The man who gunned down six people outside of a Klamath Falls nightclub in 1977 in one of the state’s largest mass killings died in an eastern Oregon prison Sunday, corrections officials announced.
Dewitt C. Henry, 75, was serving a life sentence for the notorious crime. He died at Snake River Correctional Institution. The agency does not release the cause of death for prisoners.
Henry entered the state prison system nearly 47 years ago. According to The Oregonian’s reporting at the time, Henry, then 26 and an unemployed truck driver, opened fire outside a bar called Uncle Albert’s Restaurant and Bar, killing a half-dozen people in their 20s. A pregnant woman was among the victims.
Henry got into a shootout with police but was quickly arrested. The shooting occurred in the early morning hours of July 24. The victims were: Gary Anderson, 27, of Klamath Falls; Carrol Seater, 23, of Klamath Falls; Andrew Walker, 22, of Medford; James Trueman, 25, of Kodiak, Alaska; Michael Mortenson, 23, of Klamath Falls; and Robert Seater, 26, of Klamath Falls.
The Oregonian reported that Henry had been asked to leave the bar after two fights and killed the victims with a semiautomatic rifle. The Oregon Journal reported then that most of the victims knew one another; two were commercial fishermen. A mass funeral was held for the victims, according to the newspaper.
“All were at the wrong place at the wrong time,” the Journal reported.
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