PENDLETON, Ore. — A Marine Corps deserter is to appear in court in Pendleton to change his pleas on charges he stabbed to death a motel maid and severely beat a woman on a jogging path.
Lukah Chang was scheduled to appear in Umatilla County Circuit Court on Wednesday.
He was arrested last August after police recognized him from surveillance video from the jogging path.
The stabbing of motel maid Amyjane Brandhagen had stymied police for a year until DNA evidence from the motel room was linked to DNA from the pipe used in the beating on the jogging path.
After he was arrested, Chang told investigators he had been a Marine Corps meteorologist, and was wanted for desertion after getting on a bus at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and never going back.
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