Who murdered 27 year old Ausencio Garcia? In the early morning hours of July 19, 1998, Ausencio Genchi Garcia, a 27-year-old Hispanic male, found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was attending a party at the El Moro apartment complex located at 2016 SE 122nd Ave in Portland, Oregon, a place that would tragically become the final scene of his life. Garcia, who worked for a local vegetable company, was not known to be a violent man and had no criminal record.
He was simply enjoying a night out, unaware of the escalating tensions that would soon erupt into deadly violence.
Earlier in the evening, a heated altercation had nearly broken out at the apartment complex between a large group of Hispanic individuals and several African American males. Though a physical fight was averted at that moment, a volatile atmosphere lingered. At approximately 2:30 a.m., the simmering conflict boiled over. Multiple 911 calls flooded into the Portland police department, reporting chaos at the El Moro apartments. When officers arrived, they discovered a grim scene. A resident of the complex had stepped outside to find Garcia lying on the ground, the victim of a fatal shooting. An autopsy would later confirm that he had died from gunshot wounds.
The investigation into Garcia's death suggested that he was an innocent bystander, a random victim caught in the crossfire of a dispute he had no part in. He was not the intended target, but a casualty of a senseless act of violence that cut his life short. In the course of their investigation, police identified a suspect, 22-year-old Derrick Shepherd, in connection with the murder.
Despite the identification of a person of interest, the path to justice for Ausencio Garcia has remained elusive. The details of what became of Derrick Shepherd's connection to the case are not publicly clear, and no arrests were ever announced in the years that followed. Garcia's case eventually went cold, leaving his family and friends without answers or closure. The City of Portland's Cold Case Homicide Unit continues to list his case as unsolved, a lingering reminder of a life taken too soon, and a plea for anyone with information to come forward and finally bring peace to a family shattered by a night of violence.
