Authorities have identified the five victims of a rural Oregon murder-suicide as the killer’s girlfriend and three generations of her family, plus two close friends.
The suspect, Benjamin Charles Parker, 36, died of an apparent suicide inside a car in Enumclaw, Washington — over 180 miles from the remote Forest Grove property where he carried out the massacre, according to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office. His victims included girlfriend Stella Jade Kimsey, 26; her mother Rowan Karla Kimsey, 60; and her grandmother Mary Elizabeth Kimsey, 85. Stella Kimsey’s best friend Linsey Mae Haraldsen, 26, and Haraldsen’s partner Alvin Raymond Chu, 27, were also killed.
Rowan Kimsey owned and lived at the 15-acre property with her daughter and Parker, police said. The slayings also claimed the lives of multiple pets: two cats and dogs were found dead, while a third cat was rescued and taken to a veterinarian but later euthanized “due to the extent of its injuries,” authorities added.
The gruesome discovery came Saturday when firefighters responded to a vehicle fire at the property, which included a home, farmland, and thick wooded areas. Dispatch audio obtained by local outlet KGW8 captured the escalating horror as first responders arrived. “We do have a deceased victim up here we’re gonna need law enforcement,” a firefighter said in the recording. “I need a police unit or a sheriff’s office unit code for you to see just in case we have two victims here.” The audio continued: “This is some suspicious circumstances certainly so we’re gonna … just take our hoses and get out of here and let the sheriff’s office clear this. Then we’ll return.”
After detectives arrived at the quintuple homicide scene, they tracked Parker’s vehicle to behind a Safeway store in Enumclaw, where the killer was found dead. Enumclaw Police Chief Tim Floyd said detectives discovered Parker’s cell phone had pinged in the small city 50 miles southwest of Seattle.
“They called us and said, ‘We have a cell phone ping in your city,’ here’s the plate and the car that you’re looking for,'” Floyd said. “So we go to the flock system, we put the plate in, we could see that he’s hit a couple of our cameras and the last hit was him coming into the city and he had not left so we had a good indication that he was still here.”
Washington County Detective Shannon Wilde said in a Sunday press conference that investigators do not believe the killings were a “random act.” Sheriff Caprice Massey described the crime scene as one of the most “complex” she’s encountered in her career. “In my 22 years here, I have not been a part of or witnessed a scene quite this complex involving this type of an investigation,” Massey told reporters.
“I recognize that this incident is deeply concerning to our community. Our investigators are working to determine what happened, and we have dedicated every available resource to this case,” Massey added.
Authorities have not released details on how the five people or the animals were killed, and a motive remains unclear.
In a statement posted on Facebook, Forest Grove Fire and Rescue described the slain victims as “our friends and our neighbors.” The department wrote: “Tragedies like our community experienced over the weekend are incredibly sad, while also being so hard on our hearts and souls. Even though many of you did not know the vibrant lives so needlessly lost, some of you most certainly did. While others still undoubtedly moved past them in a local grocery store, restaurant, or our otherwise normal day to day lives. These were our friends, and our neighbors, and they too called this beautiful place home.”
In the viral moment that preceded the identifications, the rural Oregon property became a scene of unfathomable violence when firefighters responding to what appeared to be a vehicle fire stumbled upon multiple bodies and summoned law enforcement. The discovery of five human victims alongside slaughtered pets on the 15-acre spread — home to three generations of the Kimsey family and the boyfriend who would become their killer — prompted a complex investigation that spanned two states and ended with Parker tracked through license plate readers to his final location behind a Washington grocery store.
The Washington County Sheriff’s Office continues to investigate the killings with what Massey described as every available resource dedicated to the case.