Culver woman gets 22-year sentence in ex-boyfriend’s shooting death; body found in refrigerator

Charina Owen, charged with murder, pleads guilty to manslaughter after settlement conference

MADRAS, Ore. (KTVZ) – A 37-year-old Culver woman was sentenced to 22 years in prison Monday after pleading guilty to manslaughter, burglary and other charges in the shooting death of her ex-boyfriend, whose body was found in an unplugged refrigerator on his property southwest of Madras in May 2020.

Charina Jeanette Owen, also known as Charina Jeanette Matthews, had pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the shooting death of Byron Hilands, 34 who had been missing since for months and with whom she'd had a stormy, sometimes violent relationship in recent years.

She was sentenced by Jefferson County Circuit Judge Mike McLane after entering guilty pleas to the manslaughter and other charges Friday, concluding a settlement conference that took several days, District Attorney Steve Leriche said in a news release.

Owen also pleaded guilty to felon in possession of a firearm as part of the settlement, while charges of unlawful use of a weapon, second-degree abuse of a corpse and supplying contraband were dismissed, Leriche said.

The case began in March of 2020, when Owen’s brother told police she’d told him she got into a fight with Hilands and needed help moving a fridge full of “spoiled meat” to property Hilands owned in Brothers, east of Bend. The brother also said he believed his sister had done something to Hlands and that she was going to turn herself in to her probation officer.

A former sheriff’s deputy went to Hilands’ property on Southwest Bear Drive and tried to contact him, without success, the DA said.

On May 7, 2020, two deputies responded to a report that someone on the Bear Drive property believed he had found a human body in a freezer. They confirmed there was a significantly decomposed human body in a refrigerator and immediately secured the premises and notified the Central Oregon Major Incident Team, Leriche said.

The DA said investigators learned that Owen had several prior convictions, including on charges of first-degree burglary and fourth-degree assault against Hilands. He said she told several people she had rotten meat she needed to get rid of.

Autopsy results found Hilands was clad in flannel pajama bottoms and a T-shirt when he was shot in the head and chest with a .22-caliber gun, Leriche said. He was found in a sleeping bag with a pillow, “which strongly suggested he was sleeping at the time he was shot,” the DA said.

A search warrant served the next day at the Bear Drive property led to the discovery of a .22-caliber revolver, along with a white latex glove on which Owen’s fingerprint was found. The glove appeared to match one Deputy Jason Pollock found in Owen’s possession on March 18, 2020, when he arrested her on a probation violation warrant.

When the gun and glove were found during the search of the property, the deputy remembered the glove he’d found two months earlier and informed other investigators. Deputy DA Brentley Foster, who also prosecuted the case with Leriche, commended Pollock for his contributions to the case.

McLane sentenced Owen to 20 years in prison on the manslaughter charge, a concurrent three years for the burglary and a consecutive two years for felon in possession of a firearm.

Leriche noted that Owen was sentenced under Oregon’s Denny Smith Act, which says someone with a prior conviction on certain crimes, such as first-degree burglary, who commits another major crime is not eligible for any reduction in sentence, which means Owen will serve the full 20 years for manslaughter, but will be eligible for programs and to earn "good time" for the weapons conviction after that.

When McLane sentenced Owen, he noted she had taken responsibility for her crimes and found she was forthright during the settlement conference. He also expressed his sorrow for Hilands’ family and said justice requires such a sentence when a life is taken.

Leriche recognized the efforts of the Tri-County Major Incident Team, including staff from the Oregon State Police, OSP Forensic Laboratory, the Bend, Redmond and Madras police departments, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, and particularly Detective James Koehler and Deputy Jason Pollock for their assistance in the investigation.