A woman is held hostage and brutally murdered On a summer evening in Eugene, Oregon, the life of 31-year-old Shirley Wallace was brutally cut short. It was July 20, 1975, and Wallace, a Caucasian woman, was at her job at the Gentlemen's Retreat, a massage parlor on River Road. The night took a terrifying turn when a man, described as a white male in his twenties, entered the establishment armed with a shotgun.
He proceeded to take Wallace and another female employee, who was 24, hostage.
The assailant bound both women's hands and, after robbing them of approximately $30, he separated them. Wallace was taken into another room while her coworker was forced into a closet. The coworker managed to escape and could hear the sounds of a struggle and Wallace being struck. She fled to a neighboring tavern to get help. Several patrons from the tavern rushed to intervene, but their heroic efforts were met with gunfire. The suspect shot and wounded two of the individuals who tried to help before making his escape.
When authorities arrived, they discovered that Shirley Wallace had been stabbed to death. The suspect fled the scene in an older model red pickup truck with white trim, which witnesses said may have had out-of-state license plates. A composite sketch of the suspect was created based on witness descriptions, but despite these leads, no arrests were ever made in the case. The murder of Shirley Wallace remains an unsolved cold case, a chilling chapter in the history of Lane County.
