Jason Jaynes, accused of helping a former Gladstone police sergeant kill his wife, admitted to a role in the murder earlier this week.
Jaynes, 36, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Clackamas County Circuit Court to conspiracy to commit murder and was sentenced to 11 years and eight months in prison.
Judge Kathie Steele ordered him to serve eight years and five months of the sentence consecutively with the almost 15-year sentence he’s already serving for a 2014 conviction in a separate sex abuse case.
Additional charges of aggravated murder and attempted murder in the May 28, 2011, death of Debbie Higbee Benton were dropped as part of a plea agreement. Jaynes was scheduled for trial in March.
Prosecutors and an attorney for Jaynes declined to comment Friday on the plea and sentencing.
With his plea, Jaynes admitted that he agreed with his mother to kill Higbee Benton for money.
Former Gladstone police Sgt. Lynn Edward Benton was sentenced last October to life in prison without parole for the death of his wife. A Clackamas County jury found him guilty of aggravated murder, criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated murder and attempted murder after a five-week trial.
The couple met in 2008 and married in October 2010. Benton began transitioning from female to male that same year. Their relationship began to deteriorate, according to witness testimony during trial. Benton moved out of their Gladstone home a month before his wife’s death.
Gladstone police fired Benton, an officer in the town for more than two decades, in December 2011 after an internal investigation concluded that he violated policy by having pornography on his work laptop. Benton was charged nearly a year later in his wife’s death.
Prosecutors said during the trial that Benton offered $2,000 to longtime friend Susan Campbell and Jaynes, Campbell’s son, to kill Higbee Benton. She was found shot, beaten and strangled inside the beauty salon she owned for at least 20 years.
Campbell told investigators she shot Higbee Benton in the back while they were alone in her salon, called Benton while he was on duty and then left, prosecutors said. But Higbee Benton didn’t die from the gunshot.
Benton picked up Jaynes from his job about a mile away, took Jaynes to the salon and watched as Jaynes beat and strangled her, according to prosecutors.
An inmate who had a cell next to Benton’s at the Multnomah County Detention Center testified that Benton confessed to the killing and implicated Campbell and Jaynes.
There was no physical evidence showing Benton and Jaynes participated in the killing or any calls or texts among the three showing they met or planned to meet at the salon on the day of Higbee Benton’s death.
Campbell is accused of aggravated murder. Her trial is set for November.
— Everton Bailey Jr.
ebailey@oregonian.com
503-221-8343; @EvertonBailey
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