CANBY, Ore. – A man killed 4 people, including his infant daughter, inside his home before being fatally shot by Clackamas County deputies late Saturday night.
The sounds from a 911 call around 10:15 p.m. “were dramatic, very intense,” Clackamas County Sgt. Brian Jensen said Sunday morning. “Deputies knew it was going to be a bad scene.”
Jensen said when they arrived, one person was found dead outside the home in the 32000 block of South Barlow Road. Screams were coming from inside the house.
At that time, “the suspect was in the process of killing a child,” Jensen said. Deputies then shot the suspect to death “and saved the child.”
The victims and suspect, all residents of Woodburn, were identified as:
> 9-month-old Olivia Lynn Rose Gago
> 31-year-old Shaina E. Sweitzer
> 64-year-old Pamela Denise Bremer
> 66-year-old Jerry William Bremer
The suspect, Mark Leo Gregory Gago, was 42.
Two people survived — the child and an adult woman, Jensen said. They were taken to the hospital in an ambulance with undisclosed injuries.
Neighbor Alice Burch told KOIN 6 News the surviving adult woman said those who died are Gago’s daughter, mother, stepfather and girlfriend. She said one of the weapons used was an axe.
“It was like an ax with a hammerhead on it, a long-handled type hatchet hammer,” Burch said. “He started whaling on her with whatever he was using.”
Authorities have not confirmed that and are still investigating.
“It was not a gun,” Jensen said. “There are numerous weapons around the house that can be used as weapons, so investigators are trying to figure out exactly what it is that he used to kill 4 people.”
A neighbor told KOIN 6 News the surviving woman was a friend from high school who was staying at the Gago house. She said Gago came at her with an axe but missed and hit the bunk bed she was in, the neighbor said.
She yelled loudly inside the house and nobody responded and she thought everyone was dead, according to the neighbor who asked not to be identified.
“Obviously a very traumatic experience for her, she was pretty dazed,” the neighbor said. “She kept making comments like that it seemed like a dream.”
Officers and deputies often see brutal scenes, but Jensen said he “cannot explain just how horrific it is inside” the house.
Court documents out of Marion County show Mark Gago had been wanted for not paying child support. His last payment had been made in January 2015. He had a March 25, 2019, hearing scheduled for contempt of court.
The Associated Press reports Gago had been arrested in August 2018 for unlawful possession of a weapon.
KOIN
