oregonlive.com
Portland woman found dead after telling police she feared for her life
By Nicole Hayden | The Oregonian/OregonLive
A Portland woman who told police less than two weeks ago that she feared she would be harmed by the man who shot her boyfriend in early March
was found dead Sunday.
The
suspected gunman had come uninvited into Kim Lambright’s tent in a Southwest Portland homeless encampment, placed his handgun near her and threatened he would shoot her if she helped police investigate the shooting that required her boyfriend to undergo emergency surgery, she told police. Lambright was terrified for hours, she told an officer March 17.
Eleven days later, Lambright, 53, was found shot to death at the homeless encampment at Southwest Barbur Boulevard and Capitol Highway near the Hillsdale and South Portland neighborhoods, Portland Police said in a statement.
Police have not named a suspect in the fatal shooting.
But hours after Lambright’s death, the Portland Police Bureau asked the public for help locating Noah Charles Smith, 34, whom prosecutors charged with attempted murder and first-degree assault in the non-fatal shooting of Lambright’s boyfriend in the same camp where she was found dead. Police have not confirmed if the two shootings, which occurred three weeks apart, are related.
On the evening of March 7, Christopher Barrett, 39, was alone in the tent where he and Lambright lived when someone fired two bullets through the nylon walls, hitting him in the leg and the abdomen. Inside the green domed tent covered in a blue tarp and white canopy, Barrett lay in a pool of blood.
About 15 minutes later, around 8:30 p.m., Lambright came home after running errands. She found Barrett moaning in pain. Lambright called police and led responders down an access road to the wooded area where the two camped. Barrett was transported to the hospital for emergency surgery and survived.
In the minutes before the shooting, Barrett told police he heard Smith, whom he and others in the homeless community knew as Ody, outside of his tent ask in his distinctive voice, “Where’s Kim?” Barrett responded through the thin tent walls that he didn’t know where she was. Seconds later, he was shot, he told police.
A neighbor later told police he saw Smith with a gun at the encampment before the shooting. Nearly an hour later, that witness heard two gunshots but never looked outside his tent to see who fired the gun.
About a month before the initial shooting, Smith threatened Lambright at her tent by pointing a gun at her from what she estimated was 15 feet away. Lambright said she believed that threat was a response to her having gone to Smith’s tent to ask about a friend’s stolen bicycle he might have seen, because he repaired bikes. She told police Smith misinterpreted that as accusing him of stealing the bike, according to court documents.
As Barrett recovered from the gun wounds at the hospital, Lambright spent days sleeping and camping in solitude, without the protection that a home with a locked door brings. On March 17, Lambright was alone when Smith unzipped her tent and crawled in to sit next to her, setting a handgun down between them.
“Lambright was certain Smith was going to kill her,” court documents state.
Smith was upset because he believed Lambright told police that he had shot her boyfriend. Smith then told her he had to shoot Barrett because he believed Barrett was homosexual and that Barrett wanted to engage in sexual relations with him. Smith told her he didn’t want people to think he was also gay, according to the court filing.
“Smith insisted to Lambright that he had no choice but to shoot Barrett,” according to police.
Lambright told police she played along and agreed with what Smith said out of fear he would kill her or sexually assault her if she didn’t – he was touching her thigh in a way that made her feel uncomfortable. She lied to him, asking him why he didn’t tell her earlier that her boyfriend was gay and agreeing Smith had to shoot him.
Smith put away the gun but took Lambright’s phone because he didn’t want her talking to police. Smith eventually left, leaving Lambright “terrified.”
For hours, she sat inside of her tent, frozen in fear. She now had no way to immediately call for help. Eventually, Lambright walked to a nearby Safeway to use the customer service phone to call police. She informed police that she still wanted to help with their investigation but asked they not call her cellphone because she believed “Smith will kill her if he finds out she is helping the police with this investigation,” the report read. She told police she would feel safe staying with a friend that night.
Crime victims in Oregon have a constitutional right to protection that requires responders to work with victims to determine what is best for that individual, said Meg Garvin, director of the National Crime Victim Law Institute at Lewis & Clark Law School.
Police made repeated offers to Lambright for services including housing alternatives to provide a safe place for her to stay, said Portland Police Lt. Greg Pashley.
“Unfortunately, she refused those offers,” Pashley said.
Sometimes offers of housing or mass shelter can seem daunting to some individuals who have lived in an encampment for an extended period of time, advocates say. Some people feel they are unsafe in other ways at a shelter.
“I wish we could develop a protocol for people who are victims of assault or witnesses to a crime where we could move them to a safer location that feels safe to them,” said Raven Drake, an outreach worker for Street Roots, a homeless advocacy organization. “Honestly, retaliation from people can be quite brutal and there is this mentality among the streets that regardless of how it happened, when you tell on someone you become a snitch.”
Drake, who was assaulted when she previously experienced homelessness in Portland, said afterward she felt largely powerless and spent months afraid each night that the person who assaulted her would return. She said the threat to women living on the street is very high.
“But for me, as a trans woman, when I went to a women’s shelter for one night, I didn’t feel accepted there so I didn’t stay,” she said, adding that the alternative housing offered for victims or witnesses should be tailored to each person’s need.
Noah Smith, 34, is suspected in a March 7 shooting near Barbur Boulevard and Capitol Highway.Multnomah County Sheriff's Office
Since the incident, police have made several attempts to locate and arrest Smith but have been unsuccessful. A judge signed a warrant Smith’s arrest on March 23. He is 5 feet 5 inches tall and weights 150 pounds. He has light-colored hair, a receding hairline and close-set eyes.
If anyone has information about the incident, they can contact Detective William Winters at
William.Winters@portlandoregon.gov or by calling 503-823-0466 or Detective Scott Broughton at
Scott.Broughton@portlandoregon.gov or by calling 503-823-3774.
Nicole Hayden reports on homelessness for The Oregonian. She can be reached at nhayden@oregonian.com or on Twitter @Nicole_A_Hayden.
