Family copes with unsolved death

COLUMBIA BASIN — When Basin City resident Gayle Loman arrived at a camp area near Canal Lake eight years ago, her husband wasn't there.

"When it happened it was scary, we didn't know what to expect," she said.

Her husband Jessie Loman's body was located near Seep Lake Road dead from gunshot wounds to the head and abdomen. The shooting remains unsolved. Recently the Grant County Sheriff's Office reopened the case to review the evidence and seek new leads.

She recalls feeling some relief when the body was located.

"We could have lost him forever," she said.

Loman and their four children continue to seek closure. The Lomans regularly contact the Grant County Sheriff's Office in hopes of hearing of a breakthrough in the case.

"It's just a big change in your life. It's just an open case until the day you die. You never lose that feeling he should be there with you to raise your kids," she said. "It's just hard to live life wondering and wondering and wondering. There's no closure. We didn't get to say goodbye."

The couple had four children together who now range between the ages of 25 and 32. He left behind numerous grandchildren, she said.

The grandchildren ask Gayle about what their grandpa was like.

"They know he's in Heaven," Loman said. "We try to tell them enough without making them scared."

The youngest grandchild is 3 years old.

The unsolved death left their children weary of camping. Only recently they have been comfortable enough to go camping, she said.

Her children feel uncomfortable when she visits the site where his body was found.

"I have to take somebody with me," she said.

Recently she began taking flowers to the site.

"It's a peaceful place for me," Gayle Loman said.

The site near Canal Lake was one of many places the family would go fishing each year for Mother's Day.

Her husband went to the site on a Saturday, expecting the family to join him the following day. He wanted to get a head start on setting up the site.

She recalled how Jessie hoped one of their children would go to the site with him on Saturday.

She explained the incident could have been more tragic if her children weren't working that day.

"I could have lost more than one," she said. "They all had to work."

She remembers being scared for the well being of her family after the homicide.

"You're cautious now," she said. "You get paranoid."

Immediately after his death she began locking doors, keeping the curtains shut and never answering the door after dark. She wondered if whoever committed the shooting would come after her or her family. She said the death left her confused because she has no idea why anyone would shoot him.

She describes her husband as an outdoors person who loved to fish, camp and hunt.

"He was a family man," Gayle Loman said.

The ashes of Jessie Loman rest in Montana where the family lived previous to Basin City.