Dustin Louis Childress, a 40-year-old White man, was shot to death on March 14, 2017, during a deadly encounter on a secluded rural property near Beavercreek, Oregon. Childress, whose last known address was reported in Molalla, was killed alongside Thomas Lee Hegar Jr. The two men had been dropped off by two women at approximately 10 a.m. near privately owned, heavily wooded land in the 19200 block of South Upper Highland Road. Investigators later said Childress and Hegar entered the property without the owner's permission, although authorities did not publicly establish why they had gone there.
Only about 15 minutes after being dropped off, Childress telephoned one of the women and said someone was shooting at them. He reported that Hegar had already been wounded and indicated that the men were trying to escape while gunfire continued. The call provided a chilling glimpse of their final moments, but emergency services were not contacted immediately. Approximately eight hours passed before the women called 911, after they returned to the area, searched for the men and were unable to find them.
Clackamas County sheriff's deputies arrived shortly before 6 p.m. and began investigating the property, which belonged to Robert John Hilands. Near the front gate, roughly 40 feet from the road, deputies discovered the bodies of Childress and Hegar concealed from view. The county medical examiner determined that both had died from gunshot wounds. The placement of the bodies and the long delay between the shooting and their discovery intensified investigators' suspicions that the deaths involved more than a spontaneous confrontation over trespassing.
Detectives interviewed Hilands, who reportedly admitted shooting both men and hiding their bodies near the entrance to his land. Hilands claimed that Childress and Hegar had repeatedly trespassed on the property, but investigators and the victims' relatives questioned why he had not called law enforcement to remove them. Authorities arrested Hilands on March 15, the day after the killings. He was initially booked into the Clackamas County Jail on aggravated-murder and weapons charges and was held without bail. A grand jury later indicted him on four counts of aggravated murder and two counts of unlawful use of a firearm in connection with the two deaths.
The prosecution moved slowly because of serious questions about Hilands' mental condition and his ability to participate in his defense. In 2019, a judge found him unfit to stand trial because of mental illness and ordered him committed to the Oregon State Hospital for treatment. The case remained unresolved in the conventional court system for several more years while doctors and attorneys addressed his competency and psychiatric condition.
In May 2023, the criminal proceedings concluded when Hilands was found guilty except for insanity for killing Childress and Hegar. That finding established that he had committed the homicides but was not considered criminally responsible in the same manner as a defendant found ordinarily guilty because of his mental condition at the time of the crimes. He was sentenced to life in the custody of the Oregon State Hospital rather than being sent to a traditional state prison. The ruling brought legal closure to a case that had begun with a frantic telephone call, two concealed bodies at a rural gate and an immediate confession, but had remained in the courts for more than six years because of the killer's mental illness.
