A fatal 2024 stabbing and a 2026 jail assault were resolved together after Eliazar Martinez-Rodriguez entered guilty pleas.
OREGON CITY, Ore. — Two episodes of violence separated by nearly two years resulted in a 25-year prison sentence for Eliazar Martinez-Rodriguez, who admitted killing Jefferson Smith Cates in 2024 and later assaulting another prisoner while being held in the homicide case.
The Sept. 15 sentence totaled 300 months and covered first-degree manslaughter and second-degree assault, according to the Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office. The court imposed 230 months for Cates’ death and another 70 months for the jail assault. Prosecutors said the homicide grew out of jealousy over a woman both men had been seeing, while the later attack in custody was described as unprovoked. The combined sentence closed a case whose public record stretched from an early-morning homicide investigation to a jailhouse beating shortly before the criminal case was resolved.
The most recent violence occurred first in the sentencing narrative. On May 20, 2026, while Martinez-Rodriguez was in the Clackamas County Jail, prosecutors said he attacked another inmate without provocation. The district attorney’s office said he delivered dozens of punches to the man’s head and face, leaving the inmate on his back with visible injuries and labored breathing. The injured prisoner was taken by ambulance to a hospital and survived. Martinez-Rodriguez later pleaded guilty to second-degree assault, and the court added 70 months for that offense to the sentence imposed for Cates’ killing.
That jail attack meant Martinez-Rodriguez came to sentencing with responsibility for conduct both inside and outside custody. The larger part of the sentence, 230 months, was tied to the 2024 death of Cates, a 30-year-old Portland man. The district attorney’s office said Martinez-Rodriguez pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter. Earlier in the case, however, a Clackamas County grand jury had indicted him on second-degree murder. The public sentencing release does not describe the negotiations or legal analysis that produced the manslaughter plea, so the reasons for the change from the original charge are not stated in the reviewed materials.
Cates’ death initially appeared in public records as a late-night assault with few known details. Deputies were sent to the Crown Court Apartments on Southeast 97th Avenue shortly before 1 a.m. June 22, 2024, after multiple callers reported someone yelling for help and one caller reported an injured man, according to contemporaneous local reporting. A bystander was helping Cates when deputies arrived. First responders continued lifesaving efforts, but Cates died. The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide. At that point, authorities had not publicly explained who attacked him, why he was targeted or what had happened before the emergency calls.
The account released at sentencing supplied a motive and a sequence. Prosecutors said Martinez-Rodriguez had occasionally stayed with a woman who lived at Crown Court and did not know she had also been intimate with Cates. After Martinez-Rodriguez learned of Cates’ relationship with her, he became angry, according to the district attorney’s office. On June 22, Cates and the woman returned to her apartment and encountered Martinez-Rodriguez. Prosecutors said Cates was unsettled by his behavior and left. The woman has not been identified in the public sources reviewed, and the official account does not accuse her of a crime.
Cates’ decision to walk away did not end the encounter, prosecutors said. Martinez-Rodriguez later located him elsewhere in the apartment complex. The district attorney’s office said Martinez-Rodriguez stabbed Cates in the heart. Senior Deputy District Attorney Rusty Amos said witnesses described hearing a scream during the attack. Cates then made it to an acquaintance’s apartment, where he died. The county later characterized the killing as motivated by jealousy, tying the fatal violence to Martinez-Rodriguez’s discovery that Cates had been involved with the same woman.
There was another legal thread running in the background at the time of the homicide. Prosecutors said Martinez-Rodriguez was on supervised release after serving a federal prison sentence on a firearms charge. He had been required to live at the Northwest Regional Re-Entry Center in Portland but left the facility in violation of his release conditions. He was arrested and taken back to federal court, where a judge allowed him to remain out of custody and return to the re-entry center, according to the county. Prosecutors said Cates was killed about one month after that decision.
The district attorney’s office included that history in its sentencing announcement because Cates’ mother directly addressed it in court. Lynette Brunson said the federal judge’s earlier decision to let Martinez-Rodriguez remain out of custody “literally haunts me.” The reviewed public material does not contain the judge’s reasoning, the government’s position at that federal proceeding or a transcript that would allow the decision to be evaluated in full. What the county’s account establishes is that Martinez-Rodriguez had violated supervised release, was returned to court and was allowed to go back to the re-entry center before Cates was killed.
Brunson also spoke about the personal consequences of her son’s death. “I carry Jefferson’s ashes with me every day, but you carry his blood on your hands,” she told Martinez-Rodriguez, according to prosecutors. She said the killing left her with recurring nightmares and significant health problems, including high blood pressure, a stroke and takotsubo cardiomyopathy. Her statement provided a victim-impact account at a hearing otherwise focused on prison terms, pleas and the sequence of the two crimes. The county’s release did not identify other family members who spoke or provide a response from Martinez-Rodriguez to Brunson’s remarks.
The path from homicide investigation to final judgment took more than two years. Early reports said authorities had no arrest to announce after Cates’ death. By July 2024, Martinez-Rodriguez had been indicted on second-degree murder. While detained, he committed the May 2026 assault that created a separate felony case. By September, he had pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and second-degree assault. Those stages matter because they show how the case expanded: what began as a single homicide prosecution ultimately ended with punishment for another violent offense committed while Martinez-Rodriguez was already in custody.
The 25-year total was not a generalized sentence for Martinez-Rodriguez’s history. It was the sum of the terms the court imposed for the two state convictions identified by Clackamas County: 230 months for manslaughter and 70 months for assault. The county also identified Senior Deputy District Attorney Rusty Amos and Deputy District Attorney Randi Hall as the prosecutors and listed the state matter as Clackamas County Circuit Court case 24CR34601. The sentencing release did not announce another pending state charge or a later hearing connected to Cates’ death. It presented the guilty pleas and combined term as the completed outcome of the state prosecution, with the manslaughter conviction carrying the larger share of the prison time.
The state case now stands resolved through the guilty pleas and 300-month prison term. No trial was held on the original murder charge because the case ended with the manslaughter plea reflected in the sentencing record. The final official account links the fatal stabbing to jealousy, records the separate jail assault and preserves Brunson’s criticism of the earlier federal release decision. It also leaves some issues outside the available record, including the details of the plea agreement and the federal judge’s reasoning. As of the county’s latest sentencing announcement, Martinez-Rodriguez’s next confirmed step is to serve the prison sentence imposed for the manslaughter and assault convictions.
Author note: Last updated November 6, 2026.