Erik Meiser is being held on charges of murder, robbery and burglary.
Fritz Hayes was killed at his Lake Oswego home on Sept. 17.LAKE OSWEGO, OR (KPTV) -
A week after Fritz Hayes was killed at his Lake Oswego home, exact details of his death have surfaced in an arrest warrant document released by the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office.
Hayes and his wife, Margaret, returned home from their morning walk Sept. 17 and found a man, later identified by police as Erik Meiser, armed with a machete in one hand and a knife in the other, Detective Eric Lee wrote in the affidavit. He was standing near the kitchen inside their home.
Margaret Hayes, who had entered the home first, screamed and ran out a rear door as her husband entered the home, the affidavit said. By the time she looped around the house, she found her husband bleeding near the driveway with Meiser nowhere to be seen, Lee wrote.
Fritz Hayes died in his wife's arms as she was on the phone with 911 dispatchers.
A machete found in a gravel driveway west of Hayes' home was seized as evidence, and criminalists later matched fingerprints on the machete to those of Meiser's, authorities said.
Though Meiser was arrested in Corvallis five days after Fritz Hayes was killed, police actually came in contact with the suspect far earlier.
In fact, three hours after the stabbing at Hayes' home, a Lake Oswego police officer made contact with Meiser at a TriMet bus stop at Southwest 22nd Avenue and Boones Ferry Road. Meiser gave the officer his name and told him he was from California or Colorado and was passing through the area. He appeared "nervous and out of place, and stated he was heading to Portland even though he was waiting at a bus stop which headed the opposite direction," the affidavit said.
The officer told Clackamas County deputies he thought Meiser's pants "didn't match his shirt and appeared odd or out of place." Meiser was not taken into custody that day.
Ultimately, detectives tracked down Meiser outside a Super 8 Motel in Corvallis on Saturday. They arrested him without incident.
Meiser faced a judge for the first time in Oregon on Monday, and faces charges of aggravated murder, burglary and robbery.
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