Zachary Hackman jogged down the Seaside beach, scooping up sand dollars and tossing them into the waves on a vacation with his girlfriend’s family in October 2022.
It didn’t appear Hackman had a care in the world during those days of s’mores, hot dogs and ice cream, but family members said they returned from Seaside only to learn that the 22-year-old had killed James Harris — his girlfriend’s father — the day before the vacation began.
Harris was found dead in a sleeping bag that had been dumped 20 feet off Northeast Marine Drive in heavy brush. Harris, 54, had been killed on Oct. 4, 2022, with a hammer blow to the head and had also been strangled with a dog leash, according to autopsy reports.
Hackman had been living for months with Harris’ daughter at Harris’ southeast Portland home, family members said.
“He stole something that cannot be replaced,” Donna Harris, Harris’ sister, said Monday at Hackman’s sentencing.
Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Jenna Plank sentenced Hackman, now 24, to 19 years in state prison after he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and abuse of corpse under the terms of a deal with prosecutors.
Surveillance footage from nearby businesses showed Hackman drapping a towel over the kitchen window of the Harris home in the Montavilla neighborhood on the day of the murder, according to an affidavit written earlier by prosecutors.
The videos showed Hackman and his girlfriend, LoraJean Harris, loading a very large plastic container from the house into her Dodge Charger, the affidavit said.
Hackman, who went by the name Zack Call, was confronted by detectives Oct. 13 but said he didn’t remember anything out-of-the-ordinary before James Harris’ disappearance, according to the affidavit.
LoraJean Harris told detectives she’d just gotten back from an out-of-town concert when Hackman asked for her help cleaning up some trash and only told her after the fact that she had helped him dump her father’s body, the affidavit said.
The couple then extensively cleaned the house, but criminalists still found trace amounts of blood on the walls and ceilings, according to the affidavit written by Senior Deputy District Attorney Kevin Demer.
LoraJean Harris was never charged in the case and watched the sentencing hearing remotely. She told police she was afraid of Hackman and was forced to help conceal his crime, according to the affidavit.
Hackman didn’t make a statement during the hearing and LoraJean Harris said he never disclosed a motive. His defense attorney said Hackman would write a letter to the family answering their questions — though many in the courtroom gallery said they were still in shock at Hackman’s deception.
Family members recalled James Harris as an all-around handyman with a “MacGuyver” talent for fixing cars and a passion and creativity for landscaping. In his youth, Harris had found great success as a car salesman and could have started his own landscaping company, but a chronic spinal injury left him out of work for years, they said.
Kathryn Pyland recalled how her uncle once fixed a spark plug with a speaker wire and was known for rescuing anyone who was stranded with car trouble.
“He preferred it to be midnight and a blizzard. He would drop everything to come save us,” she said.
As for Hackman, his troubled childhood was no excuse, Pyland said, and only one punishment was fitting: “a dark room with a mirror that he can’t look away from.”
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