Authorities in Oregon have finally linked a deceased serial killer to the 1992 murder of an 81-year-old woman known in her community as the “Avon lady.”

The Washington County District Attorney’s Office revealed on Tuesday that Cesar Barone—originally named Adolph James Rode Jr—was responsible for the September 23, 1992, killing of Elizabeth Wasson. Barone, who adopted his new name after leaving the US Army in 1987, was fascinated by Italian mobsters. More details can be found in the official announcement.

Barone, who was convicted in 1995 for the murders of four women and received a death sentence, passed away before the sentence was executed.

Although he was a suspect in Wasson’s murder, investigators lacked sufficient evidence to press charges at the time, as reported by The Oregonian.

On the day of her murder, Wasson’s daughter, Tracie Dahl, had visited her. Wasson mentioned plans to go grocery shopping, but later that evening, she did not respond to phone calls. Concerned, Dahl and her husband went to Wasson’s home, where they discovered her lifeless body in a back bedroom. She had been brutally stabbed and strangled.

Investigators had long suspected that Wasson fit the profile of Barone’s other victims—elderly women living alone. However, it was only when they sent the dress Wasson wore during the attack to the Oregon State Police crime lab that tangible evidence emerged. In 2023, DNA testing confirmed Barone’s connection to the crime.

Barone died in 2009, three days after investigators visited him on his death bed, hoping to convince him to come clean about Wasson and other cases. But the convict refused and insisted not only that he had nothing to do with those murders but that he was equally innocent of the four he was convicted on.

“I made it very clear that we were looking at other cases we thought he was responsible for,” said Michael O’Connell, a since retired Washington County Sheriff’s Office detective. “And I may as well have been talking German. He wouldn’t hear any of it. He very arrogantly said, ‘No, I didn’t do any of those. I didn’t even do the ones you guys convicted me of. And I’ll be out of prison here in a couple days.’”

Barone was convicted on four murders:

• Margaret Schmidt, 61, was raped and strangled in her home.
• Margaret Bryant, 41, was shot as she left work. Barone dragged her from the car, raped her, and then shot her in the head.
• Chantee Woodman, 23, was raped and shot, her body dumped along US 26.
• Betty Williams, 51, died of a heart attack when Barone attacked her in her apartment.

He also raped and stranged three other woman who survived the attacks.

In addition to Wasson, Barone was suspected of killing his former mother-in-law.

Barone was born in Florida and had a troubled childhood and early adulthood. He raped his stepmother and assaulted a grandmother, then spent seven years in prison after raping and killing a 71-year-old neighbor.

Dahl, who took over her mother’s Avon lady status after her death, told the Oregonian she didn’t think the murder would ever be solved.

“I do know that a case like this is never closed unless it is solved,” she said. “And I just never knew whether or not it would be.”

Now that it has, she said, she has some peace.