Vanessa Houk, 17.02.2008 17:32

A burned body was discovered in Lithia Park this week. Possessions found near the body suggest it is likely a well known homeless man named Bennett Tanner.

Earlier this week, a hiker found a burned body in Lithia Park in Ashland. Well known for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, our little city is nestled within the Rogue Valley and is a haven for poets, writers, artists and musicians. There is an air of creativity here and it feels like a safe place to live and a good place to raise a family. Any inkling of potentially serious crime makes us pause, so when we heard about this "body" we were scared, upset, worried. What happened?

As the story began to unfold, we heard that the body was found in a homeless camp near the Ashland watershed. Even worse, we heard that a bicycle belonging to our friend Bennett Tanner and several sock puppets were found nearby.

The last time we saw Bennett was in early December. It was early in the evening and we were in the middle of a walk downtown. He was sitting on the sidewalk near the flower shop performing with his sock puppets. Our family stopped to watch him for a few minutes and chat. He was his funny, animated self. I remember thinking how cold it was that night and I think we told him to take care of himself and to try to stay warm. I remember he had something on the ground that he was collecting coins in and we added what we could before we walked away. We were all glad to see him and on the way back home we talked about how much we liked him.

We are still waiting for the results of a toxicology report, which could take several weeks to finish. As much as I want to hold on to hope and be wrong, I suspect that Bennett’s life came to an end sometime in December 2007.

Although some people in the community may have thought of him as "quirky", he was always polite. I never heard him say a bad word about anybody else.

Bennett was a regular at our KSKQ community radio barbecues last summer. He did several "sock puppet" shows on open mic night and we will always remember him as a gentle person and a creative comedienne.

In the years he lived here, Bennett was quoted several times in newspaper articles regarding the issue of homelessness. Shortly before his death he was quoted in an article that ran in the Mail Tribune. It might have been his last request. "I could use a sleeping bag made for really cold temperatures," he said. "It gets down to zero here, and that's the only thing that will keep me warm. I also need a tarp to try and keep my things dry when it rains." In the same article, Amber Thomas, an office manager for ICCA (Interfaith Care Community Ashland) said, "Temperatures are starting to drop, and I'd hate to see someone die because they froze to death."

I hope that in the last minutes before Bennett’s death, he was able to focus his eyes on something beautiful. I imagine he was staring at the moon or a few really bright stars and I hope that the beauty he saw offered some solace and that somehow he was not feeling any pain.