Arrest made in 2022 Portland killing of Jeremy Gurtner

After four years of waiting, Jeremy Levi Gurtner’s case finally broke open. On May 22, 2026, Multnomah County detectives and the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force arrested Marco Antonio Herrera, 44, in Portland, turning a long-stalled homicide investigation into a live criminal case.

The case began on April 8, 2022, when Gurtner’s body was found in the Columbia River Slough near Northeast 105th Avenue and Northeast Alderwood Road. The Oregon State Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide, and investigators said Gurtner died from a gunshot wound to the chest. Detectives later estimated he had been dead anywhere from four days to three weeks before he was found, a window that made the early investigation especially difficult.

Gurtner had never been reported missing, and his family learned of his death only after investigators notified next of kin. In the months after the killing, relatives including Chrysanthius Lathan publicly asked for answers, while Crime Stoppers of Oregon offered up to $2,500 for information leading to an arrest. The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office has said Gurtner, born January 6, 1978, had been known to frequent Portland’s Parkrose neighborhood.

According to the sheriff’s office, Herrera was located in the 200 block of Southwest 8th Avenue at about 10:15 a.m. on May 22 and was taken into custody without incident. He was booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center at 1:02 p.m. and is being held on a no-bail hold for second-degree murder with a firearm enhancement. Herrera is scheduled to appear in court at 9 a.m. on May 26 at the Multnomah County Justice Center, Courtroom #3.

The sheriff’s office said detectives spent more than four years following multiple tips, with the East County Major Crimes Team helping on the case. That team includes detectives from the Gresham Police Department, the Port of Portland Police and the Oregon State Police, alongside the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office. Officials have not yet released additional details about how Herrera was identified or whether he knew Gurtner, but the arrest marks the first major movement in a case that once looked stuck in the slough where it began.