Daniel Stephen Kalamas, a 63-year-old man from Eugene, Oregon, had experienced the profound loss of his daughter Helen just a few years before his own life was tragically cut short. Helen, who passed away in 2020 at the age of 32 after a battle with cancer, was remembered as an adventurous spirit who worked as a wildland fire dispatcher, loved exploring the Oregon coast with her corgis, and had a passion for painting and sewing. Daniel was her father, and he also had two other daughters, Ruby and Jasper, and a son, Joseph.
On the evening of October 27, 2026, Daniel’s life ended in an alley in west Eugene. At approximately 5:28 p.m., the Eugene Police Department began receiving multiple 911 calls reporting gunfire. Officers were dispatched to the alley situated near the intersection of Grant Street and West 10th Avenue, behind the Hop N Shop Market. When they arrived, they found Daniel Kalamas with a gunshot wound.
Despite the efforts of the responding officers to provide medical care, he died at the scene.
The area where the shooting occurred was described by neighbors as a place where groups of people often gathered. One resident reported hearing at least three loud gunshots from his home nearby. When police arrived, they discovered a chaotic scene. In addition to Mr. Kalamas, officers found another person who was suffering from an apparent drug overdose. That individual was revived with a dose of Narcan and was subsequently questioned by investigators. Police immediately began searching for witnesses and canvassing the area for evidence, though a weapon was not recovered at the time.
The investigation, led by the Eugene Police Department’s Violent Crimes detectives, quickly led to a suspect. The day after the shooting, on October 28, police arrested 35-year-old Zachary Dale Hardie-Brazille. He was taken into custody and booked into the Lane County Jail. The Lane County District Attorney's office formally charged him with second-degree murder, unlawful use of a weapon, and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Court documents revealed that Hardie-Brazille had an extensive and violent criminal history spanning decades in Oregon. At the time of the shooting, he was allegedly on post-prison supervision for a 2023 case in which he pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree assault for striking a man in the head with an axe. For that crime, he had been sentenced to 36 months in prison. His prior convictions also included possessing methamphetamine in jail in 2022, as well as reckless driving, fleeing from police, and unauthorized use of a vehicle. In the 2010s, he was convicted in two separate cases in Klamath County for strangulation and coercion constituting domestic violence against two different women.
Following his arrest for the murder of Daniel Kalamas, Zachary Dale Hardie-Brazille was arraigned in Lane County Circuit Court, where the case was assigned to Judge Karrie K. McIntyre. He was to be represented by a public defender. His next scheduled court appearance was set for November 4, 2026. As of the latest available reports from late October 2026, the case against Hardie-Brazille was proceeding through the court system. The shooting was reported as the second homicide investigated by Eugene police that year.
