A Salem fugitive who worshipped horrific music and serial killers before performing a real-life horror show enticed 13-year-old Milana Li to her death in a forest of trees, a jury decided Friday.
The Washington County Circuit Court jury found Daniel R. Gore guilty on all four counts—first-degree murder, rape, and sexual abuse—in less than ninety minutes following a two-week trial.
In May 2022, Li, a sixth-grader at Conestoga Middle School, met Gore while attempting to make friends with an older group. He had been living in a tent in the Progress Ridge neighborhood for several months after fleeing his Salem home at the age of sixteen.
Since state lawmakers passed revisions in 2019, Gore, who is currently 18 years old, is one of the rare juvenile defendants in Oregon to be tried in adult court.
Senior Deputy District Attorney John Gerhard informed the jury that Gore’s own sinister choices, rather than his fascination with the horrorcore rapper 7XVN, were what made him a murderer.
“He chose to act out his fantasy by taking a vulnerable girl who trusted him and following him into the woods,” Gerhard added.
On Mother’s Day 2022, Gore and Li had been riding buses up and down Southwest Scholls Ferry Road for a few hours without any purpose when, according to an autopsy, Gore isolated Li close to his tent, raped the girl, and then strangled her to death with his hands on her neck for three to five minutes.
Authorities discovered Li’s garments strewn among the surrounding bushes, but Gore attempted to hide her under his own waterproof tarp and a few fallen logs after disposing of her nude body in a shallow brook.
He tried to make up an alibi by messaging several people that he and Li had split up at a bus stop close to Southeast 125th Avenue before running away to a friend’s house in the Andover Park Apartments. Surveillance film, however, revealed that they proceeded toward Gore’s camp together.
Around 7:45 p.m., she was last observed alive. 8 May 2022.
Timeline:
The Killing of Milana Li
On Mother’s Day, 2022, 13-year-old Milana Li was raped and strangled to death in Beaverton’s Progress Ridge forests.
Eva Camara, Gore’s girlfriend at the time, testified during the trial that Gore contacted her hurriedly that night from the friend’s restroom, telling her that Li had attempted to kiss him but that he had handled it.
Camara texted another friend shortly after, which I detest knowing.
In an attempt to support his alibi, prosecutors said that Gore brought Li’s phone to the apartment building and then sent her several misleading texts.
The messages were never answered by Li.
After working a night shift in Nike’s manufacturing department, Assel Li found her daughter gone when she came to the Monta Vista Apartments the following morning. A thorough search for the girl was initiated after she contacted Beaverton police.
Meanwhile, Gore was telling his own story.
She (expletive) dipped when I was really inebriated, and I forgot she had my nic in her purse. He wrote to one pal, using a colloquial phrase for his vaporizer, “Now she ain’t responding.”
According to the acquaintance who saw Gore after the murder, he didn’t seem drunk at all, but he was unusually silent before vanishing into the restroom.
Gore escaped through an emergency exit at the Murrayhill library on May 10 but was apprehended after a 20-minute foot pursuit by Beaverton police.
Later, Cynthia Herring, the lead detective, discovered that Gore’s phone included searches for images of sexual violence in addition to odd symbols of the rapper 7XVN carved into trees close to his camp.
Investigators discovered the rapper’s smiling skull mask at Gore’s camp while it rained, along with a diary that contained the words, “I feel like Dexter,” which alludes to a fictitious serial murderer.
On Wednesday, May 11, 2022, evidence markers were visible close to the scene of the 13-year-old Milana Li’s death in a stream the previous day. The creek is close to Beaverton’s Southwest Barrows Road and Horizon Boulevard intersection, off the Westside Regional Trail.One of the Oregonians, Dave Killen
Jurors were instructed by defense lawyer J. Mark Lawrence to concentrate on the locations of DNA evidence and its absence.
When police searched for Li’s DNA, they discovered no evidence of it, even though Gore had left his clothes at the friend’s flat. And Li had trace amounts of unidentified male DNA on her clothes and beneath her fingernails, one of which was ripped off at the bed during her fight to stay alive.
Lawrence questioned the jury, which consisted of six men and six women, about how he could have raped and killed her since there was not a single piece of DNA evidence on him. We only need to track down the murderer because we have his DNA.
Lawrence stated that Gore’s DNA came from a consensual interaction, yet it was discovered in Li’s body.
Prosecutors said the unknown male DNA could have easily been transferred from her brother or father in their shared living quarters, or anyone else through touch. Gore s DNA wasn t under her nails because Li was likely lying face down when Gore strangled her, prosecutors said.
The last few minutes of Milana Li s life were excruciating. She fought, but it was a terrifying end, said prosecutor Andy Pulver.
The case is a rare example where prosecutors successfully sought to try a juvenile as an adult. Oregon law requires thoseconvicted as juveniles to be released by their 25th birthday,regardless of the charges.
Gore will face a mandatory minimum of life in prison with the possibility of parole in 30 years, though prosecutors are expected to ask Circuit Judge Ricardo Menchaca to go further.
A sentencing date has been set for Dec. 2, as Li s survivors are anxious to return to Kazakhstan.
As the verdict was read out Friday, Gore showed no emotion, though his mother interlocked her hands while Assel Li and Detective Herring wept.
Gore didn t testify during his trial and remained silent in response to questions as he was led in manacles through a courthouse hallway and back, eventually, to his cell in a Portland juvenile jail.
Zane Sparling covers breaking news and courts for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach him at 503-319-7083,[email protected]@pdxzane.
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