Document text
A Eugene-area man who died in a motorcycle crash Saturday in Gold Hill was a schizophrenic declared legally insane in 2004 when he thought he was working for the CIA and slashed the throat of a 79-year-old Gold Hill neighbor and dumped his body in the Rogue River. Gary Patrick Hansen, 58, was committed to the Oregon State Hospital in 2006 after he was found guilty except for insanity in the murder of neighbor Richard E. Clearwater, court records show. Hansen had been living in the Eugene area in residential treatment facilities under state supervision since at least October 2012, court documents state. Hansen was driving a 2017 Harley-Davidson north on Second Avenue in Gold Hill shortly after 9 p.m. Saturday when, for unknown reasons, the motorcycle veered off the pavement and hit the gravel shoulder, according to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office. Hansen crashed, his motorcycle coming to rest about 50 yards from where it left the roadway, deputies said. Hansen, who was wearing a helmet that came off during the crash, was pronounced dead at the scene, deputies said. It was unknown whether intoxicants played a role in the crash, and toxicology analyses that are standard in such crashes will be completed, deputies said. Hansen and Clearwater both lived in the 3000 block of Rogue River Highway in December 2004 when Hansen mistakenly believed that Clearwater was a sex offender who should be killed to protect children in the neighborhood, according to prosecutors during Hansen’s October 2006 sentencing. Prosecutors said Hansen told investigators that he punched Clearwater in the head and slashed his throat with a pocket knife in broad daylight, then covered Clearwater’s body and placed it inside a trailered boat parked on Clearwater’s property. Hansen told investigators that he was surprised to find the body still there a day later because he thought a CIA recovery team “was going to take care of the details,” then-prosecutor Tim Barnack, who is now a judge, said during the sentencing hearing. Hansen then placed Clearwater’s body in a wheelbarrow and dumped it in the Rogue River that night. The body was recovered from the river two days later, and Hansen was arrested later that day, according to Mail Tribune accounts of the case. Hansen was committed to the state hospital, then granted conditional release to a residential treatment facility Oct. 3, 2012, court records show. Records state that Hansen’s release conditions were modified at least as recently as January 2014, but details of those records remain sealed. Reach Mail Tribune reporter Mark Freeman at 541-776-4470 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MTwriterFreeman .