William Earl Gilbert, 81, a White male, died in Corvallis, Oregon, on March 12, 2024. Funeral notices published by McHenry Funeral Home and carried on Legacy confirm his full name, age, date of death, and city, noting simply that he died in Corvallis and that McHenry handled arrangements.
The public record that most directly names him—his obituary—does not describe a crime, injury, or other suspicious circumstance surrounding his death.
It frames his passing in personal, biographical terms and provides memorial details rather than investigative information, which is typical of non-criminal deaths.
Open-source checks of local law-enforcement communications also yield no police press release or daily log entry naming Gilbert as the subject of a homicide investigation in Corvallis or Benton County for that date. Neither the Corvallis Police Department’s rolling activity logs nor the Benton County Sheriff’s daily logs present a case matching his name or particulars, and there are no local media reports of an 81-year-old man named William Gilbert being killed in Corvallis on March 12, 2024. Accordingly, there have been no publicly announced arrests, suspects, or charges connected to his death.
One third-party aggregator that catalogs fatal shootings lists a “William Gilbert” under Corvallis with the same date. However, that listing stands alone without a police bulletin, news article, or medical examiner report backing a homicide classification, and it conflicts with the primary obituary record referenced above. In the absence of corroborating official or journalistic sources, the obituary remains the most reliable public account of Gilbert’s death.
