2021 CCSO Year In Review - Flipbook - Page 16
CC SO 2021 Ye ar in R e v ie w
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Investigations
C C S O ’ S I N V E S T I G ATIO N S DIVISIO N
Notable Cases of 2021
Homicide arrest
March-December 2021
On March 3, 2021, Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office deputies
responded to a report of a deceased adult male at a single-family
residence in unincorporated Milwaukie. The deceased — identified as Jimmy Pearson, 63 — had lived alone at the house. One
of Pearson’s employees found him after going to the residence to
check on him after he hadn’t been seen at work.
Responding deputies quickly determined that this was a
homicide scene, and Sheriff’s Office detectives and CSI
technicians responded.
A lucky break helped detectives quickly develop a suspect. On
March 1 — the night of the murder, well before the discovery of
Pearson’s body — a Milwaukie Police officer pulled over 23-yearold Nistasha Rose Tate for a routine traffic violation. Items later
identified as belonging to Pearson were found inside the vehicle
— and the MPD officer also seized a firearm that would later be
identified as the murder weapon.
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Using forensic analysis, detectives also learned Tate had visited Pearson on the date of the murder, March 1. She was now the
prime suspect, and over the following weeks, detectives, working
with partner agencies including the U.S. Marshals Service, began
building a case against Tate and tracing her whereabouts.
Authorities soon learned she had traveled to North Carolina and then to Florida. On April 12, working with Tampa PD,
members of the Florida Regional Fugitive Task Force (FRFTF)
arrested Tate as she was about to board a Greyhound bus in
Hillsborough County. That same day, CCSO detectives traveled
to Florida to interview Tate at the Hillsborough County
Orient Road Jail.
Resolution: Thanks to a thorough, coordinated effort on this
case by investigators across several agencies, closure came
quickly. On Dec. 16, Nistasha Tate pled guilty to Murder in the
2nd Degree and was sentenced to life in prison, with the
possibility of parole after 25 years.
