Deborah Atrops

He was on the run.

Attorney Janice Puricell was part of the defense team.

Police find him in a trailer in the desert in Arizona.

When police surround that trailer, he ends his life rather than coming back to Oregon to answer questions about Debbie Atrop's murder.

Those are the facts.

Prosecution can spin it all they want, but those are the facts.

In spring 2025, Robert A. Chopp's murder trial began here, at the Washington County Courthouse.

Prosecutors worried the jury might get stuck on details they could not explain.

In a case where we need to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, we're not going to be able to answer every single detail of what happened that night.

At the trial, which allowed audio but not video recording of witnesses, attorney Allison Brown argues that Bob Atrops intentionally misled the police, starting with those four calls he made to them the night Debbie was last seen alive.

He didn't tell the law enforcement officials that they were separated, that they lived separately.

So he didn't actually give them the information that they would need to find her.

Bob didn't tell police Debbie lived in Salem until the next day.

Even more incriminating, prosecutors say, is the fact that Bob Atrops did not call Debbie the night she went missing or ever.

That would have been the first phone call, right?

Someone hasn't showed up, you're expecting them, you call them.

Not only was that not the first phone call, but he never made that phone call at all.

At trial, prosecutors played Bob's interview with investigators in 2022, where he explained why he didn't ever make that call.

Prosecutors also want the jury to hear more about the troubles in Bob and Debbie's marriage.

Debbie's friend, Christy Knapp, testified to an encounter with Bob at his house soon after Debbie moved out.