PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – In a case that has little-to-no precedent in Oregon, a local man was charged with manslaughter in Wasco County for allegedly assisting a woman to die by suicide in The Dalles.
According to the county district attorney, 29-year-old Alexandra Cagle died in March from carbon monoxide poisoning after Joseph Newman, 60, allegedly helped her buy a gas-powered water pump and showed her how to start it in a U-Haul pickup truck they had rented.
Not long before her death, the DA says Cagle sent Newman an article about an infamous case in Massachusetts where a teenager encouraged her boyfriend to use a generator in his truck to create carbon monoxide poisoning.
Katie Early, Cagle’s sister, told KOIN 6 News she suffered from bipolar disorder.
“It really makes me sick because I don’t understand how you can treat another human being that way,” Early said. “She had a diagnosed mental illness.”
Newman was charged with manslaughter in the second degree.
District Attorney Matt Ellis said he was originally hesitant to take the case to the grand jury, but eventually felt he “owed it to the victim’s family to at least put this in front of the grand jury and let them decide.”
The relationship between Cagle and Newman is unclear. Her family says she was in a relationship with another man who helped her try to overcome her mental health struggles. Cagle’s sister says she only knew Newman for three months or fewer, and she may have been staying at his house after they first met at bar.
Ellis said he looked for precedent cases, too, and didn’t see many cases since the ‘70s on the theory of manslaughter in the second degree.
“It’s one of those areas where…this person’s behavior is quite disturbing and abhorrent that – to be in this relationship with somebody who’s suicidal – to give them the means to do something like this,” Ellis said. “It’s a very gray area of our legal system.”
Newman was assigned court-appointed Defense Attorney Sean Pank, who said Newman spent 20 years in the Air Force and is otherwise a lifelong resident of The Dalles. Pank also touched on how unusual the case is, calling it a “novel theory as far as manslaughter in the second degree.”
“I have really tried to set aside my expectations and my wants and put my trust and my faith in the judicial system,” Early said. “Alex has always been very eccentric. She was loving, she was over the top, just loved people. And when she loved you, you were in her circle. She gave all of herself to you.”
Stay with KOIN 6 as this story develops.