The body of a young model was found dismembered and stuffed inside luggage packed in the trunk of a BMW in Oregon — and her suspected killer tried to kill himself before his arrest, according to a report.
The unidentified suspect tried slashing his throat and wrists before he was taken into custody last Thursday, after investigators with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office found parts of Sarah Zghoul’s mutilated body inside two suitcases just west of Portland in Aloha, police sources told the Oregonian.
Deputy Jeff Talbot, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, declined to provide additional details, citing an ongoing investigation. But sources told the newspaper that authorities learned of a possible suspect in the gruesome killing and found him in a ravine in Beaverton, where he unsuccessfully tried to kill himself, sources said.
One witness, Michael Larsen, told KOIN he heard someone repeatedly screaming “Help me” late Thursday outside his Beaverton apartment. Larsen said he went outside with his wife to check on the noise, but didn’t immediately find what was causing the commotion.
“We couldn’t see him,” Larsen told the station. “But we could hear him.”
Larsen said they saw only the silhouette of a man, but he did not respond to their repeated shouts at him.
“Something just wasn’t right,” Larsen said. “Yeah, it was very odd.”
Larsen said he stopped his wife’s urge to run down to the ravine to see if help was needed and instead called the cops, who later linked the scene to Zghoul’s brutal murder.
“I was shocked,” Larsen told KOIN. “I read the news the next morning and yes, they were related, he was a suspect.”
A Facebook page for Zghoul, meanwhile, shows the mother of one lived as an actress, model and voice-over artist.
Natasha Thomas, a friend of Zghoul’s brother, told the Oregonian that Zghoul was “funny, kind and a great mother” to her young son.
“She was the kind of person to give you the shirt off her back,” Thomas told the newspaper. “Even in rough times, she was grateful.”
Gregory McKelvey, an activist in Portland, said he grew up in the same neighborhood as Zghoul.
“She was known for being a great person, and she touched so many people,” McKelvey told the Oregonian. “It felt like she knew everyone and losing her is a big loss for the community.”
Whoever took the young mother’s life was simply “heartless,” another friend of Zghoul’s told KPTV.
“Her son, I mean I don’t know if he comprehends that she’s never going to come back,” Jessica Winters said. “It’s just so heartless. It takes an evil, evil person to do something like that.”
Winters continued: “They say time heals things, but honestly, if it’s your child, I don’t think she’s ever going to heal from it. You just have to say ‘I love you’ every day because you never know when it’s going to be their last day.”