PENDLETON, Oregon – Pornographic magazines were strewn across the floor of a bedroom. Adult entertainment posters hung on the walls. And women frequented this apartment No. 6 at 401 N.W. Bailey Ave.
After Richard James Matlock Sr. was found dead in the unit during a drug raid early Tuesday morning, neighbors said they suspected he had been making porn videos, and using and trafficking in narcotics since he and his son moved in.
Matlock was found dead on the floor of his bedroom next to a bed where Suzie Rae Waite was sleeping, property manager Rachel McCartney said Tuesday after police had cleared the apartment.
Waite, 23, of 355 Linden Way, Heppner, and Ty William Matlock, 19, who lived in the raided apartment with his father, were arrested for possession of a controlled substance and maintaining a place where drugs are kept.
Court officials have yet to schedule arraignments. Umatilla County District Attorney Chris Brauer said Waite and Matlock are not suspected in the elder Matlock’s death.
An autopsy for the elder Matlock was tentatively scheduled for 10 a.m. in Portland.
McCartney said she’d had “multiple” conversations with the elder Matlock about constant traffic in and out of his apartment.
Numerous women frequented the apartment during the few months he lived there, McCartney said, noting she thought he had been making porn videos.
McCartney said she encouraged Matlock to “clean up his act” and asked him why he continued to allow so many women to come into his apartment.
“He said it was because he’s a single man,” McCartney said. “I said to him that this has got to stop. I tried to work with him.”
Police Det. Rick Jackson confirmed homemade pornography had been found in the apartment.
In Matlock’s bedroom, McCartney pointed out two, 3-foot-tall speakers. She said she’d complained to Matlock several times over their volume.
She also pointed to the area where Matlock’s body was found next to the bed.
McCartney said she saw a contusion on the elder Matlock’s head after police found his body. She hadn’t noticed it when she last spoke to him Saturday.
Calling the death “suspicious,” police reserved comment on any bodily injuries until after an autopsy is completed today.
In addition to locating pornography, police said they recovered drug paraphernalia from the apartment and the elder Matlock’s car.
Outside the apartment, a strong odor of marijuana lingered in the hallway, the walls of which are stained from a recent leaky pipe. Evidence of last week’s leaky pipe showed in the peeling ceiling in a back room of the apartment.
McCartney said building owners Jerry Walkup and Gayle Marshall recently spent nearly $10,000 fixing up the apartment prior to the Matlocks’ tenancy.
Since then, McCartney said linoleum has been pulled up and holes put in the walls. A gaping hole was noticeable from behind the apartment’s front door.
McCartney said she “chewed out” the elder Matlock Saturday, and warned him that “this was the last time I was going to talk to him about his problems, or else I was going to go to the building’s owners and have him evicted.”
On Tuesday, an eviction notice was pinned to the front door of the apartment, notifying Ty Matlock that his lease has been terminated.
“Ty doesn’t work,” McCartney said.
Neighbors said the elder Matlock worked at Fleetwood Travel Homes. Company officials confirmed his employment Tuesday, but declined to release further information.
McCartney’s son, Rebel Miller, said he’d see Matlock coming home from work periodically, which “was about the only time I’d see him sober.”
McCartney and police said Matlock has two other children, a 14-year-old daughter who lives in Walla Walla, and an older son “who’s around 25 or 26” living in the Seattle area.