UPDATE: I-5 shooter in Ashland had mental health issues, family says

A man shot and killed a cook Saturday morning at a well-known Ashland lodge, an apparent random attack that ended with the suspect firing shots at Interstate 5 traffic before a pickup hit and killed him.

The suspected gunman did not know 40-year-old cook Ryan Bagley, said Jackson County sheriff's officials and Donna Bergquist, co-owner of Callahan's Lodge, where the killing took place. Bergquist said another lodge employee entered the kitchen Saturday and found Bagley on the floor in a pool of blood.

The suspect, whose name could not be obtained Saturday evening, left in Bagley's vehicle after taking his car keys, said Bergquist, who said law enforcement officials also told her they did not believe Bagley knew his assailant. The suspect may have seen Bagley enter the lodge for his morning shift, between 6:30 and 6:45 a.m., she said.

The suspect connected to the homicide was killed when he was run over by a pickup while firing shots at vehicles on Interstate 5, the Jackson County Sheriff's Office said in a news release. A man in an older model maroon Subaru Legacy stopped on I-5, got out of the vehicle and began firing at other vehicles in the southbound lane near milepost 1, just north of the Oregon-California border, officials said. He was subsequently struck and killed by a gray pickup truck.

Deputies and Oregon State Police officers found the man dead on the highway with a gun on the ground nearby, sheriff's officials said.

The suspect parked his car diagonally along the freeway, exited and shot at oncoming cars, sheriff's officials said. The man was run over by a car he shot at shortly before 7 a.m. The driver called 911 and reported he had hit a man who was firing at his car, officials said.

A state police public information officer referred questions from The Oregonian/OregonLive to the Jackson County Sheriff's Office, which earlier Saturday confirmed a homicide at the lodge.

Motorists called 911 at 7:30 a.m. to report a man firing shots at vehicles. Southbound I-5 was closed at milepost 6 for hours Saturday as police investigated.

Detectives are investigating the shootings and ask that drivers who saw the suspect on I-5 call (541) 774-6800.

According to Bergquist, the incident unfolded like this:

Her husband, Ron Bergquist, left the couple's living quarters within the lodge at around 5:30 a.m. Saturday to pick up a newspaper at the front desk.

There, he encountered a stranger "who was using the phone at our front desk who said he was needing gas. That's what he said," Donna Bergquist said in a phone interview Saturday. "Ron didn't think a lot of it. In fact, he thought he might be one of our guests."

"He picked up his paper and went back to his quarters," she said.

"The next we knew of it was our front desk person had come into the kitchen and turned on the light and put on coffee and noticed our employee on the floor in a pool of blood."

She said the hotel then called 911.

"The (gunman) clearly wanted – had seen our employee come into the lodge and when he went to the kitchen his goal was to get our employee's keys," Donna Bergquist said. "He drove (the employee's) car down the highway."

Jackson County sheriff's officials confirmed in a news release that the suspect took Bagley's car and drove it down I-5.

Bagley, the father of three children, had been working at the lodge since June. "A great employee, great employee. He did a beautiful job," she said, adding that Bagley's parents, who live in a northern California community about 40 miles south of Ashland, visited the lodge on Saturday after being notified of the killing.

Donna Bergquist said she and her husband have owned the lodge, located east of Mount Ashland and just 400 feet off the Pacific Crest Trail, for 22 years.

She said her husband is aware that he encountered a suspected killer Saturday morning.

"He is. Very. We know that," she said.

--Allan Brettman

503-294-5900

@allanbrettman