Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Bomb charge linked to love triangle

A Condon man wound up in U.S. District Court in Portland in 1975 facing charges of planting a bomb in a rival’s car.

Roy P. Urie, 61, was accused of possession of an unregistered dynamite bomb and possessing a firearm (bomb) not identified with a serial number. A federal indictment said Urie had placed a bomb in the engine compartment of a car owned by Charles W. Riggins of Portland on May 19 or 20, 1975. Riggins and Urie reportedly shared an affection for Ina Deniz, 44, who had lived off and on with Riggins and Urie at different times and had moved back and forth between Portland and Condon.

Riggins discovered the bomb as he drove to his job as a Federal Protective Service policeman in downtown Portland on May 20, because the car was “running rough.” Prosecutor William Youngman claimed a “love triangle” had led to the bomb’s placement. Defense attorney Thomas Schnieger pointed out that all the evidence against Urie was circumstantial, and that Urie was in Condon the entire time during which the bomb could have been planted in Riggins’ car.

During the trial, Urie admitted he threatened Riggins but didn’t try to hide the threats. And there were no eyewitnesses to the manufacture or planting of the bomb. Schnieger also said Riggins lied on the stand about a fight with another man in which he was knocked down a flight of stairs and suffered several broken ribs.

Urie was acquitted of the charge.

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Curiosity leads to day-long search for Umatilla man

Curiosity, they say, killed the cat. Luckily for Darel Beemer of Umatilla, being curious is not always fatal. Beemer was the subject of an intensive search and rescue effort in March of 1999 after he disappeared during a trip to McNary Dam.

Beemer, 25, was one of a group of developmentally disabled clients of Rise, Inc. on a social outing to the hydroelectric dam just outside Umatilla. He had gone into the bushes around 3 p.m. on March 16, 1999, to change into a dry pair of pants after wading in one of the ponds on the dam’s grounds. When he failed to reappear, Rise Inc. employees began a search. An hour later, Umatilla County Search and Rescue was called. They were told that a fisherman saw Beemer climbing the dam’s fish ladder within the first hour he went missing.

Ed Beemer, Darel’s father, was puzzled at how the young man could have breached dam security, but said Darel was able to get into places others could not. “He’s pretty limber,” Beemer said.

About 23 hours after he was first reported missing, a pair of Darel’s pants was found near an elevator door inside the dam complex. Searchers eventually found him hunkered down in the Grout Tunnel, at the 235-foot level. Jan Good, the coordinator of the search and rescue team, said she was told Darel liked to play hide and seek, and the tunnel was the perfect place for a game. Also, Darel was unable to speak due to Down syndrome, and so was unable to lead rescuers to his hiding place.

Ed Beemer was grateful Darel was found, a little dehydrated and cold, but none the worse for his day-long ordeal. “What he did, he did for no other reason than curiosity,” he said. And he credited the search and rescue team and Rise inc. employees for giving “110 percent” during Darel’s disappearance.

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Morrow County sand storm stalls auto delivery

In 1917, autos were big business. As more and more people traded in their horse and buggy for gas-powered transportation, deliveries of vehicles from the Portland area to Eastern Oregon were a regular occurrence. In March of 1917, two men on a routine delivery run discovered just how wild the weather could be on the dry side when a wind storm interrupted their trip through Morrow County.

E. E. Hall and T.J. Tobin left The Dalles on Friday, March 23 with two new Fords they were delivering to Pendleton. They reached Cecil in northern Morrow County at 1 p.m. and started across the long stretch of sand. Before long, a violent wind storm lifted a dense cloud of sand and soil into the air and blinded the drivers. Also, the iron content of the sand that got into the Fords’ motors caused a short circuit, stopping them in their tracks.

Hall and Tobin were forced to spend the night there, and spent part of Saturday trying to get the cars running again. They finally borrowed horses and rode 11 miles to the nearest telephone to call for help from Pendleton, then used the horses to pull the cars to a nearby ranch, which was deserted. Leaving the cars there, they rode on another five miles before finding a place to spend the night.

Meanwhile, Robert Simpson of the Simpson Auto Company, Thurman Motorman and Tom Keating set out from Pendleton in a Chevrolet Saturday afternoon to rescue Hall and Tobin, but there was so much sand in the air they got lost in the Sand Hollow area. The trio drove around aimlessly for a while, then cut a wire fence to make another circuit, and at 2 a.m. Sunday morning happened across the farm house where Hall and Tobin had abandoned the Fords. They sheltered from the storm in the empty house the remainder of the night and set out at daybreak to search for the missing men, locating them later in the day.

The Fords were towed to Echo, where the party of five learned another shipment of 14 Fords traveling by boat had been forced to put in at Irrigon. They met the boat and decided to drive the cars to their final destinations, leaving some at Hermiston, some at Echo and bringing the rest to Pendleton.

Simpson cautioned autoists wanting to travel through Morrow County by way of the Oregon Trail that it would be some time before all the sand was cleared away.

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Round-Up Indian director dies in hunting accident

Robert Chauncey Bishop, known in Pendleton as Chauncey, who served during the 1920s as the Pendleton Round-Up’s Indian director, was killed in a freak hunting accident near Pendleton in January of 1927.

Chauncey was part of the Pendleton Woolen Mills legacy, and managed the Pendleton mill, which he and brothers Roy and Clarence bought in 1909. Other mills in Salem and Washougal, Wash., were managed by the Bishop brothers’ parents, C.P. and Fannie Bishop.

On the afternoon of Saturday, Jan. 15, 1927, Bishop was hunting ducks near McKay Dam with two friends, Glen Stater and Sol Baum. The trio was wrapping up their hunting activities, and Stater was standing near the car talking to Baum, who was sitting inside. Stater said Bishop disappeared into a gully on his way to the car, so neither man witnessed the accident.

Both men heard a gun shot but weren’t immediately concerned, thinking Bishop was shooting at ducks. When he didn’t appear after a few minutes, the men hurried to the gully and found Bishop lying in shallow water at the bottom, head downward. The shotgun was a short distance away, the recoil having thrown it from Bishop’s hands.

Bishop reported he had slipped on a rock and the gun went off accidentally, hitting him in the abdomen. It was a new gun, Stater and Baum said, and Bishop admitted he did not have the safety on when he slipped. He wasn’t bleeding badly, and was able to help his friends get him to the car.

The men drove Bishop to St. Anthony Hospital in Pendleton, where he was immediately taken into surgery. He survived the surgery and was able to talk to his family, some of whom had traveled from Salem and Portland when news of his accident was received.

But later his condition started to deteriorate, and he was given a blood transfusion, donated by his brother Clarence, at 10 a.m. the next morning. Bishop briefly rallied, but died at 11:15 a.m. Sunday.

In addition to his brothers and his parents, Bishop left behind two sons, Robert, 17, and Charles, 13. His wife had died in 1918 during the Spanish Influenza epidemic, and Chauncey was laid to rest next to her in Salem.

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Quarrel over watch leads to assault, suicide

A small island in the Columbia River midway between Wallula and Umatilla was the scene of an attempted murder and suicide in April 1908.

Switzler’s Island was the property of John B. Switzler, who took up residence on the island in 1882 and built a house, barn and outbuildings, and planted 40 acres of orchards. The orchards were abandoned in 1894, however, when flooding of the Columbia washed out most of the trees. At 105 feet above sea level and 25 feet above the river’s high water mark, the island contained about 750 acres of farmable land.

The ownership of the island was the subject of multiple legal battles, and in 1908 squatters had taken over part of the property. Two men, Fred Deitz and Joseph Paterman, were living in one of the houses on the island. Paterman had returned to the island on April 10 after several days of trying to find work. It was then Deitz’s turn to look for a job, but he refused to leave his watch for Paterman, and a quarrel broke out. Deitz had just stepped out of the house they shared when Paterman appeared behind him with a shotgun and fired at point blank range, hitting him in the shoulder. He then loaded Deitz’s unconscious body into a wheelbarrow, intending to dump him in the river.

Deitz soon came to, and a knock-down drag-out fight ensued during which the wounded man was severely beaten. Paterman then walked away, leaving Deitz on the ground, with the intent to get a hatchet and finish the job. When Paterman returned Deitz pleaded piteously for his life, and Paterman agreed to spare him. He placed Deitz in the shade of a tree and announced his intent to kill himself.

After Paterman left, Deitz made his way to another house on the island, where he told the story of the attack. He was taken by boat to Umatilla, and while on the water they heard Paterman fire two shots, and later saw the house go up in flames.

The wounded man was taken by train to Pendleton, and was treated while en route by Dr. J.A. Best, who happened to be on the train. It was believed Deitz would survive the brutal attack.

Searchers returned to the island and found the burned body of Paterman in the ashes of the house the two men had shared. Paterman was known in Pendleton by the director of the Salvation Army, who said Paterman had sought shelter there earlier in the month and had been angry at Deitz over $50 he had lent to his partner, and what he considered Deitz’s general mistreatment.