A few hours after her distraught daughter had arrived at the local airport where they were supposed to meet, a great-grandmother from Washington state was discovered strangled in her house.
Authorities said that Patricia Jimerfield, a 78-year-old Vancouver, Washington, retired nurse, was slain in her home last Tuesday.
When Stephanie Ayersman, her daughter, arrived at Portland International Airport on Wednesday morning, she had no idea what to think of Jimerfield’s radio quiet because she had just finished messaging her mother before leaving Phoenix.
Ayersman told KATU2, “I told mom I was taking off, and she ‘hearted’ it, so I knew she saw it.”
However, she didn’t reply at all. I kept texting her, calling her at home and on her cell phone, but there was no response. After approximately an hour, I waited.
After calling her aunt, Ayersman discovered Jimerfield “lying on the floor face down,” as she told the local media. Her aunt then hurried to Jimerfield’s house.
Jimerfield was found to have been strangled with a wire or cord by the Clark County Medical Examiner’s Office, per Law & Crime.
Although there were no indications of forced entry inside the house, Ayersman thinks the attack was directed at her mother.
“It feels intimate, I dunno. It seems intimate,” she said to KOIN.
According to Ayersman, Jimerfield’s house had been broken into the day before she was killed. When the retired nurse discovered her wallet was gone and discovered some strange bank charges, she immediately filed a fraud complaint.
If the two crimes are related, it’s unclear.
Ayersman said to KPTV, “They took away my heart, my rock, my soul, and I don’t know how to go on.”
“I really want whoever did this to be caught, so please call the police if you see anything, know anything, or see anything.”
No suspects have been apprehended by police or made public. There are still open investigations regarding the homicide.
