Washington County sheriff’s detectives tracked their suspect in a quintuple homicide by pinging his cellphone to a city nearly 200 miles away in Washington state.
Enumclaw Police Chief Tim Floyd said Washington County investigators contacted his department shortly after 5 p.m. Saturday, informing them that they had identified Benjamin C. Parker, 36, as a suspect in the killing of five people discovered earlier that day on a rural property outside Forest Grove.
Detectives believed Parker had stolen one of the victim’s vehicles — a Toyota 4Runner SUV — and traced his phone to Enumclaw, a 5.2-square-mile city of about 13,000 located roughly 190 miles north of the crime scene, Floyd said.
Police entered the SUV’s license plate into their Flock camera system and found that Parker had driven in and out of the city multiple times in the SUV, first arriving Saturday night, Floyd said. The last hit on the license plate suggested that he likely was still in the community, the chief said.
Patrol officers searched the area and found the vehicle parked on Dixon Road behind the town’s Safeway market around 5:45 p.m.
Because Washington County sheriff’s investigators warned the police that they suspected Parker was likely armed, Enumclaw police approached the SUV with ballistic shields and a drone. Officers quickly spotted a body inside the vehicle, surrounded it and called out to Parker to surrender.
When they received no response, officers approached, opened a door and found Parker face down and dead from a suspected suicide.
Officers found a small-caliber gun still in his hand, Floyd said. The chief said he did not know if that gun was used in the killings in Oregon.
Records indicate Parker had lived at the rural property on a hill along Northwest Otis Lane since August 2025 and was suspected of killing his girlfriend, 26-year-old Stella Jade Kimsey, her mother, grandmother, her best friend and her best friend’s partner, according to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.
Floyd, who said he knew the Washington County sheriff personally, shared his condolences with the Forest Grove community.
The Washington County Sheriff’s Office Monday afternoon identified the five people killed on the property: Mary Elizabeth Kimsey, 85, of Portland; Rowan Karla Kimsey, 60, and her daughter Stella; Stella’s best friend Linsey Mae Haraldsen, 26, of Portland, and her partner Alvin Raymond Chu, 27, of Portland.
Stella Kimsey lived with her mother, Rowan Kimsey on the property. Mary Kimsey was Stella’s grandmother.
Two cats and a dog were also found dead at the property. A third cat was euthanized due to injuries sustained, the sheriff’s office said.
Forest Grove firefighters were first called to 47350 N.W. Otis Lane at 5:27 a.m. Saturday on a report of a vehicle fire at the rural property in unincorporated Washington County.
Firefighters found a car on fire and then discovered at least one body with a gunshot wound to the head and duct tape around bodies.
After extinguishing the fire and alerting the Washington County sheriff’s office of the suspicious circumstances, firefighters backed out of the long, gravel driveway to the approximately 14-acre property.
The area is surrounded by hazelnut orchards and evergreen trees. Tractor-crossing warning signs are frequent along nearby roads.
Several area residents said they were thankful that someone spotted the vehicle fire and firefighters put it out before the blaze spread, worried that it could have ignited a wildfire.
Dwight Herb, a nearby resident, said a sheriff’s detective stopped by his home at the bottom of Otis Lane along Northwest Hillside Road on Saturday and urged him to keep his doors locked and be alert for any strangers on his property. Herb said he had noticed firetrucks and sheriff’s tactical vehicles rushing past and had wondered what was happening. He said a couple from the property where the bodies were found had helped him cut a tree down outside his home for firewood a year ago but otherwise he said he did not know them well.
Another resident, Karen Roe, said a detective also came to her home, asking if she had heard any screams or gunshots, but she had not.
“It’s very quiet out here and most of the people keep to themselves,” she said.
Another area property owner said sheriff’s detectives asked if he could check his home’s security camera footage to see if it caught anything unusual from about midnight to 5 a.m. on Saturday morning.
Devin Allys, 27, said they received a call from a Washington County sheriff’s detective about 10:30 a.m. Sunday, telling them there was concern about their ex-girlfriend, Stella Kimsey, whom they had dated for just over four years.
The detective asked Allys, who had previously lived on the Otis Lane property, what kind of cars were there, if Stella Kimsey worked, how long ago they lived there and the names of Stella’s mother and grandmother, Allys said.
Allys broke up with Stella Kimsey about three years ago, they said.
Stella Kimsey lived in a main house on the property, and her mother in a cabin down the hill from it at the time, according to Allys. Stella Kimsey’s father had died several years ago.
Allys said the mother drove a pickup truck for farm work on the property, and recalled sheep, chicken and goats at the location.
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