Man gets life for 1980 assault, murder of Gresham college student [Video]

PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) – A 61-year-old man will spend the rest of his life in prison for a 1980 cold case murder in Gresham, the Multnomah County DA announced Friday.

According to the DA, Robert Arthur Plympton was sentenced on Thursday by Judge Kelly Skye to life in prison with a minimum of 40 years for the murder of Barbara Tucker near Mt. Hood Community College where she was a student.

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On the evening of Jan. 15, 1980, Tucker was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and beaten to death near a campus parking lot. The next morning, students arriving for class found her body in a wooded area near a school parking lot. In 2000, vaginal swabs taken during Tucker’s autopsy were sent to the Oregon State Police Crime Lab for analysis, where they were able to develop a DNA profile.

In 2021, a …