Keith Payne Bare with me, it’s lengthy, but it will all make sense.
it happened in Tigard, Oregon. It was on the front page of the newspaper in late November of 1996. I check the police records from time to time to make sure the accomplice isn’t out on some appeal, because he didn’t do the killing. I wish they had charged the wife of the actual murderer too. She bought the gun for him because he had a felony and couldn’t own one. It was all premeditated.
Saffa owned an auto body shop and this guy was his front end manager. Saffa knew that being Arab, he didn’t want to scare away potential customers from his shop because he was from the Middle East. First Gulf war had just happened, Americans weren’t too keen on people from the Middle East.
Saffa had no clue this guy was a white supremacist who then hired a crew member for Saffa’s body work team. Shockingly (sarcasm) also racist against Arabs.
Anyway, Saffa found out this asshole had been embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from his business. The racist evil greedy subhuman filth would call the insurance companies of said insurer and say “yea Mr. Allstate person, we pulled off the panel and found more damage. We can fix the damage we found for your customer that is not in the original estimate, but it will cost XXX amount of dollars.“ He would then have the company send the check directly to an account at a different bank using Professional Auto’s name and himself as the account signer. The “A” rate insurance companies never batted an eye. This went on years!
Saffa knew something was off as he was starting to get strange and off putting phone calls from the said insurance company’s the POS was swindling. The fraud had finally been flagged. Saffa arranged to have a meeting, siting that something of great concern was troubling him and needed to be addressed promptly. I’m guessing these killers knew that there heist would eventually come to an end. They forged their plan.
When this confrontation took place, the main suspect beat him to a bloody pulp, strangled him to death and to ensure he was dead, he shot him with a sawed off shotgun. As his accomplice was in on it he helped load his body and went and threw him off a cliff.
Saffa fought for his life, because a window broke out of his car. That night they replaced the window and thought they had “cleaned” it.
After weeks and weeks of getting nowhere with the Tigard police, I encouraged Saffa’s brother to call Harry. Harry came right out. We had grabbed a few scent items from his home. the first item (it was a shoe) the very first moment we’re talking seconds, his furbabies hit, squatted and peed.
Harry turned to me and gave me a look. I froze, my face went white. He pulled me aside and said, “I know you you”. And I did know. He went on to say, “you have to keep your cool, don’t let on yet, let me do my work.”
Backstory here. I’ve known Harry since I was 9, maybe 10 through my mom who worked for Representative Mary Alice Ford. Harry worked tirelessly in joint efforts with the legislature. There are so many faucets about what SAR does, and the value to our communities to have access to these extraordinary trained assets. To me, if I were to make a comparison in your field of work, it would be the Delta Force standard.
Harry did (shocking, I know) take time to have fun in what no doubt has its hard days. I’m also certain it has its rewards, but I’ve heard some horrific stories. I can’t even imagine what you all have seen throughout your careers. I prefer the happy endings where loved ones and pets are reunited.
One of the fun things we would do is all go out looking for the annual Rose Festival Pin. Once a week the Oregonian (our main newspaper at the time) would post a clue as to the whereabouts of where the coveted Rose pin had been hidden. Portland hasn’t done it in years, but a lot of Portlanders loved this City of Roses tradition. It wasn’t even about the prize to Harry. It was the adventure, putting all the clues together and the challenge of solving the mystery. I think that’s what makes Harry so special, so unique and damn good at his trade.
Anyway, during our group outings, Harry would share the different techniques on how he trains his dogs and alert signals, etc and so forth. I was so curious and in awe that you could train a dog to do these incredible things. I still to this day won’t leave anyone to watch our house and furbabies. If I can’t bring them to a vacation home? I’ll find one that will. And I always tell my friends and family, call him immediately. Don’t wait for the police. They will file a missing person report and tell you to wait to see if I decided to just get away for a bit on my own.
Long summary of the events I know I’m sure I made some typos and grammar errors, I apologize, I can’t find my readers! Haha
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