Wehrman Murders

On Wednesday, 6 September 1911, in a small and isolated community four miles Northwest of Scappoose, the bodies of thirty-five-year-old Daisy Wehrman and her four-year-old son Harold were found bludgeoned and shot to death in their home.  Law enforcement investigators were diligent, but were hampered by lack of hard evidence, a social discord within the community, and the withholding of information. The area in which the crimes occurred was variously referred to as either Apple Valley or Schnitzerville.

The victims were lying on a bed, and both had been shot three times in the head at close range with a .38 caliber Colt revolver. Both had been struck in the head with a hatchet—Harold had a deep wound from the blade, and there was a depression in Daisy’s skull as though she had been struck with the blunt edge.  Harold was lying on his stomach and his head was resting on his mother’s arm. Daisy was lying on her back, her lower body was exposed, and her under garments had been removed.

The complex case against a tent-dwelling neighbor, John A. Pender, first resulted in a hung jury.  A retrial concluded with a conviction and a February 1914 sentence of death by hanging. There were many voices decrying the conviction in the highly publicized case, and in November 1914, Pender's sentence was commuted by Governor Oswald West.  In January 1915 John Sierks, son of another neighbor of the victims, confessed while in the Oregon State Insane Asylum. Three days later he recanted his confession. Pender was unconditionally pardoned by Governor Ben W. Olcott on September 11, 1920.

Except for a brush with the law in which he was arrested and later released on a charge of minor theft, Pender kept out of trouble for seven years. But in late October 1927 his luck ran out after he made a series of four phone calls in response to a fifteen-year-old girl’s ad for employment as a nursemaid. Using an alias, he told the girl that he needed help in looking after his young son. But when the girl would arrive at an agreed meeting place, each time accompanied by a family chaperone, Pender would not show up. After he called the fourth time and arranged a meeting, the teenager’s father went to the Portland Police. A trap was set wherein the girl would meet alone with Pender, and the pair would then be followed by three police officers. On the pretense that his house was only a short walking distance, Pender and the girl left on foot; the police were close behind. Pender led the girl several blocks to a brushy area where she began screaming when he thrust her to the ground and put his hands around her neck.

The officers rushed to the scene and arrested Pender on the spot. In his possession were “a machinist’s hammer, a knife, and an 52 imitation gun.

Former Governor West, who had commuted Pender’s sentence from death to life in prison in 1914, later stated:  "I was mistaken in my judgment. I regret the matter greatly and feel now that hanging would have been too good for him. At the time, I thought my judgment was sound, but in the light of recent events I now think it was rotten. There now is no question in my mind but that Pender was guilty of the other crime [Wehrmans].  It has been shown just what type of man he is, and that type always runs true to form."

Pender was sentenced to life in prison, and sent to the state penitentiary in December 1927.  He died in prison in November 1950, taking with him the truth about whether or not he had killed Daisy and Harold  Wehrman.