Christian Longo

Christian Michael Longo was raised in Ypsilanti Township, Michigan. In 1993, at the age of 19, Longo married 26-year-old Mary Jane Baker and had three children with her. Longo and his family often encountered financial difficulties due to his reckless spending habits.{{cite magazine|first=Johnny|last=Dodd|url=http://www.people.com/article/true-story-real-life-christian-longo-speaks-out|title=Murderer Depicted in Movie True Story Tells PEOPLE: 'I Don't Feel I Can Be Redeemed'|magazine=People|publisher=Meredith Corporation|location=New York City|date=April 17, 2015|access-date=June 25, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160106043545/http://www.people.com/article/true-story-real-life-christian-longo-speaks-out|archive-date=January 6, 2016}}

The Longo family lived in Newport, Oregon. Christian was employed at a local Starbucks, while Mary Jane was a stay-at-home mother. She was also a Jehovah's Witness and active in their local Kingdom Hall. By all accounts, the two devoted their time to raising their three young children. At the time of the murders, the couple had been married for eight years and enjoyed sailing and jigsaw puzzles in their spare time.

The body of four-year-old Zachary Longo was found on December 19, 2001, in Lint Slough, a backwater of the Alsea River estuary. Divers located the body of three-year-old Sadie on December 22, less than a mile ({{cvt|1|mi|disp=out}}) offshore in the Pacific Ocean. 34-year-old Mary Jane and their two-year-old daughter Madison were found five days later. Mary Jane had been stuffed nude in suitcases found in the water near a ramp at Embarcadero Marina on December 27, 2001. Madison was found inside a different suitcase the same day, having been dropped off on the same dock. An autopsy revealed that Sadie and Zachary were killed by asphyxiation, while Mary Jane Longo and Madison had been strangled.{{Citation|title=State v. Longo|url=https://law.justia.com/cases/oregon/supreme-court/2006/s50474.html|language=en|access-date=2021-06-05}}

After he fled the United States, Longo was recognized at a hotel in Cancún, Mexico, on December 27, 2001. By that time, Longo was wanted in connection with the murder of his wife and three children.{{Citation|title=Christian Longo|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p8nhLXcmgU|language=en|access-date=2019-10-10}} The next day, in Lincoln County, Oregon, a federal arrest warrant issued in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon charged him with multiple counts of aggravated murder and unlawful flight. He left the hotel on January 7, 2002, and was captured six days later without incident in the small town of Tulum, Quintana Roo, about {{convert|80|mi|abbr=out}} south of Cancún. He was taken into U.S. custody at George Bush Intercontinental Airport on January 14, 2002.{{Cite press release|url=https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/charles-mathews-special-agent-in-charge-of-the-fbi-in-oregon-announces-that-fbi-agents-have-transported-christian-michael-longo-back-to-the-united-states|title=FBI Agents Transport Christian Michael Longo Back to the United States|date=January 14, 2002|access-date=December 22, 2011|website=Federal Bureau of Investigation}} He was sentenced to death in 2003.{{cite news|first=Steve|last=Duin|title=His victim's sister calls Christian Longo a 'monster' who won't let the family heal|url=http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/steve_duin/index.ssf/2011/04/his_victims_sister_calls_chris.html|newspaper=The Oregonian|date=May 2, 2011|access-date=January 7, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130410121318/http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/steve_duin/index.ssf/2011/04/his_victims_sister_calls_chris.html|archive-date=April 10, 2013}}

Years later, Longo admitted to being a narcissist in a letter he wrote to a woman that was obtained by television station KATU-TV in Portland, Oregon. He wrote that he eventually began "studying what a psychologist said I was and came to terms with it, almost totally agreeing that he was right... his conclusion was the narcissistic personality disorder which he called 'compensatory' – basically self-centeredness related to a damaged core sense of self."{{cite web|first=Anna|last=Canzano|url=http://www.katu.com/news/investigators/Words-of-a-Killer-Christian-Longo-writes-about-his-dead-family-165576656.html?tab=video&c=y |title=Christian Longo writes about his dead family |website=KATU |date=August 9, 2012 |access-date=May 26, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150526130828/http://www.katu.com/news/investigators/Words-of-a-Killer-Christian-Longo-writes-about-his-dead-family-165576656.html?tab=video&c=y |archive-date=May 26, 2015 |url-status=dead }}

When in Mexico, Longo used the name of Michael Finkel, the former New York Times reporter who later chronicled their experiences in his memoir True Story,{{cite news|first=David|last=Wiegand|url=http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/After-getting-fired-by-the-New-York-Times-for-2451380.php|title=After getting fired by the New York Times for lying in print, a reporter stumbled on the story of his life|newspaper=San Francisco Chronicle|publisher=Hearst Corporation|date=June 11, 2005|access-date=April 14, 2015}} which was adapted into a 2015 film of the same name starring James Franco as Longo and Jonah Hill as Finkel.

Longo was incarcerated on death row at Oregon State Penitentiary. On December 13, 2022, Longo's death sentence (along with everyone else on Oregon's death row) was commuted to life without parole by Governor Kate Brown.{{cite news|last=Borrud|first=Hillary|date=December 13, 2022|title=Gov. Kate Brown commutes sentences of all 17 people on Oregon's death row|work=Oregon Live|url=https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2022/12/gov-kate-brown-commutes-sentences-of-all-17-people-on-oregons-death-row.html|access-date=December 14, 2022}}

{{further|Organ donation in the United States prison population}}

In 2011, Christian Longo founded Gifts of Anatomical Value from Everyone (GAVE), which advocates for death row prisoners being allowed to donate their organs. Currently, most death row prisoners are denied requests to donate their organs because infectious diseases within American prisons occur at higher levels than the general population, such as widespread cases of HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C, and tuberculosis. However, Longo has countered that death row inmates interested in donating their organs could undergo intensive screening far ahead of their execution.{{Cite news |last=Longo |first=Christian |date=5 March 2011 |title=Giving Life After Death Row |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/opinion/06longo.html |access-date=13 September 2023}}{{Cite news |date=15 March 2011 |title=Condemned Oregon Prisoner Launches Organ Donation Campaign |work=Prison Legal News |url=https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2011/mar/15/condemned-oregon-prisoner-launches-organ-donation-campaign/ |access-date=13 September 2023}}

• List of homicides in Oregon
• FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, 2000s

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• Michael Finkel. (2005) True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa. New York City: HarperCollins Publishers. {{ISBN|0-06-058047-X}}

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Category:1974 births

Category:2001 murders in the United States

Category:American mass murderers

Category:American murderers of children

Category:American prisoners sentenced to death

Category:Familicides in the United States

Category:FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives

Category:Fugitives

Category:Living people

Category:People convicted of murder by Oregon

Category:People extradited from Mexico to the United States

Category:People from Lincoln County, Oregon

Category:People from Ypsilanti, Michigan

Category:Place of birth missing (living people)

Category:Prisoners sentenced to death by Oregon

Category:Recipients of American gubernatorial clemency

Category:American people convicted of murder

Category:People with narcissistic personality disorder