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Christian Longo

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Christian Longo
FBI profile images of Christian Longo
FBI profile images of Christian Longo
FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive
Charges
Alias
  • Christopher Longo
  • Chris Longo
  • Christian M. Longo
  • Jason Joseph Fortner
  • John Thomas Christopher
Description
BornChristian Michael Longo
(1974-01-23) January 23, 1974 (age 50)
Iowa, U.S.[1]
GenderMale
Height6 ft 1 in (185 cm)
Status
Penalty Death; commuted to life imprisonment without parole
AddedJanuary 11, 2002[2]
CaughtJanuary 13, 2002[3]
Number469
Captured

Christian Michael Longo (born January 23, 1974)[4][5] is a convicted murderer[6] who killed his wife and three children in Oregon in December 2001.[7]

Background

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Christian Michael Longo was raised in Ypsilanti Township, Michigan. In 1993, at the age of 19, Longo married 26-year-old Mary Jane Baker and had three children with her. Longo and his family often encountered financial difficulties due to his reckless spending habits.[8]

The Longo family lived in Newport, Oregon. Christian was employed at a local Starbucks, while Mary Jane was a stay-at-home mother. She was also a Jehovah's Witness and active in their local Kingdom Hall.[8] By all accounts, the two devoted their time to raising their three young children. At the time of the murders, the couple had been married for eight years and enjoyed sailing and jigsaw puzzles in their spare time.

Murders

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The body of four-year-old Zachary Longo was found on December 19, 2001, in Lint Slough, a backwater of the Alsea River estuary. Divers located the body of three-year-old Sadie on December 22, less than a mile (1.6 km) offshore in the Pacific Ocean. 34-year-old Mary Jane and their two-year-old daughter Madison were found five days later. Mary Jane had been stuffed nude in suitcases found in the water near a ramp at Embarcadero Marina on December 27, 2001. Madison was found inside a different suitcase the same day, having been dropped off on the same dock. An autopsy revealed that Sadie and Zachary were killed by asphyxiation, while Mary Jane Longo and Madison had been strangled.[9]

After he fled the United States, Longo was recognized at a hotel in Cancún, Mexico, on December 27, 2001. By that time, Longo was wanted in connection with the murder of his wife and three children.[10] The next day, in Lincoln County, Oregon, a federal arrest warrant issued in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon charged him with multiple counts of aggravated murder and unlawful flight. He left the hotel on January 7, 2002, and was captured six days later without incident in the small town of Tulum, Quintana Roo, about 80 miles (130 km) south of Cancún. He was taken into U.S. custody at George Bush Intercontinental Airport on January 14, 2002.[11] He was sentenced to death in 2003.[12]

Years later, Longo admitted to being a narcissist in a letter he wrote to a woman that was obtained by television station KATU-TV in Portland, Oregon. He wrote that he eventually began "studying what a psychologist said I was and came to terms with it, almost totally agreeing that he was right... his conclusion was the narcissistic personality disorder which he called 'compensatory' – basically self-centeredness related to a damaged core sense of self."[13]

When in Mexico, Longo used the name of Michael Finkel, the former New York Times reporter who later chronicled their experiences in his memoir True Story,[14] which was adapted into a 2015 film of the same name starring James Franco as Longo and Jonah Hill as Finkel.

Longo was incarcerated on death row at Oregon State Penitentiary. On December 13, 2022, Longo's death sentence (along with everyone else on Oregon's death row) was commuted to life without parole by Governor Kate Brown.[15]

Organ donation advocacy

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Further information: Organ donation in the United States prison population

In 2011, Christian Longo founded Gifts of Anatomical Value from Everyone (GAVE), which advocates for death row prisoners being allowed to donate their organs. Currently, most death row prisoners are denied requests to donate their organs because infectious diseases within American prisons occur at higher levels than the general population, such as widespread cases of HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C, and tuberculosis. However, Longo has countered that death row inmates interested in donating their organs could undergo intensive screening far ahead of their execution.[16][17]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive Christian Michael Longo". Federal Bureau of Investigation. Archived from the original on February 2, 2002. Retrieved January 21, 2021.
  2. ^ "FBI Places Christian Michael Longo on its "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" List". Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved January 21, 2021.
  3. ^ "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives 401 to 500". Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved January 21, 2021.
  4. ^ "469. Christian Michael Longo". Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved January 21, 2021.
  5. ^ "Oregon Death Row". The Oregonian. Retrieved January 21, 2021.
  6. ^ Christian Longo documentary, retrieved August 16, 2021
  7. ^ "Oregon Man Guilty Of Killing His Family Gets Death Sentence". The New York Times. Associated Press. April 17, 2003. Retrieved September 13, 2018.
  8. ^ a b Dodd, Johnny (April 17, 2015). "Murderer Depicted in Movie True Story Tells PEOPLE: 'I Don't Feel I Can Be Redeemed'". People. New York City: Meredith Corporation. Archived from the original on January 6, 2016. Retrieved June 25, 2023.
  9. ^ State v. Longo, retrieved June 5, 2021
  10. ^ Christian Longo, retrieved October 10, 2019
  11. ^ "FBI Agents Transport Christian Michael Longo Back to the United States". Federal Bureau of Investigation (Press release). January 14, 2002. Retrieved December 22, 2011.
  12. ^ Duin, Steve (May 2, 2011). "His victim's sister calls Christian Longo a 'monster' who won't let the family heal". The Oregonian. Archived from the original on April 10, 2013. Retrieved January 7, 2015.
  13. ^ Canzano, Anna (August 9, 2012). "Christian Longo writes about his dead family". KATU. Archived from the original on May 26, 2015. Retrieved May 26, 2015.
  14. ^ Wiegand, David (June 11, 2005). "After getting fired by the New York Times for lying in print, a reporter stumbled on the story of his life". San Francisco Chronicle. Hearst Corporation. Retrieved April 14, 2015.
  15. ^ Borrud, Hillary (December 13, 2022). "Gov. Kate Brown commutes sentences of all 17 people on Oregon's death row". Oregon Live. Retrieved December 14, 2022.
  16. ^ Longo, Christian (March 5, 2011). "Giving Life After Death Row". The New York Times. Retrieved September 13, 2023.
  17. ^ "Condemned Oregon Prisoner Launches Organ Donation Campaign". Prison Legal News. March 15, 2011. Retrieved September 13, 2023.

Further reading

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