Gresham woman’s body found; suspect arrested

Gresham police announced late Friday that they had found the body of Whitney Heichel on Larch Mountain, and they had arrested Jonathan Daniel Holt of Gresham in her murder.

Police say Holt, 24, was an acquaintance who lived in the same apartment complex as Heichel, 21. Holt was arrested after being interviewed several times by police.

Police Chief Craig Junginger said Holt had come to the police station Friday evening for another interview and was arrested on aggravated murder charges.

Around the same time, he said, investigators in a search on Larch Mountain, a forested area east of Gresham, said they had located Heichel’s body.

The chief, Gresham’s mayor and a family spokesman were clearly choked by emotion as they spoke to reporters at a late-night news conference.

Police had searched at Larch Mountain Friday for a third day Friday. The vehicle Heichel was driving had a missing license plate when it was located at a Wood Village Walmart. That license plate was found at Larch Mountain, and that clue is what led police to search the area where her body was ultimately found.

Earlier Friday, investigators said Heichel’s cell phone, found Thursday by some children, contained messages from her husband and family, and possibly location dataInvestigators say the phone was turned off when it was found Thursday evening by children playing.

Police hoped to collect data from the phone in additional to the messages they found on it, but they did give specific details about physical evidence found on the phone.

KGW.com contributed to this story