Authorities say a 42-year-old man killed four members of his family Saturday night near Woodburn. The massacre reflects the persistent tragedy of domestic violence, which proves deadly for dozens of people in the Pacific Northwest every year.
Oregon recorded 32 domestic violence deaths in 21 incidents in 2017, according to the latest state data. Another 37 were killed in 2016.
Incidents on the scale of Saturday’s tragedy are infrequent but devastating. Here’s a look at the recent history of such killings in Oregon and Southwest Washington.
January 2019: Authorities say Mark Leo Gregory Gago killed his girlfriend, their infant daughter, his mother and his stepfather at their home north of Woodburn. Sheriff’s deputies say they shot Gago as he was attacking an 8-year-old girl.
March 2018: Authorities believe a Southwest Washington woman, Jennifer Hart, intentionally drove a sports utility vehicle off a cliff into the Pacific Ocean in northern California. The dead included her wife, Sarah Hart, and six children.
November 2017: Kevin Adams, 16, is charged in the shooting deaths of his 10-year-old sister, foster mother and 26-year-old foster sister. He is being tried as an adult in Douglas County.
April 2017: Gresham police officers opened fire on Jaime Cortinas after locating him and his daughters inside an SUV in response to a domestic violence call. Police discovered the family dead. An autopsy showed Cortinas shot and killed the girls, ages 8 and 11, then himself.
January 2017: A Marion County man, Keith Kroeker, killed his wife and three children before killing himself.
October 2016: Lakalo Enfield shot and killed himself after killing his 8-year-old daughter and 6-year old son in their Beaverton apartment. Their mother, who was not shot, ran to a nearby apartment to get help after the shooting.
July 2012: Randall Engels shot and killed his estranged wife, 13-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son before fatally shooting himself in his Dundee home.
May 2012: Police believe Nikolay Lazukin killed a stranger before returning to his family’s home in Salem and killing his wife and three daughters, ages 4 months, 1 and 3. He then set fire to the home and shot and killed himself.
July 2011: Jordan Adam Criado of Medford killed his wife and four young children. He was sentenced to life in prison, without parole.
April 2011: Tuan Dao of Vancouver, distraught about his bankruptcy and failed marriage, set an Easter morning house fire that killed him and five of his children. Dao's wife Lori and their 13-year-old daughter were not in the home during the fire.
November 2009: Steve England shot and killed his wife, Cindy, and her son, Kevin Coleman, 28, and then killed himself at their Forest Grove home.
November 2009: Mukesh Suthar, unemployed after being laid off from Intel, killed his wife, Varsha, and their son, Ronak, 9, then himself in their Bethany home.
November 2009: Ceantwaun Barr shot and killed his estranged girlfriend Tameka Medina and their 4-year-old sone, Ashawn, before killing himself in Portland. Their older daughter, in school that day, was spared.
September 2007: Ruby Kuca, 5, was killed by her parents, John and Luray Kuca, when they committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in a sealed bedroom of their Portland home.
March 2006: Somkhilth Soulinho, 31, shot and killed his girlfriend, Soupaphane Homsombath, 24, her 8-year-old son, Lionel Homsombath and stabbed her 5-year-old daughter, Leana Homsombath. He then shot himself.
June 2004: Charlene A. Dorcy, of Hazel Dell, shot and killed her daughters Brittney, 2, and Jessica, 4, in Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Dorcy turned herself in that night.
December 2002: Edward Paul Morris of Portland killed his 31-year-old pregnant wife Renee and their children, 10-year-old Bryant, 8-year-old Alexis and 4-year-old Jonathan. He left their bodies in the Tillamook State Forest. Morris is serving a life sentence in Snake River Correctional Institution.
March 2002: Robert Bryant, his wife, Janet Ellen Bryant, and their four children are fatally shot in their McMinnville-area home. Police think Robert Bryant killed them in February before killing himself with a shotgun.
December 2001: Christian Longo killed his wife, MaryJane, and her three children, and dumped the bodies in coastal inlets in Waldport and Newport between Dec. 19 and Dec. 27. Longo is later arrested in Mexico and sentenced to death for the slayings.
September 1995: David Whitson, 36, of Issaquah, Washington, shot and killed his 36-year-old estranged wife, Laura, and their three young daughters as they tried to run from him in Scotts Mills. Less than a year later, Whitson, hanged himself while in prison.
January 1992: Seng Chow Saechao, 31, a Laotian refugee, poisoned herself and her three young children in Portland. Two of the children died after drinking a concentrated solution of the pesticide diazinon. Saechao was sentenced to three years in prison for manslaughter and attempted manslaughter.
Nov. 20, 1983: Robert Galloway of Portland fatally shot his wife, Mary Lou, their four children, the family dog and then himself in their Southwest Portland home. The parents were partners in J&J Remodeling Co.
-- Based on information compiled by Oregonian reporter Molly Young and news researcher Lynne Palombo