On January 27, 2016, 44-year-old Thadd Nelson was shot and killed in the driveway of his home near Meacham, Oregon, on the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Nelson, a general contractor described as outgoing and charismatic, had returned home and found someone attempting to steal one of his vehicles; what followed resulted in his death from gunshot wounds. A woman who was with Nelson that night escaped unharmed.

Within hours three men were arrested: Joseph Aaron McIver, Edward Duarte Ayala, and Armando Vargas, with a fourth, Nicholas Benjamin Jones, later implicated. Investigators say five people had driven from Hermiston to Nelson’s residence carrying at least six loaded firearms, and two different weapons were used to kill him. A gun tied to the homicide was later found by a Department of Transportation employee near Old Highway 30.

The case produced both federal and state prosecutions. Ayala pleaded guilty to manslaughter and conspiracy to commit burglary and received a 16-year state term to run concurrently with a 20-year federal sentence for gun crimes. McIver and Vargas also entered plea agreements; Jones was charged with weapons offenses. Did anyone in the area remember unusual activity near Meacham around late January 2016 or see the group traveling from Hermiston?