Man enters guilty pleas in Idaho double murder. Was he the only one involved?
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Three years after a couple was killed inside a New Plymouth home, the Oregon man accused of killing them was arrested. Just last month he admitted to the killings — but it seems he wasn’t the only one involved, even though no one else has been charged.
Waylon (Joshua) Kirkman’s defense attorney, Elisa Massoth, said at his preliminary hearing that there wasn’t substantial evidence to move forward with the charges against her client, arguing that the evidence was “circumstantial.”
“The only explanation, really, is that there’s more than one person,” she said in court. “So saying specifically that my client is the one who committed these offenses — when there are two other identified people — leaves reasonable doubt and is not grounds for probable cause.”
But in May, Kirkman pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the deaths of Eric Ortega and Megan Amaya, both 45. They were killed just a few days short of their four-year anniversary, according to the Argus Observer, an Ontario-based newspaper.
Sometime after 11 p.m. on May 14, 2022, Kirkman, who had driven to the couple’s house, kicked open their back door, shot Amaya and then went into the master bathroom and shot Ortega, Payette County Prosecutor Mike Duke said in court.
When asked whether this was what happened by District Judge Davis VanderVelde, of Idaho’s 3rd Judicial District, Kirkman quietly responded, “Yes, your honor, it’s true.”
Surveillance footage also showed another suspect, carrying a shotgun, enter the home along with Kirkman, and it’s believed they shot and killed the couple’s dog, according to witness testimony. There was also another person waiting in a vehicle outside.
Other suspects in New Plymouth homicides haven’t been charged
Despite the presence of others at the scene of the double homicide, only the 30-year-old Kirkman has been charged. Duke didn’t respond to multiple emails seeking additional information.
Based on court filings, law enforcement said they believed the shooting was the result of a feud between Kirkman and Ortega. Kirkman had shot at Ortega before the May 14, 2022, shooting, and Ortega had tried to “retaliate” the day before his and Amaya’s death, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed by Idaho State Police Detective James Millar.
He added in the affidavit that Kirkman “would ultimately end the feud” when he shot and killed them. Hours after Kirkman left a friend’s house with a loaded shotgun, purportedly to scare Ortega, he returned and told one of the other guys staying there that he’d “got him,” the affidavit said.
“He’s like, ‘I got him. I took care of it — don’t say nothing, though,’” the man testified during Kirkman’s preliminary hearing. He said that it was “shocking” and that he genuinely believed Kirkman was just going to scare Ortega.
Roughly a week after the homicides, on May 21, 2022, Kirkman was pulled over by Michael Hale, with the Malheur County Sheriff’s Office. When the detective pulled him over, he said in court that Kirkman admitted his license was suspended. Hale went to verify this in his patrol vehicle, and Kirkman drove off, Hale said.
He stopped about 1-3 miles down the road and ran from the detective, jumping into a canal.
As Hale, along with some troopers from Oregon State Police, searched the area for Kirkman, they found a waterlogged and muddy pistol — a Taurus PT-111 Millennium Pro — outside of the canal, according to witness testimony. Police also found a matching magazine inside Kirkman’s truck, which had his palm print on it.
“They test-fire it, compare those rounds with the spent rounds that are found on scene, and those match,” Duke said in court. “So Mr. Kirkman was in possession of the murder weapon just a week after this happens.”
