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The Fouad Kaady files

Story surrounding Fouad Kaady shooting materializes with phonebook-size stack of files from the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office.

By Marcus Hathcock

The Sandy Post, Aug 19, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

special to the / Sandy Post

Fouad Kaady

Part I: Peculiar behavior

While there is debate among witnesses and even Kaady’s friends over whether Kaady was on drugs or mentally disturbed or neither, many who testified agreed that the man was not acting like himself in the hours, days and even weeks before the events that led to his death.

Shortly after the Sept. 8 shooting, one of Kaady’s closest friends for two years, Sarah Maness of Portland, told police that Kaady had suffered from depression several weeks before the incident. “He’s been pissed at everything,” she noted.

Maness said she and friend Tarek Ibrahim had discussed how they were worried about Kaady. “He just wasn’t making sense, mentally,” she said. After she and Kaady had a minor falling out, Kaady told Maness not to call him for a month. She text-messaged his cell phone, to which he replied, “I told you not to call me for a month, so if you want to text back, I'll show you who evil fled is.”

Maness said she didn’t understand what “evil fled” meant, but she and Ibrahim felt trouble was coming. “We knew in our hearts that something was going to happen. We felt it.”

Kaady’s father, Rashid, said his son recently had broken up with a girlfriend, a woman known only as named Alexa from Colorado.

Cousin Thomas Oreste said Kaady had a lot of stress piling up on him, noting that if possible financial problems, possible girlfriend problems and maybe some other less-obvious problem piled up, it was possible Kaady was depressed.

A coworker, Mohammed Jamal, said Kaady had not acted strange in recent memory, just tired. Kaady’s sisters said he was happy overall with his life and the direction it was taking. Vania Kaady said her brother had just received his real estate license and was excited about selling real estate with his mother. The family also was eagerly anticipating a trip to Las Vegas for a cousin’s wedding. Kaady was scheduled to pick up his mother at the airport the evening of Sept. 8.

Despite the concern of friends weeks earlier, no bizarre behavior was reported until about 6:30 a.m. Sept. 8, when Kaady was spotted driving recklessly in the Mt. Hood Community College parking lot. Witnesses claimed he was doing 360-degree turns and burnouts in his pickup before campus security took notice of him.

Responding security officer Jefferson Potts said Kaady’s car had a strong smell of marijuana. When Potts approached Kaady to stop the vehicle from driving erratically in the parking lot, the pickup accelerated and drove over a 3-foot embankment. Potts said Kaady then drove along the top of the berm, proceeding eastbound on Stark before bottoming out on the edge of the pavement.

He was next spotted at his father’s Gresham home, wearing a suit. Rashid said his son’s behavior didn’t strike him as odd.

At about 9:47 a.m., Kaady bought two packs of cigarettes from the Hilton Haven drive-through tobacco store on 212th and Stark Street, a place he frequented.

According to clerk Rudd McGarity, Kaady wasn’t acting like himself. He overpaid for his cigarettes with a jar filled with change and was not interested in getting the additional cash back.

After paying, McGarity said, “He just looked at me a little frazzled.” He asked Kaady if he was OK, to which he replied, “No, I’m not OK.” McGarity said Kaady didn’t act like he was on drugs, but instead acted like “something major just happened to him, like he had the worst news of his life and had to go deal with it.” Kaady drove off without saying another word.

Nearly three hours later, Kaady was spotted at the parking lot for Rick’s Custom Fencing at the corner of 202nd and Stark.

James Blankenship of Rick’s Custom Fencing said he and some coworkers watched Kaady “fool around” in his pickup for about 10 minutes before taking off running, wearing only boxer shorts. “It was weird,” Blankenship recalled.

Dave Lee Lucky of neighboring Gresham Towing said some Rick’s employees told him Kaady had run off flailing his arms.

What happened next is at the heart of the debate over what caused the alleged hit-and-run accidents. Family members say Kaady’s pickup ran out of gas at Rick’s, a claim later substantiated by Gresham Towing.

Kaady, the family says, ran to his father’s house to get a gas can and returned to Rick’s to find his car had been towed. He then took his mother’s blue Buick LeSabre and the gas can to search for the tow lot in the Sandy area.

They said he ignited gasoline fumes coming from the can after he lit a cigarette in the car. The can burst open, setting him on fire and setting into motion a series of events that led to three collisions, a head injury and his death.

But Gresham Towing stated that Kaady’s truck was not towed from Rick’s parking lot until mid-morning Saturday, Sept. 10 — two days after Kaady died.

Part II: Collision course

According to the Kaady family, Fouad drove his mother’s car to find a Sandy-area lot where his pickup was towed from Rick’s Custom Fencing in Gresham.

The next person to see Kaady was Sandy resident Tiffany Stanko, who was on her way home from work, traveling on Bluff Road. As Stanko neared her home, she suddenly spotted the blue Buick LeSabre that Kaady was driving in her rear view mirror, coming up “really fast.”

She said the car hit the back of her vehicle and continued to push her forward at 70 miles per hour. Stanko said she tried to keep her car pointed straight while being pushed, but eventually she began to turn sideways, sending her into a nearby ditch at about 40 miles per hour.

Greg Elwell of Boring said he was stunned as he watched “the end of a horrible accident” in his rear view mirror. He sped up as he saw the LeSabre continue toward him in order to avoid a collision. Elwell said the hood of Kaady’s car was smashed up a couple feet, leaving only a few inches of windshield visibility.

After the LeSabre struck Elwell’s car, he hit his brakes in order to slow Kaady down, since Elwell believed the driver was unconscious. Before long, he said the LeSabre pulled away, and Kaady gave Elwell a “thumbs up” as he passed.

“He was out of control,” Elwell recalled, driving “completely crazy.”

Kaady’s family maintains that Fouad’s erratic driving was caused by a dangerous situation inside the car. They said his pickup had run out of gas before it was towed, and that he had brought a gasoline can from his parents’ house to refuel the vehicle. Kaady lost control of his vehicle when he accidentally ignited the gas can’s fumes with a lit cigarette.

Sheriff’s Detective Steve Hyson later reported that Kaady’s body had severe burns “about his upper torso, face, and into his scalp.” Sandy firefighter Brent Hergert said Kaady had burns from his mid-sternum up, which would have put the man’s health in “serious condition.”

But the Oregon State Police Arson Investigation Team found there was no evidence to indicate that the LeSabre’s fire had started from inside the car. They did not find any remnants of a metal or plastic gas can in the car.

In between the two collisions, Carol Vinnacombe said she saw Kaady pass her on Bluff Road.

“He grabbed onto (his) steering wheel and looked really intensely. It seemed to me his eyes were wide, like he just had this wild look on his face,” she told police.

Vinnacombe said she noticed smoke coming from the front of the car and underneath it but not from within it. She said she never saw flames.

Before crashing into a forested area on Bluff Road near Hauglum Road, Kaady’s car left a trail of three grass fires, which, according to Sandy Fire Captain Art Blaisdell, were about 30 square feet in size and were about 30 feet apart by the time fire crews arrived to extinguish them.

Fire Chief Gary McQueen said the fires were likely ignited because Kaady's car leaked fuel after the collision with Stanko.

After Kaady’s car came to an abrupt stop in the woods, Sandy resident Tamara Sedgwick said she got out of her car and yelled to find out if Kaady was okay. She said a voice then answered back something like, “I’m here. I’ve known you all my life.”

She said a man, later identified as Ronald Poirier, had gone into the woods to help Kaady but had come back after Kaady allegedly kicked him in the chest. After Poirier came out, Sedgwick said Kaady kept saying, “Yeah, come back in here. Come back in here; I’m hurt,” but not sincerely, in a “taunting” way.

“He was yelling, almost screaming,” she recalled. “It wasn’t the voice of somebody who was in desperation and dying; more smart allecky. He was definitely not acting normal.”

Witness Frayne Leigh McAtee of Edmonds, Wash., also said Kaady was screaming in the woods, like he was angry with someone.

Poirier, a surveyor working in the area, said he immediately ran into the woods to check on Kaady after seeing his car crash. He said he found the man standing in the wooded area, totally naked, about 25 to 30 yards away from the roadway.

He asked Kaady if he was okay, to which the man mimicked, “Are you okay?” in what Poirier said was a “sarcastic tone.” He said Kaady then ran at him, jumped up and kicked him hard in the center of his chest.

Poirier said he grabbed Kaady’s foot and spun him down the ground before running out of the woods. He too said Kaady called out after him, saying, “Come on, come on, anytime.”

Kaady’s family has alleged that Poirier had sought out Kaady after learning that he had caused the man’s niece, Stanko, to crash her car. According to Kaady’s cousin Zaki Kahl, Poirier came at Fouad with a bat and grabbed him. Kahl said Kaady kicked Poirier to defend himself.

Poirier said he had no knowledge of his niece’s wreck until coming home after the incident, and no knowledge of the accident’s connection to the naked man until hours later.

The group of people standing in front of the burning car told 9-1-1 operators that they heard what they thought was a gunshot from within the forest, but investigators never found a gun at the scene. McQueen said the sound likely came from the LeSabre’s tires exploding during the car fire.

Nearly a dozen people called to report the car fire and the various brush fires that had started to grow. Sandy Police Officer Bergin and Sheriff’s deputy Willard were among those sent to the fire scene to protect Sandy firefighters tasked with extinguishing the blazes. Bergin blocked the road with his patrol car. With reports of a naked, possibly armed man in the woods, Deputy Willard took out his shotgun to give firefighters cover had they needed it.

Meanwhile, after walking westward through the woods and the property of a nearby nursery, Kaady emerged on Southeast 362nd Avenue, bleeding and burned. He walked northbound on 362nd and quickly caught the attention of many in the area.

Sherri Markham saw Kaady after her dog started barking at the man. Markham said Kaady appeared to have a “normal gait,” and that there was nothing odd about him, other than the fact that he was naked and bloody.

The officers were advised that a state trooper had been flagged down by a woman who claimed a naked man was walking down Southeast 362nd Avenue. Bergin and Willard ran toward Bergin’s patrol vehicle. Willard hung on to his shotgun. The two headed north on Bluff Road as Kaady encountered more people on 362nd.

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