OR OR- Veta Hardebeck, 85, knocked through a kitchen window & beaten to death, @ home, Washington County, 16 February, 1994, *New initiative DNA/funding*

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Cold case killing of 84-year-old Oregon woman reopened decades later thanks to grant

Records show that 84-year-old Veta Hardebeck was found dead outside her home in rural Washington County on February 16, 1994.

katu.com

''HILLSBORO, Ore. — A 1994 cold case homicide involving an elderly woman found dead on her farm in Gaston, Oregon will be reopened with fresh analysis from new tech, thanks to a $14,000 grant intended to “deliver justice for the victim and her loved ones.”
Records show that 84-year-old Veta Hardebeck was found dead outside her home in rural Washington County on February 16, 1994. An autopsy revealed her death was a homicide.''

July 10 2025 rbbm.

Cold case involving 85-year-old's death reopens in Washington County

More than 30 years after the death of 85-year-old Veta Hardebeck in her rural Gaston home, the Washington County District Attorney’s Office has reopened the case.

www.kgw.com

'HILLSBORO, Ore. — More than three decades after the death of an 85-year-old woman in her rural Gaston home, the Washington County District Attorney’s Office has reopened the case, using new technology and grant funding to search for answers.
Veta Hardebeck was found dead in 1994. Her daughter, Caroline Ledbury, was close with her mom. She remembers her as a kind, hardworking woman.'

“I found my mom laying on the concrete. Somebody had severely beat her to a pulp,” Ledbury said. “There's a kitchen window; they had knocked her through the kitchen window. They knocked her so hard in the kitchen window that it broke the glass, and the glass had penetrated her skull and sticking up out of her skull."

''Ledbury says it looked like someone had staged her murder.
“Whoever murdered her laid her down, put her head on a hunk of wood — like she'd fallen back and hit her head on the wood is what it looked like. Folded her arms like this and piled them full, these hunks of wood,” Ledbury recalled. ''

''Hardebeck’s case is being reexamined after the Washington County District Attorney's office secured a $14,000 grant for forensic testing, funding made possible through a sponsorship tied to a private car collection. It allows investigators to review old evidence, reports, and witness interviews, despite there being no usable DNA at this time.''

 

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Jul 10, 2025
Washington County detectives have announced plans to reexamine the 1994 homicide of 85-year-old Veta Hardebeck.