LOCAL & STATE
TUESDAY, MAY 26, 2020
BAKER CITY HERALD — 3A
Grant County district attorney has
suspects in 2018 murder of couple
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY — Closure may be coming
almost two years after a couple vanished
after their cabin became engulfed in
fl ames in the Laycock Creek Road area.
Grant County District Attorney Jim
Carpenter said May 20 he planned to
prosecute suspects in the murder of
Terry and Sharon Smith.
“There are suspects in the case,” Car-
penter told the Eagle, “and a substantial
amount of evidence that points to the
suspects such that I will be taking it to
the grand jury.”
Carpenter said, as soon as grand
juries can meet without social distanc-
ing restrictions, he plans to take the case
to a grand jury, and he anticipates an
indictment.
The couple and their pickup were not
found after their home on Nan’s Rock
Road between John Day and Mt. Vernon
burned in the early morning hours of
July 18, 2018.
The case evolved into a homicide after
investigators confi rmed DNA samples
from remains found in the residence be-
longed to Terry and Sharon Smith. The
pickup was later located in Boise.
Carpenter said the Oregon Depart-
ment of Justice was brought in as a
special prosecutor for Grant County, and
the DOJ had been directing the inves-
tigation and working toward prosecution.
Submitted photo
Terry and Sharon Smith
He said, several months ago, Grant
County Sheriff Glenn Palmer requested
the case back from the DOJ to have it
prosecuted in Grant County.
Carpenter said, because of limited
resources, he attempted to bring in a spe-
cial prosecutor, a local attorney whom he
declined to name, who initially agreed to
take the case but then backed out after
receiving the materials from the DOJ.
“It was initially assigned to the
Department of Justice because I simply
didn’t have the resources to take care of
it,” Carpenter said. “I still don’t, but there
are no other options. The Department of
Justice isn’t going to take it back.”
The case is being investigated by the
Oregon State Police and Grant County
Sheriff’s Offi ce with the assistance of the
FBI Bend offi ce.
“I’ve discussed the case recently with
the FBI, and they are assisting the sher-
iff’s offi ce with a few fi nal steps in the
investigation,” Carpenter said.
Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer
declined to comment in an email on May
14, stating it was “an ongoing criminal
investigation.”
Family and friends told the Eagle
about the social nature of Terry and Sha-
ron Smith and how unusual it would be
for them to disappear for any length of
time without communicating with their
friends and family.
“The Smiths’ friends and acquain-
tances all would like to know if there
has been any progress in solving this
heinous murder,” Lisa Roach, a friend of
the Smiths, said in an email. “Any news
would be greatly appreciated.”
Timothy Williams, a pastor, who grew
close to the Smiths after purchasing
a property from them roughly a year
before their murder, said he was their
“hanai son” — a term used in Hawai-
ian culture to refer to a family member,
though not blood-related.
He said Terry and Sharon saw some-
thing good in him and treated him like
family. He said they were not just people
he bought a house from in an agreement
of sale.
“I loved these people,” Williams said.
“There’s no reason that you can tell me,
or anybody can tell me, they deserved to
die like they did.”
Oregon State Penitentiary has
largest outbreak of coronavirus
The man had been trans-
ferred Monday to Salem
The number of coronavirus Hospital and was tested that
cases continues to rise at the
day. On Tuesday, the results
Oregon State Penitentiary,
confi rmed he had the virus. He
which last week became the
died the next day.
source of the single largest
Like the vast majority of
known outbreak of the virus in people who have died from
the state.
the illness in Oregon, the man
On Friday, the Oregon
had an underlying health
Department of Corrections
condition, prison offi cials said.
said a total of 141 people at
Citing the confi dentiality of
the prison — 115 inmates and medical information, the state
26 employees — have tested
declined to identify the man,
positive. A Southeast Portland saying only that he was be-
nursing home is the source
tween 50 and 60 years old, and
of the state’s second largest
wouldn’t disclose his underly-
outbreak.
ing condition.
Four inmates at the
Dr. Christopher DiGiulio,
maximum-security prison in
the chief of medicine for the
Salem have been treated for
Corrections Department, said
the disease at local hospitals,
inmates’ movements within
including one man who died
the prison are restricted to con-
Wednesday. It was the fi rst
tain the spread of the illness.
inmate death from coronavirus
Built in 1866, the state peni-
in Oregon.
tentiary, a hulking complex of
imposing cellblocks, was not
designed with a pandemic in
mind, DiGiulio said.
“That is one of the most dif-
fi cult aspects and the biggest
challenge managing this,” he
said. “The building is over 100
years old. It was not designed
for social distancing. It was
probably designed before germ
theory was established. So the
idea of social distancing inside
of OSP is diffi cult.”
He said hundreds of men
live “in very close quarters on
multiple tiers.”
Corrections offi cials had
been moving almost all
infected inmates to Coffee
Creek Correctional Institution
in Wilsonville, where the infi r-
mary is equipped with rooms
that limit air circulation. But
the rising number of cases
has prompted the agency to
shift away from that practice,
DiGiulio said.
The infi rmary continues to
take people who are consid-
ered medically vulnerable and
have a serious case of the vi-
rus, but people with symptoms
who are in better shape are
treated in a converted housing
unit at Coffee Creek, the state
women’s prison.
DiGiulio said people who
test positive but don’t have
any symptoms and are other-
wise healthy have remained
in quarantine at the state
penitentiary.
Inmates are routinely
screened for symptoms, he
said, but testing remains a
hard sell among the men who
fear they will test positive and
end up moved away from their
cells and placed in an even
more restrictive setting.
LAWSUIT
briefs on Friday arguing why
they believe Shirtcliff was
correct in issuing the pre-
liminary injunction and why
the Supreme Court should
reinstate that injunction. That
would prohibit the state from
continuing to enforce Brown’s
executive orders.
In all but one of Oregon’s 36
counties — Multnomah, which
includes Portland — the state
has begun to ease some of the
restrictions in those orders.
Baker County is among the
counties that started phase
one of the state’s reopening
plan on May 15. The county
could potentially move into
phase two, which further
eases restrictions (details have
yet to be announced), on June
5.
Mannix said the 57-page
brief he fi led includes ad-
ditional legal support for
the plaintiffs’ position — a
position with which Shirtcliff
concurred in his order grant-
ing a preliminary injunction.
That position is that be-
cause Gov. Brown has invoked
the state’s public health emer-
gency law — Oregon Revised
Statute (ORS) 433.441 — in
several of the executive orders
she has issued since mid
March, she was bound by the
28-day limit for public health
emergencies as stated in that
law.
Attorneys for the governor
have argued that the 28-day
limit in ORS 433 doesn’t
apply to the executive orders
because Brown’s initial decla-
ration of a state of emergency
due the pandemic was made
under a different state law —
ORS 401.165 — which does
not have a time limit.
In his brief to the Supreme
Court, Mannix argues that
the two laws overlap, and
that when there is a confl ict
between laws — in this case
one law that has a time limit
and another law which does
not — the more specifi c law
“should take precedence.”
By Noelle Crombie
The Oregonian/OregonLive
Continued from Page 1A
If Shirtcliff declines to either
vacate his order or submit
a written opinion, then the
Supreme Court would set a
deadline of Thursday for the
governor’s attorneys to fi le a
brief related to the prelimi-
nary injunction.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys
would then have until June 2
to fi le briefs in response to the
governor’s brief.
Kevin Mannix, a Salem
attorney who is representing a
group of intervenors — includ-
ing Bill Harvey, chairman
of the Baker County Board
of Commissioners, acting
as an individual and busi-
ness owner, not in his elected
capacity — who have joined
the plaintiffs in the lawsuit
against the governor, said
Saturday that he hopes Shirt-
cliff will either send a written
response to the Supreme
Court further explaining his
decision to issue a preliminary
injunction, or do nothing.
Mannix said he’s encour-
aged by the Supreme Court’s
decision to set deadlines for
lawyers to submit briefs in the
event Shirtcliff chooses either
of those two options.
“This means that the Or-
egon Supreme Court has kept
this case on a very short time
frame,” Mannix said.
He said he was pleased that
the Supreme Court didn’t
issue a peremptory writ of
mandamus, which would have
ordered Shirtcliff to vacate his
order granting a preliminary
injunction rather than give
him the option of defending
his earlier decision.
The legal issue at play now
is not the lawsuit itself, but
rather Shirtcliff’s order grant-
ing the preliminary injunction.
Even if that order is vacated
— either by Shirtcliff himself
or by a later decision of the
Supreme Court — the lawsuit
would continue, potentially
leading to a trial in Baker
County Circuit Court.
The governor’s attorneys
from the state Department of
Justice fi led a motion seeking
to dismiss the lawsuit, argu-
ing it has no legal merit, but
Shirtcliff denied that motion.
Mannix said that both he
and Ray Hacke, the Salem at-
torney from the Pacifi c Justice
Institute who is representing
the plaintiffs and fi led the
lawsuit on May 6, submitted
See Prison/Page 6A
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our lives,” she said. “But
in the bottom of our
Continued from Page 1A
hearts we knew our job
Curry referred to
is to protect the people at
“the people behind us”
home. We’re not going to
— the orderly rows of
let anyone take away our
white headstones in the
freedoms.”
veterans section of the
Jimm Mooney of
cemetery.
Veterans Hope Ministries
And then she ad-
introduced Curry, and
dressed the veterans
also followed her address
who stood before her on
with concluding remarks.
a slope of well-tended
Mooney said he was
grass, the snowy Elkhorn thrilled with the turnout
Mountains providing a
for the ceremony, which
stirring backdrop.
he started planning little
Both groups, Curry
more than a week earlier
said — those in front and after learning that the
those behind — helped
annual event would be
to make possible events
another casualty of the
such as Monday’s Memo- coronavirus pandemic.
rial Day ceremony.
“My heart is so big and
Curry is herself a mem- so grateful for all of you
ber of the former group.
to be here today,” Mooney
She served in the U.S.
said. “Today is the day
Army in both Afghani-
to honor and remember
stan and Iraq.
those who paid the ulti-
“When we signed on
mate sacrifi ce so we could
the dotted line we knew
be free in this country
we might have to give
today.”
COUNCIL
vandalism to the Powder
River Pavilion in Geiser-
Pollman Park. In a letter
to councilors, Shollen-
berger posed questions
to councilors, including
whether the city can take
additional steps to enforce
ordinances prohibiting
vandalism.
Continued from Page 1A
In other business
this evening, councilors
will hear from Marilyn
Haynes Shollenberger,
president of Baker
City Events, about her
concerns about recurring
L OCAL B RIEFING
AmeriTitle’s Baker City employees
donate $300 to local Backpack program
Employees from AmeriTitle’s Baker City branch
have donated $300 to the Baker City Backpack Pro-
gram, which provides meals during weekends to local
children.
Community Connection has money
available for food and shelter programs
Baker County will receive $6,792 from the Federal
Emergency Management Agency and $9,683 from the
CARES Act’s emergency food and shelter program.
Organizations that provide those services to Baker
County residents can apply for some of the money
through Community Connection of Baker County.
To request an application, call Joe Hayes at 541-523-
6591, extension 11, or email to joe@ccno.org. Applica-
tion deadline is June 12 at 4 p.m.
Pine Fest Music Festival in Halfway
canceled due to coronavirus pandemic
HALFWAY — The organizers of the annual Pine
Fest Musical Festival scheduled for Sept. 11-12 in
Halfway announced that the event has been canceled
due to the coronavirus pandemic.
People who have bought tickets or camping reserva-
tions can keep their receipts, which will be honored at
the 2021 event. For refunds, or other questions, email
steve@pinetel.com, specifying “Pine Fest 2020” in the
subject line.
Mannix contends ORS 433
is more specifi c, not only be-
cause it prescribes a time limit
but also because it grants the
governor particular authori-
ties, including the ability to
restrict residents’ movements,
that are not included in the
more general emergency law,
ORS 401.
Indeed, Shirtcliff, in his or-
der granting the preliminary
injunction, wrote that Brown
had to invoke ORS 433 in
some of her executive orders
because of the specifi c powers
it conveys to the governor.
Oregon’s Solicitor General,
Benjamin Gutman, disagreed,
writing in a memo asking the
state Supreme Court to vacate
the preliminary injunction
that Shirtcliff “committed
fundamental legal error” in
granting the injunction.
“The trial court erred in
fi nding that the Governor’s
emergency powers under ORS
chapter 401 are time-limited
by the provisions of ORS chap-
ter 433,” Gutman wrote. “The
provisions for public-health
emergencies in chapter 433
supplement rather than sup-
plant the Governor’s powers
under chapter 401.”
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