Officials say the killings followed a relationship rupture, then widened as relatives and friends arrived to check on Stella Kimsey.
FOREST GROVE, Ore. — Washington County officials say the killing of five people at a rural property outside Forest Grove began as domestic violence, with investigators tracing the case to a confrontation in which 26-year-old Stella Jade Kimsey told her boyfriend, Benjamin Charles Parker, 36, that he had to leave.
The official description matters because the five deaths were not initially understood as part of an intimate-partner violence case. Firefighters first found human remains while responding to a vehicle fire Aug. 22, and investigators spent the next several days identifying the dead and reconstructing who came to the property and why. Authorities now say Stella’s mother, grandmother, best friend and the friend’s partner were killed after concern for Stella drew them to the same location. Parker, identified by detectives as the suspect, was found dead in Washington state the next day.
Detectives said the confrontation between Stella and Parker occurred late Aug. 20 or early Aug. 21. Mary Elizabeth Kimsey, Stella’s 85-year-old grandmother, later told a friend by text that the couple had been in a serious fight and that Stella had told Parker he needed to leave. Investigators have not released evidence of a prior police-documented domestic-violence incident between the couple, and they have not announced a complete motive. Their conclusion that the killings grew out of domestic violence rests on the relationship, the reported breakup conflict and the sequence of events that followed.
That sequence began to widen Friday evening. Linsey Mae Haraldsen, 26, Stella’s best friend, was talking with Stella by phone when the call ended, investigators said. Haraldsen could not reach her again and contacted Stella’s mother, Rowan Karla Kimsey, 60, who also lived on the property. Rowan said she would check on Stella. When Rowan did not call back, Haraldsen drove to the farm. Mary then became unable to reach Stella, Rowan or Haraldsen, so she picked up Haraldsen’s partner, 27-year-old Alvin Raymond Chu, and went there too.
Investigators believe Stella was killed first, then Rowan, then Haraldsen. Mary and Chu were killed after they arrived together. Authorities said each victim was shot with a .22-caliber firearm. The sheriff’s office also said two dogs and two cats were killed and that a fifth cat was later euthanized after suffering serious injuries. Multiple fires were set on the property, including one involving a vehicle, and investigators said there were unsuccessful attempts to burn other parts of the site. The surviving livestock were later rehomed with approval from the family.
The sheriff’s office has said it found no record of prior 911 calls to the property involving domestic violence between Stella and Parker, no restraining order involving the pair and no record of a gun-removal order. Officials have been careful not to treat those absences as proof that the relationship had been safe. Domestic violence often unfolds outside police view, and the evidence detectives did recover included messages showing that Stella’s relatives were aware Parker could become very upset. Investigators said Stella and Parker had been dating since sometime in 2025 and lived together in the main residence.
At a later briefing, Washington County District Attorney Kevin Barton placed the case in a broader local pattern, saying domestic violence had been involved in a large share of the county’s recent homicides. He said that, over the prior three years, roughly two-thirds of Washington County homicides had been domestic-violence-related. Officials used the briefing not to suggest every case follows the same pattern, but to explain why they considered the Otis Lane killings part of a recurring public-safety problem rather than an isolated dispute with no wider context.
Amy Babcock, executive director of the Domestic Violence Resource Center, told reporters that the period when someone is preparing to leave or trying to leave an abusive relationship can be especially dangerous. Her remarks were presented as general context, not as proof of facts investigators had not established about Stella and Parker’s private relationship. The known evidence is narrower: Stella told Parker to leave after a serious fight, several people later became unable to reach her, and investigators say those people were killed after going to the property to check on one another.
The deaths were discovered because of fire, not because anyone had yet reported an assault. A neighbor saw flames through the trees shortly after 5 a.m. Aug. 22 and called 911. Forest Grove Fire & Rescue responded to the rural address on Northwest Otis Lane and found a burning vehicle. After discovering human remains, firefighters requested law enforcement and withdrew until deputies secured the scene. Deputies searched the property and found all five victims in or near the driveway, along with evidence of gunfire and several separate fires.
Cellphone information then shifted the investigation beyond Oregon. Detectives said Parker’s phone left the property early Saturday and later appeared near Enumclaw, Washington. Authorities said he was driving a Toyota pickup registered to Rowan Kimsey. Washington County detectives began coordinating with police in Enumclaw and were preparing to seek a warrant charging Parker with five counts of first-degree murder. Enumclaw officers eventually used license-plate reader information to locate the pickup behind a Safeway, where Parker was found dead inside from what authorities described as an apparent suicide.
Before Parker was found, his mother had received a call from him Saturday night, according to investigators. She later told detectives that he had admitted killing the five people and said the violence had been planned in advance. Authorities also said he acknowledged killing the animals and setting fires. Because the reported confession came through Parker’s mother and Parker died before he could be arrested, investigators have continued to corroborate that account through phone records, physical evidence, ballistics, autopsy work and other forensic testing rather than treating the statement alone as a complete resolution of the case.
Family members have pushed back against allowing the case to be remembered only through the suspect and the circumstances of the deaths. In a statement released through the sheriff’s office, they described Mary as the matriarch of a close family, Rowan as an accomplished artist and tattoo artist who mentored others, and Stella as passionate and deeply attached to farm life. They described Haraldsen as a longtime friend who had become like family. Chu’s relatives asked that his photograph not be released, and the families of Chu and Haraldsen asked reporters not to seek interviews.
Stella’s sister, Alexis Callen, also asked the public to treat Parker’s family with respect and compassion despite what investigators say he did. The statement underscored the complicated aftermath of a homicide-suicide investigation in which there will be no defendant, no trial and no sentencing proceeding. For the victims’ families, the remaining official process is investigative rather than judicial: determining the timing of each death, confirming the firearm evidence, completing laboratory analysis and answering as many factual questions as the available evidence permits.
The Washington County Major Crimes Team and partner agencies have continued working the case, which officials said involved more than 100 people across local, state and federal agencies. Sheriff Caprice Massey said the scene was exceptionally complex and that evidence processing and timeline reconstruction could take months. Investigators have said there is no continuing threat to the public, but they continue to ask for information from people familiar with the residents or events preceding Aug. 22. The final report is expected to depend on forensic results that were still pending when officials last gave a detailed public account.
Author note: Last updated September 30, 2026.