On July 23, 1995, 50-year-old transient James E. McLean was found murdered inside the plywood shack he occupied at a homeless encampment beside the railroad tracks near the Albany waterfront in Albany, Oregon. He had been stabbed repeatedly, struck about the head with a modified axe handle known as a goon stick, and robbed of his boots and wallet. Investigators fixed the death to the early-morning hours and noted drag marks and blood spatter consistent with a sudden, close-quarters attack aimed at quick theft.

Witnesses described McLean as a soft-spoken rail rider known as J.C., who supported himself by collecting recyclables and social-service vouchers. The shack was on the former municipal landfill later called the Albany Bulb, a site where unhoused people built makeshift shelters and where transient rail riders often stopped. Detectives linked the pattern of wounds, weapon, and theft to a series of rail-corridor killings and identified 36-year-old drifter Robert Joseph Silveria Jr. as a suspect. Silveria told investigators he followed McLean to the shack, stabbed him, beat him with the goon stick, and stole cash to fund rail travel; he later pleaded to state charges and received consecutive life terms for McLean’s murder and at least one other Oregon homicide.

Anyone who knew McLean, who called himself J.C., or who saw strangers near the Albany Bulb in July 1995 is asked to share what they remember.