In the early morning hours of April 14, 2018, a violent confrontation erupted in the parking lot of Bar Fly in Salem, Oregon, forever altering the lives of several families. Amid the chaos, 24-year-old Tobias Helms-Reese, a male of mixed race, was fatally shot. The incident, which took place around 2:30 a.m., also claimed the life of 21-year-old Tyler Longacre and left a third man injured.
Deputies from the Marion County Sheriff's Office were called to the scene where they discovered two
men with gunshot wounds. Both were transported to a local hospital, where Helms-Reese succumbed to his injuries. The other man remained in stable condition. A short time later, Longacre was found deceased in a nearby parking lot. Autopsies later confirmed that both Helms-Reese and Longacre died from gunshot wounds. Friends and family remembered Helms-Reese as an amazing father to his 3-year-old son, with a goal of sending him to college.
The investigation into the double homicide led to several arrests. The night of the shooting, Cain G. Thompson and Santano G. Sauseda were taken into custody. A week later, Elijah Watterson was apprehended in California. These individuals, along with Christopher M. Mendoza who was arrested later, faced charges including riot and possessing a firearm as a felon. Thompson, Sauseda, and Mendoza all pleaded guilty or no contest to riot charges and received sentences ranging from jail time to probation. Watterson pleaded guilty to attempted aggravated murder and other charges, resulting in a 20-year prison sentence.
In January 2019, Lucias R. Harris was arrested in Georgia in connection with the shootings. Following a retrial, a jury found Harris guilty of the second-degree murder of Tyler Longacre, and he was sentenced to life in prison. Despite the multiple arrests and convictions related to the incident at Bar Fly, as of late 2023, no one had been specifically charged with the murder of Tobias Helms-Reese. The investigation into his death remains a painful open chapter for his loved ones.
