Eddie Lathan

Who murdered 22 year old Eddie Lathan in 1986?
On a snow-covered Valentine’s Day morning in 1986, the quiet Beaumont-Wilshire neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, became the scene of a somber discovery. At around 5:20 a.m., a resident in the 4200 block of NE 37th Avenue noticed a person lying motionless in the snow near the curb. The location was adjacent to the northeast corner of Wilshire Park, a cherished 15-acre green space in the heart of the community. Police were called to the scene and found the body of Eddie Lathan, a 22-year-old Black man.

An autopsy later confirmed that Eddie had been shot to death. From the outset, investigators with the Portland Police Bureau determined that the park was not where the murder occurred. The evidence suggested a more chilling scenario: that Eddie had been killed at an unknown location and his body was later driven to this residential street and left in the snow. The brutal and anonymous nature of his death left his family and community with few answers and a grief that would span decades.

Eddie, whose full name was likely Eddie Ray Lathan, was a son and a brother. He was one of nine children born to Harold and Velma Lathan, who had moved to Portland years earlier and raised their large family in the city. The year his life was cut short was a difficult one for his mother, who became a member of the Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church that same year. His death was a loss that echoed through his family, preceding the deaths of his father, his brothers Donald and Phillip, and his sisters Carol and Phyllis.

In the hours before his death, Eddie was last seen late on the night of February 13, 1986. He was spotted near the intersection of NE Grand Avenue and Alberta Street around midnight, miles from where his body would be found. What happened in the intervening five hours remains the central mystery of the case. Investigators learned that Eddie was reportedly a street-level drug dealer who was primarily involved in selling marijuana. This information provided a possible motive for his killing, but it was a small clue in a case with no publicly identified suspects or witnesses to the crime itself.

The investigation into Eddie Lathan’s homicide has remained open for more than three decades, a cold case carried by the Portland Police Bureau. Detectives have been unable to make an arrest or definitively trace Eddie’s final movements after he was last seen. The trail went cold, leaving only questions about who killed him, where the murder took place, and why his body was left by the side of a quiet park on a cold winter morning.

As of March 2014, Eddie Lathan’s case is still unsolved. Investigators continue to hope that someone with information, no matter how small it may seem, will come forward. Crime Stoppers of Oregon offers a cash reward of up to $2,500 for information that leads to an arrest in any unsolved felony case. Anyone with knowledge about the murder of Eddie Lathan is urged to contact the Cold Case Homicide Unit directly at (503) 823-0400 or submit an anonymous tip through Crime Stoppers.