Driver’s murder stuns Oregon town

CHEMULT, Ore. – When tow truck operator Marvin Erickson left home to pull a car from the ditch late Sunday, he and his wife probably didn’t give it much thought. He’d done it many times before.

This time, he never came home.

Erickson, 67, who owned the Shell station in Chemult, was found murdered on a lonely stretch of U.S. 97 about 18 miles south of town.

He had been shot several times in the chest, and Chemult residents, who remember him as a nice guy with a rough exterior, are asking how and why.

Erickson’s two grown children, Tim Erickson of Crescent and Kay Sherman of Gold Beach, and their children were at the house when state police arrived at about 2:30 a.m. Monday with the news.

“I can’t believe it,” his daughter said. “Why they couldn’t pick on someone else …”

The suspect, Brian Pennington, 44, of Lacey, Wash., shot himself to death a few hours later in a Klamath Falls parking lot and was wanted for questioning in the deaths of two men in Olympia.

Cafe owner Dan Miller said Erickson was a regular customer for French toast in the morning, talking about his kids and grandkids and possible retirement.

“You just never know when your time is up. Here today and gone tomorrow,” Miller said.

The Ericksons moved to Chemult from Eugene 26 years ago to open their own business.

Marilyn Erickson said she often worried about her husband’s safety.

Still, her husband never had any real scares, she said.

Chemult Tire Center owner Ken Wilson, who operates the town’s only other towing service, said he heard that the call to help Pennington had come to his shop first.

He said he was tired after a day of towing motorists who had had accidents on icy roads and didn’t take the call.

No one knows why Pennington shot Erickson after Erickson pulled him from the snowy ditch.

But Wilson speculated Pennington probably didn’t have the money to pay. Normally a driver would tow the vehicle into town anyway, then call the police if the driver could not get the money, he said.

Erickson may have threatened Pennington with the police, and Pennington, sought for questioning, may have panicked, Wilson speculated.

Wilson once had a concealed weapons permit and carried a gun but let it lapse. He says he will be more careful now and may renew the permit.

”(The murder) is going to make me a lot more circumspect,” he said.

A gruff exterior aside, residents remembered Erickson this week as a kind man.

Gidget Flanagan, who owns the Featherbed Inn, said Erickson often helped her when she ran out of gas or broke down.

“He had a heart of gold,” she said. “A little rough on the outside, but there for you.”

The murder has her rethinking the way she does business, she said.

Travelers come by at all hours, she said, and there’s no way to spot a potential problem. She has a dog for protection but isn’t sure what more she can do.

The closest police office is at the Oregon State Police outpost 17 miles to the north; the next closest, a Klamath County deputy in Chiloquin 45 miles south.

“All you can do is be as careful as you possibly can,” Flanagan said.