On the evening of May 7, 1981, 22-year-old paralegal Lori J. Cunningham was at the Oregon Museum Tavern on Front Street NE in Salem for a ladies’ night when a man entered and began shooting a 9mm Browning handgun at about 10:30 p.m. The shooter fired at the bar, then at fleeing patrons, reloading as he moved. Cunningham was fatally wounded and died at the scene.

Three other men also died: John W. Cooper and Robert E. Hamblin at the tavern, and Allen L. Wilcox, who died later that night at a hospital. Patrons stopped the attack after one struck the gunman with a pool cue and others overpowered and pinned him until police arrived. The shooter was identified as 25-year-old Lawrence William Moore, who was arrested at the scene.

Moore admitted being the gunman at his October 6, 1981 trial but pleaded innocent by reason of mental disease or defect, offering that he believed a syndicate was trying to poison him. The jury convicted him of four counts of aggravated murder and sentenced him to four life terms.