Nearly 45 years after his body was discovered along Interstate 5 near Woodburn, Oregon State Police have identified the homicide victim in a 1980 cold case.

Advances in DNA technology led police to identify the victim as Larry Eugene Parks, a 30-year-old Vietnam veteran last seen in Florida in 1979.

Parks was found dead in the early morning hours of July 18, 1980. At the time, authorities labeled him a John Doe.

According to a 1989 Register-Guard article, police said Parks had been drugged, sexually assaulted and strangled before being dumped along the interstate. Investigators believed he was hitchhiking north when he was killed.

Despite widespread efforts, including checks with military and FBI records, his identity remained a mystery for decades.

Park’s body was also found just one day after the murder of another man, Michael O’Fallon, whose body was discovered near exit 242 on Talbot Road, which is also off I-5 and within Marion County. Detectives suspected a link between the cases, but both investigations eventually went cold.

Three years later, in 1983, serial killer Randy Kraft, known as the “Scorecard Killer,” was arrested in Orange County, California. He was convicted of 16 murders but is suspected in more than 60 killings along the West Coast and in Michigan. Evidence from both the O’Fallon and Parks cases was sent to California during Kraft’s prosecution and remained in Orange County until 2024.

That year, an investigator in Orange County contacted Oregon State Police about potential leads in the Parks case. With the help of Parabon Nanolabs, a DNA lab company, a DNA profile was developed from Parks’ remains and ultimately led to the identification through comparison with family members.

Parks’ family had not heard from him since 1979 and had no idea what had happened to him. With his identity now confirmed, Oregon investigators say they are continuing to pursue justice in the decades-old case.