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23-year-old David Grubbs walked out into the cool, wet evening of Saturday, November 19, 2011, having just clocked out from his shift at the Shop’n Kart grocery store in Ashland, Oregon at 5 pm. After leaving the store, he walked down the Central Bike Path that led to his home, a walk he’d made countless times before.
However, what happened to David on this particular evening was anything but ordinary as something horrific happened to him. After the passage of nearly a decade & a half, an entirely random act of brutality remains one of Oregon’s most chilling unsolved cases.
Ashland, Oregon is situated in the southern portion of the state less than a half-hour drive to the California border & 284 miles south of Portland. At the time of this case in 2011, the city had a population of 20,400. Ashland is home of Southern Oregon University as well as the annual Oregon Shakespeare Festival & it’s generally considered to be a very safe, charming & welcoming place to visit.
David Michael Grubbs was born on November 23, 1987 to parents Michael & Cherie Grubbs in Ashland. He was the youngest of three & the only son with two older sisters. According to his sister, Sarah, David loved to read, especially mythology & science fiction books & he was very thoughtful & kind, once giving all of his money to a family in need at Christmastime.
Only four days before he would have celebrated his 24th birthday, David left his job at Shop’n Kart on Saturday, November 19, 2011. It was 5 pm & the sun was just beginning to set. For the past three years, he’d been working at the store in freight, stocking shelves as well as helping customers. Since he had such an amazing personality, his presence became a staple at the store for both the customers as well as his co-workers.
He began his 35 minute walk toward his home at 69 California Street along the Central Bike Path near Hunter Park, a route he routinely used to get home. It was an open area that cut through a park with baseball fields, tennis courts as well as Walker Elementary School where parents bring their small children to play.
Since he & his friend & co-worker, August Haddick, each lived in the same student neighborhood, David often walked home from work with him. However, on this particular evening, he walked alone since August had been scheduled to work three hours later than David.
At 5:35 pm, a woman was riding her bike along the Central Bike Path when she was stopped by a man who had just come upon a young man lying in the center of the path. At first glance, they initially thought that he’d passed out, but then they noticed deep wounds around his head.
Tighe O’Meara, one of the responding officers, who is now the chief of police for the Ashland Police Department, recalls getting a person down call at 5:35 pm when it was just starting to get dark. Although he heard the call over the radio, he had a gut instinct that something more was going on.
By the time he & his partner arrived at the bike path behind Hunter Park, it was already pitch dark outside. As they approached the scene, paramedics who were coming out told them, That guy’s definitely dead. It looks like a gunshot wound.
O’Meara, who had responded to quite a few crime scenes during his career, scanned his flashlight over David’s body & could immediately see that there was no way that a gun had been involved in the young man’s death. Instead, it looked as if he’d been brutally attacked, slashed to the point that he was nearly decapitated.
As detectives were called out, O’Meara ran to Walmart to buy three pop-up tents to help preserve the crime scene because it was actively raining at the time. He also took David’s cell phone to a high-tech crimes task force so the contents could be analyzed.
Although authorities later determined that David had been struck in the head & neck with some sort of edge weapon, maybe a sword, a machete or a large knife, the murder weapon has never been found.
While investigating David’s murder, O’Meara came to find just how common it was for a person to carry a weapon such as this around for one reason or another. As tips began coming in after David’s death, there were calls about people who knew someone that carried such weapons or posed with a sword on their Facebook page. In the end, investigators ended up confiscating about 80 bladed weapons that unfortunately led nowhere.
Because the bike path where David had been murdered was a central point of life within the community of Ashland, residents were understandably anxious about enjoying their usual activities outside alone moving forward. Students were encouraged to walk together in groups while patrols were increased along the path to prevent additional attacks.
According to Cherie, David’s mother, the days after her son’s death were an absolute blur & understandably, his death changed everything for her. She could no longer go back to her work in nursing since patients she worked with had known her for over 20 years & when they kindly expressed their sympathy, it caused her to relive the trauma of losing her son so violently. Her pain was only compounded by the fact that the person responsible for his death was still out there somewhere.
As the investigation carried on, officers were able to learn more about who David was as a person. He had been best friends with a young man named Garrison Mau since high school. Garrison’s mom, PJ, recalls the first time she met David when her son brought him over during freshman or sophomore year of high school. She noticed how engaging he was from the start as he stuck his hand out to shake hers while introducing himself. He smiled & made eye contact, unlike many of the other teenagers she met who kept their eyes gazed at the floor & hurried past her as quickly as possible.
David quickly became a fixture in PJ’s life & he felt like a second son to her. Although he may have stood as tall as 6’4”, he was the kindest, most gentle & funny young man she’d ever met in her life. He was musically gifted & not only did he play bass in the Ashland High School orchestra, but also for the Southern Oregon Youth Symphony. He was a simple guy who didn’t like conflict & wasn’t materialistic. He loved his family, music & video games & was always known to have a mouthful of sunflower seeds.
Music is what first connected Garrison & David & since David had been naturally gifted, he inspired Garrison in his own music career. Not only were they best friends, but they also worked together at Shop’n Kart after David helped get Garrison the job. Since David was such a hilarious, outgoing guy, it made work so much more enjoyable with him there.
With as many as 40 officers working on David’s case at a time, they could find zero motive to go on since David was so well-liked & no one could think of a soul who had anything against him. He lived a simple life that consisted of going to work, getting done, grabbing a tall boy of whatever beer he was in the mood for & going home to relax & play video games. He wasn’t involved in a drug world or tied up in a love triangle.
It was clear that robbery had not been a motive since David’s wallet as well as his cell phone & the beer he’d purchased after his shift, were still at the scene.
This led investigators to believe that his murder was likely completely random & although very rare, it’s possible he just came upon the wrong person at the wrong time.
Because the park where David was cutting through was dark after the sun set with no street lamps, it would have been easy for someone to sneak up behind him as he walked home. The attack was likely extremely swift & before anyone saw what happened, his killer fled into the night, leaving no murder weapon or DNA evidence behind.
In January 2015, the Ashland PD publicly named a person of interest for the first time in David’s case, more than three years after his death & that person was Christian Delaurentiis. Before Christian Delaurentiis moved to Washington County, Oregon, he used to live in Ashland & did so at the time of David’s death, moving away shortly thereafter. The man, who was a severe heroin addict, refused to speak with detectives & because there was no direct evidence to tie him to the case, they couldn’t move forward with him as a suspect.
It was apparent that Delaurentiis was capable of very violent behavior as he’s currently serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole for aggravated murder & first-degree abuse of a corpse in an unrelated case.
In early May 2012, while in the midst of robbing banks to fuel his addiction, Delaurentiis repeatedly stabbed his roommate to death, 43-year-old Phillip Lindemuth, with a Bowie knife, piercing his heart & lungs.
Phillip had served as the getaway driver in some of Delaurentiis’ bank robberies & because he suspected that he was going to turn on him, Delaurentiis murdered him.
When neighbors heard power tools on the night of May 4, 2012, they assumed remodeling was going on in the Aloha, Oregon home that Phillip owned & Delaurentiis had been staying in over the previous five months. Aloha is a city 285 miles north of Ashland.
Weeks later, Delaurentiis called his cousin in New York to confess what he’d done & after his cousin relayed this information to relatives in Oregon, Delaurentiis’ stepfather contacted the police.
On May 18, after obtaining a search warrant for Phillip’s home on the 2100 block of Southwest 217th Place, investigators wore HazMat suits because of the extent of filth inside the home. Animal control came to collect several cats that lived there.
As deputies continued to search the home, they came upon a freezer inside the garage. This is where they found pieces of Phillips’ remains, including his organs, which were sealed in plastic bags while his head was wrapped in a bloody sweatshirt. It was ultimately determined that Phillip had died from stab wounds to the chest & after his death, Delaurentiis utilized multiple hand tools to dismember his body.
32-year-old Delaurentiis pleaded guilty to aggravated murder & first-degree abuse of a corpse in September 2014. He also pleaded guilty to seven bank robberies where he got away with more than $18,000. For the robberies, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison & for Phillip’s murder he was given life in prison with the possibility of parole after 41 years & 4 months with the sentences running concurrently.
According to Phillip’s sister, he had been a proud veteran of the U.S. Navy where he served in the Persian Gulf War. He was kind, loving, faithful & true.
As for David’s case, a small shrine began growing along the side of the bike path where his body had been found. People left items that were significant to David, such as music he & his friends played together as members of a school chamber orchestra, candles, flowers, carrot cake, a NY Times Sunday crossword puzzle, all of which were situated next to a green metal cross that was put into the ground & marked with David’s name.
Although the woman riding her bike who came upon David’s body had seen a man leaving the area, sadly, police had little to go by as no one had witnessed the attack itself. Since it was getting dark, the woman wasn’t able to get a good look at the man in order to provide investigators with his description.
Since a random attack ending in a near decapitation is so rare, investigators weren’t able to find an expert to even develop a profile of the killer. The FBI’s behavioral analysis unit considered the case an anomaly of a murder investigation.
Because they were left with little else, investigators began considering less likely scenarios when they looked into David’s online gaming, specifically a game called Assassin’s Creed, that includes a decapitation scene. Police took his two gaming consoles as well as dozens of games, but there was little chance to track down those he played with online since unlike computers, gaming consoles retain little information.
Detectives combed over the crime scene, looking for clues or evidence that could lead to their killer. They noted a bed of grape bushes where the killer could have potentially concealed themselves as David made his way down the path, but they found nothing solid. Unfortunately, years continued to tick by & investigators were no closer to finding David’s killer & the case grew cold.
Cherie knows that it’s any parent’s worst nightmare to lose a child, but the fact that her son’s case is still unresolved makes it that much more painful. She feels it’s impossible to explain to herself why it happened & sometimes, it still doesn’t feel as if it’s real.
Although the thought of facing a trial is terrifying for Cherie, she wants the person who killed her son off the streets so no one else can be harmed. If it wasn’t Christian Delaurentiis who murdered David, she hopes whoever killed her son is behind bars or dead. The fact that her son had just been walking along a normally populated path on a Saturday evening when someone who was likely unknown to him began slashing him with a machete or a sword, just goes to show how dangerous this person is.
Despite the fact that investigators have collected surveillance footage from businesses near the bike path & interviewed hundreds of people over the years, no arrests have ever been made. There have been people overheard bragging about being responsible for David’s murder, but when it came down to it, they were only talking to look tough.
David’s friends have set up a scholarship in his name to raise money for other young musicians in the Ashland area in order to keep his memory alive. The memorial remains at the path where he lost his life, but sadly in 2022, when Garrison Mau went back to the location, he found it destroyed. After contacting the police, they restored the site & placed a bag of David’s sunflower seeds in the center. Although David would have never wanted a fuss made about himself, Garrison knows he deserves to be honored.
Chief O’Meara remains hopeful that even though 2026 marks 15 years since David’s murder, someone might be tired of carrying the burden of knowing who’s responsible for such a horrific murder.
A $21,000 reward is available for information & if you know something about David’s case, please contact the Ashland Police Department at 541-482-5211 or the APD Anonymous Tip Line at 541-522-2333.
References:
- Wikipedia: Ashland, Oregon
- Oregon Live: Christian Delaurentiis, who put roommate’s dismembered body in freezer, ‘deserves no mercy,’ victim’s sister says
- Oregon Live: Aloha man found dismembered in freezer died of stab wounds, medical examiner says
- KVAL: Horrific murder shatters sense of safety in Ashland
- KVAL: Decapitation of young Ashland man remains unsolved 7 years later
- KATU 2 ABC: Police investigate Ashland victim’s online game playing
- KOBI 5: Unsolved So. Oregon: A fatal strike
- KOBI 5: APD names person of interest in David Grubbs murder case
- NBC News: Community still looking for answers in violent 2011 murder of David Grubbs on Ashland, Oregon bike path
- Find a Grave: David Michael Grubbs
- People: Grocery store employee nearly decapitated 14 years ago along bike path – and police still don’t have suspect
- Ashland News: Memorial to slain Ashland man vandalized
- Ashland News: Open cases, open wounds: It’s been nearly four months since a man was shot dead in Ashland – is the case headed to join other local cold cases?
- Medium: Small-town Oregon’s most gruesome unsolved murder
- The Bulletin: Friends & family remember victim of stabbing in Ashland
