In the early morning hours of Saturday, August 22, 2026, a vehicle fire on a rural property outside of Forest Grove, Oregon, led to a grim discovery that shattered the quiet of the community. Responding firefighters found human remains at the scene and immediately alerted the Washington County Sheriff's Office. The investigation would soon reveal a horrific quintuple homicide that claimed the lives of five people, including 27-year-old Alvin Raymond Chu of Portland. The other victims were identified as Mary Elizabeth Kimsey, 85, of Portland; her daughter, 60-year-old Rowan Karla Kimsey of Forest Grove; Rowan's 26-year-old daughter, Stella Jade Kimsey of Forest Grove; and Stella's best friend, 26-year-old Linsey Mae Haraldsen of Portland. Alvin Chu was Linsey's partner. The property where the crime occurred was owned by Rowan Kimsey, and her daughter Stella lived there with her boyfriend, 36-year-old Benjamin Charles Parker.
The investigation into the five deaths quickly pointed to Benjamin Parker as the suspect. Authorities believe the tragedy began as a domestic violence incident. Text messages from Mary Kimsey to a friend indicated that her granddaughter, Stella, had a "horrible fight" with Parker and had told him to leave the property in the day or two leading up to the murders. Investigators believe that in the aftermath of this dispute, Parker shot and killed all five victims, as well as two dogs and two cats. A third cat was also found shot but was later euthanized due to its injuries. The bodies of the victims were found in and around two vehicles near the driveway of the property. It appeared Parker had attempted to set fire to the bodies and the vehicles.
After the killings, Benjamin Parker fled the scene. Investigators were able to track him to Enumclaw, Washington, approximately 180 miles away. On Sunday, August 23, 2026, officers from the Enumclaw Police Department located Parker's vehicle behind a Safeway. Inside, they found him deceased from what was believed to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Later, it was revealed that Parker had called his mother on the Saturday night after the murders and confessed to the crime. With the sole suspect in the quintuple homicide also deceased, the criminal case concluded. The investigation revealed a tragic sequence of events stemming from a domestic dispute that escalated to a mass killing, leaving a family and community to mourn the senseless loss of five lives.
