates made his way to the apartment of an acquaintance where he died. He was 30 years old.
“I carry Jefferson’s ashes with me every day, but you carry his blood on your hands,” said Lynette Brunson, Jefferson’s mother.
“The violent and vicious manner in which Mr. Martinez-Rodriguez murdered Jefferson by stabbing him in the heart … caused me to have recurring nightmares resulting in high blood pressure, a stroke and heart damage called takosubo cardiomyopathy … nicknamed ‘broken-heart syndrome.’ Because that is exactly what Mr. Martinez-Rodriguez has done, breaking not only my heart, but the hearts of everyone who knew and loved Jefferson,” Brunson said.
At the time of the murder, Martinez-Rodriguez was on supervised release after serving time in federal prison on a firearms charge. He had violated terms of his release by leaving the Northwest Regional Re-Entry Center in Portland, where he was ordered to reside. He was arrested and returned to federal court where a judge ruled that Martinez-Rodriguez could remain out of custody and return to the Re-Entry Center.
A month later, Martinez-Rodriguez killed Cates.
The federal judge’s decision “to let Mr. Martinez-Rodriguez out of custody literally haunts me,” Brunson said.
On May 20, 2026, while in custody at the Clackamas County Jail, Martinez-Rodriguez assaulted another prisoner without provocation. He struck the other inmate with a barrage of 50 or 60 punches to the head and face, leaving the victim flat on his back, with a bloody face and breathing heavily. The injured inmate was taken by ambulance to a hospital.
Martinez-Rodriguez pled guilty to Manslaughter in the First Degree and Assault in the Second Degree. He was sentenced to 230 months for the manslaughter charge and 70 months for the assault.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Rusty Amos and Deputy District Attorney Randi Hall prosecuted the case.
Clackamas County Circuit Court case 24CR34601
