The Washington County Sheriff's Office said Sunday night that Benjamin Parker, the suspect in the Forest Grove quintuple homicide, was found dead inside his car in Enumclaw, Washington. Sheriff Caprice Massey said investigators believe Parker died by suicide, closing off the active search that had followed the discovery of five bodies on Saturday.
That search began after five people were found dead in a secluded home outside Forest Grove, Oregon, and firefighters responding to a vehicle fire on Northwest Otis Lane reported suspicious circumstances. Detective Shannon Wilde said the five were murdered, while Massey said detectives do not believe there is a danger to the public.
The case quickly drew attention because, even before Parker was found, the sheriff's office said no arrests had been made and detectives did not believe the deaths were a random act of violence. Wilde also said multiple dead domesticated animals were found at the scene, deepening the scale of the investigation at the rural property.
Authorities have not publicly identified the five victims, and they have not said what linked Parker to the home or to the people found dead there. The property sits in a rural area marked by vegetation, land, hills and forests, a setting that helps explain why investigators have treated it as a complicated scene rather than a routine homicide response.
Massey said the office has dedicated every available resource to the case and asked anyone with information about the residents of the property or their associates to call non-emergency dispatch at 503-629-0111 and reference case number 50-26-11866. With Parker dead and the victims still unnamed, the investigation has shifted from a manhunt to the harder question of how five people died inside a house that had already raised alarms before officers arrived.
