Roger Cartwright, 47, of Portland was mortally wounded the night of August 19, 1998. Around 11 p.m. he stumbled into the Grove Motel at Northwest 4th Avenue and West Burnside Street, bleeding and in obvious distress; the night clerk called 911 and responders took him to a nearby hospital, where he died. An autopsy found a fatal knife wound.

Witnesses placed Cartwright earlier that night in the Old Town area, where he was known to drift and to be involved with street-level drug use and sales. Witness accounts described a tense exchange at the corner of Northwest 4th and Burnside with an unidentified white man with dark hair; detectives treated that confrontation as central to the homicide investigation but no arrest has been made and the man has not been publicly identified.

Anyone who was in Old Town or the Grove Motel area on August 19, 1998, or who remembers seeing the argument or the unidentified man, is asked to come forward with information.