Running was convicted in 2000 in the love-triangle shotgun slayings of Jacqueline J. Anderson, whom he had dated, and Barbara J. Barb, her sometime lover, in the Ambassador Restaurant and Lounge on Northeast Sandy Boulevard. At trial, Running's attorneys argued that he killed the two women during a psychotic breakdown fueled by alcohol abuse and feelings of abandonment stemming from his adoption.
,,, come outside right now, you fucking bitch. I'm going to kill you.
He then pulled an index finger across his throat.
Eric Running. ALS. Commercial #10 (4.125” x 9.5”) envelope. wt.= 0.9 oz. Pmk: May 6, 2008. Inspected by correctional personnel, otherwise Pristine. Content unknown.
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Love triangle
Number of victims: 2
Date of murders: February 24, 1998
Date of arrest: Next day (suicide attempt)
Date of birth: January 3, 1951
Victims profile: Jacqueline J. Anderson and Barbara J. Gilpin
Method of murder: Shooting
Location: Multnomah County, Oregon, USA
Status: Sentenced to death on July 28, 2000
Murder
At approximately 11:20 p.m. on February 24, 1998, Eric Running (hereinafter referred to as “Eric”, b. January 3, 1951 | age 72) entered the Ambassador Restaurant and Lounge on Sandy Boulevard in Northeast Portland armed with a short-barreled shotgun. There were approximately 20 people in the restaurant.
When Eric entered the restaurant, he encountered Barbara J. Gilpin (“Barb”) as she walked toward the restaurant's entrance, and he shot her on the right side of her abdomen. Eric then proceeded toward the back of the restaurant where there was a room with pool tables. Jacqueline J. Anderson (“Jackie”) as in that room.
Eric entered and shot Jackie in the left hip at close range. After she fell to the floor, Eric aimed the gun very closely to Jackie's left cheek and fired, killing her. Eric then left the pool room and walked toward the entrance of the bar. As he approached the entrance, he encountered Barb's body. Eric stopped, kicked the body and, although it appeared that she already had died, Eric placed the gun above Barb's left ear, and shot her again.
Eric hesitated before leaving the bar and made a gesture as if he intended to return to the pool room. He opted, however, to leave the bar using the same door through which he had entered.
A witness overheard Eric saying to himself, "I got to get me the fuck out of here," after he left the Ambassador. Then, while running through the Ambassador's parking lot, he hopped a fence. Eric fired his gun once more as he was running. Eric hid the shotgun between a metal storage shed and piles of firewood that lined the fence to Clark's backyard, about a block south of the Ambassador. Approximately two months after the shootings, Clark found the gun.
Eric dropped the weapon and went back to his apartment. Eric's landlord observed him leaving his apartment the following morning with two sizable trash bags. Eric sold the leather jacket he was wearing when he committed the murders at the "All That Glitters" pawn shop in downtown Portland at around 10:00 a.m. Around four o'clock in the afternoon, Eric ran into his friend Campbell and asked if he could use Campbell's phone since he needed a "callback" phone. Eric called a person he could buy heroin from using Campbell's phone.
After using Campbell's telephone, Eric visited with Inklebarger, whom he saw on two occasions after he had committed the crimes. On the first occasion, Inklebarger noticed that Eric had cut his hair and was wearing glasses. Inklebarger testified, however, that Eric "hardly ever wore glasses".
On the second occasion, Inklebarger went to purchase some beer for himself and Eric, when he noticed Eric's picture in the newspaper associated with a story regarding the murders of Jackie and Barb. When Inklebarger returned to his apartment, he told Eric that Eric really had "screwed up", and Eric acknowledged as much by stating that he had "really fucked up".
Later that day, the two men also visited with Inklebarger's neighbor, Shade, and Eric admitted to Shade that he had shot Jackie and Barb. Eric also told Shade that he had gotten scared and had thrown the shotgun away in some bushes. Eric asked Shade what he thought Eric should do, and Shade told him that, "the way he saw it, Eric had three options. He could get a lawyer and turn himself in, or he could go on the run for the rest of his life, or he could blow himself away". Shade thought that Eric took what he had said seriously, but that Eric did not "particularly like the last option".
While the men were at Shade's apartment, a news story came on the television about the murders and, during the course of the story, Eric's picture appeared on the television screen. Shade asked Eric what he had done during the hours before the killings. Eric responded that he had tried to contact someone with whom he could discuss how he was feeling and who could talk him out of killing Jackie, but he had not been able to "get a hold of anybody."
At approximately 7:30 p.m. that evening, a police officer responded to the report of an assault victim at a construction site on the corner of Southwest 15th Street and Alder Street in Portland. The victim had a severe cut on his throat that looked as if it had been caused by a sharp instrument. Upon arrival at the hospital, the victim stated that he wished that he had used the last shot in the shotgun on himself instead of throwing it into the bushes. And later, while being prepared for surgery, the victim identified himself as "Rick Jackson The victim, in fact, was Eric.
In the meantime, the police had begun investigating the Jackie and Barb murders immediately after they occurred and, in the early hours of the morning after the shootings, the police contacted Jackie's mother. She told the officers that her daughter had been living with Eric, and she gave them his address. Later that day, the police obtained a warrant to search Eric's apartment. Once there, they seized many items, including a book titled "Blue Book of Gun Values" and a box of .12 gauge shotgun shells. The police also found a bundle of human hair in a wastebasket beneath the kitchen sink.
By conducting a trace on the murder weapon, the police concluded that, at the time of the shootings, it belonged to Barb.
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