WENDY JANE HENSON
July 19, 2018
TUALATIN, Ore. — Tualatin police identified a 74-year-old woman found dead in her home Thursday as Wendy Jane Henson.
Police say Henson was the victim of an assault and later died from her injuries.
The suspect is her 47-year-old son Garth Beams.
Police say Henson and Beams lived together in the 20000 block of Southwest 72nd Avenue.
Officers found Henson in her home around 4:15 p.m. Thursday. She died after being taken to OHSU.
Next door neighbor Andria Fultz got home just before police in protective gear with weapons drawn arrived at the scene Thursday afternoon.
“And I noticed all of a sudden that there were police in like riot gear very quietly coming down the street with all of their shields, and I was like ‘something wrong,” said Fultz, “And I saw them go into Wendy’s house and I figured there had been some type of incident. I know that she and I had talked previously about having children that have mental illness.”
Court records show Henson became conservator for her son in 1995. Those records don’t show the reason.
Records also show Beams’ arrest on federal bank robbery charges in 1998.
Fultz believes Beams’ mental health issues played a role in the 1998 bank robbery and the events that led to his mother’s murder.
Fultz also says Henson cared for her son because there was nowhere else for him to live, even though Henson knew her son could be unpredictably dangerous.
“And it shouldn’t be,” said Fultz. “It really shouldn’t be. And so, I’m just — it’s just sad.”
Beams was taken to the Washington County Jail where he faces a murder charge.