ban—that is, to overturn it at the right time, not when people found it most convenient or profitable. Otto was monitoring over a half-dozen species that night, comparing their statuses against control groups, trying to detect the slightest sign of aging. The Hair Bears were with him: Dr. Peter Madden, Dr. Brian Lo, Dr. Sidney Brown, and three PhD candidates (Candace Malkin, Dinesh Ganji, and Michael Duggan) in his now-growing department.
The University of Oregon has a security infrastructure that is the envy of most other colleges. Every building requires hologram identification worn on a lanyard. Every entrance is covered by surveillance cameras. The campus is extremely well lit, and hundreds of emergency phones dot the area, for easy access by any students or staff who feel immediately threatened.
But the Hair Bears’ lab was no longer located on the Oregon campus. Due to the success of Otto’s program, the university had agreed to build a new lab for him and his cohorts—a facility they hoped would rival any genetics lab in America. But while it was being built, the team, which had already outgrown its old quarters, was forced to work out of a makeshift lab in a nearby office park.
The Shelby Office Park looks very much like any other office park in the nation. It’s located on Shelby Circle, right near a strip of chain restaurants and home-improvement stores. It’s a poorly lit complex—even now, after what happened. A walk from the Shelby parking lot to one of the main buildings in the dead of night is enough to jangle even the toughest nerves. A card-key is needed to enter any of the buildings on the park’s campus. But the parking lot has no such requirement. Parking is free, and there’s no gate to check into. Anyone can drive up to the main buildings. And on the night of August 7, 2012, someone did.
An unmarked van pulled up to the curb in front of Building D, where the Hair Bears made their temporary home. The team typically finished up work at the same time, but Otto was known to tell everyone to go home and get their rest, while staying on alone in the lab—sometimes for a little while, sometimes for hours. (Although he enjoyed the company of his coworkers, Otto claimed to focus better when undisturbed.) From what police have been able to reconstruct, it seems that night he bade his colleagues goodbye and stayed in the lab for a scant ten extra minutes. After he closed up shop, he grabbed his briefcase and made his way down to the lobby.
As he exited the building, he saw the van. He likely also noticed that there were still four bikes parked in the rack next to the building entrance. Many of the team members used bikes, instead of cars, to get around town. The rack should have been empty. In the time it took Otto to recognize that something was amiss, three men had exited the van and accosted him.
They wore black from head to toe, with black hoods covering their heads. They had guns. They forced Otto to the ground and bound his legs, arms, and mouth with duct tape.
They dragged Otto to the van and opened the back. There Otto saw, to his horror, all six of his colleagues, similarly bound and piled on top of each other—a writhing tangle of bodies. They threw Otto in with the rest, doused them and the van with gasoline, and set it on fire. The three assailants then fled the scene as the van burst into flames. Only one of them, Casey Jarrett of Tacoma, has been identified and charged. Jarrett, who belongs to a pro-death evangelical sect known as Terminal Earth, defended his actions only by saying, “A little bit of bloodshed now or a lot later on.” Otto, Madden, Lo, Brown, Malkin, Ganji, and Duggan all perished in the blaze. Just hours later, David Spitz was gunned down outside his home in Seattle.
President Lack still has trouble accepting that his friend and colleague died in such a horrifying manner. “It’s inconceivable to me,” he says. “If there was anyone you wanted to invent this
The University of Oregon has a security infrastructure that is the envy of most other colleges. Every building requires hologram identification worn on a lanyard. Every entrance is covered by surveillance cameras. The campus is extremely well lit, and hundreds of emergency phones dot the area, for easy access by any students or staff who feel immediately threatened.
But the Hair Bears’ lab was no longer located on the Oregon campus. Due to the success of Otto’s program, the university had agreed to build a new lab for him and his cohorts—a facility they hoped would rival any genetics lab in America. But while it was being built, the team, which had already outgrown its old quarters, was forced to work out of a makeshift lab in a nearby office park.
The Shelby Office Park looks very much like any other office park in the nation. It’s located on Shelby Circle, right near a strip of chain restaurants and home-improvement stores. It’s a poorly lit complex—even now, after what happened. A walk from the Shelby parking lot to one of the main buildings in the dead of night is enough to jangle even the toughest nerves. A card-key is needed to enter any of the buildings on the park’s campus. But the parking lot has no such requirement. Parking is free, and there’s no gate to check into. Anyone can drive up to the main buildings. And on the night of August 7, 2012, someone did.
An unmarked van pulled up to the curb in front of Building D, where the Hair Bears made their temporary home. The team typically finished up work at the same time, but Otto was known to tell everyone to go home and get their rest, while staying on alone in the lab—sometimes for a little while, sometimes for hours. (Although he enjoyed the company of his coworkers, Otto claimed to focus better when undisturbed.) From what police have been able to reconstruct, it seems that night he bade his colleagues goodbye and stayed in the lab for a scant ten extra minutes. After he closed up shop, he grabbed his briefcase and made his way down to the lobby.
As he exited the building, he saw the van. He likely also noticed that there were still four bikes parked in the rack next to the building entrance. Many of the team members used bikes, instead of cars, to get around town. The rack should have been empty. In the time it took Otto to recognize that something was amiss, three men had exited the van and accosted him.
They wore black from head to toe, with black hoods covering their heads. They had guns. They forced Otto to the ground and bound his legs, arms, and mouth with duct tape.
They dragged Otto to the van and opened the back. There Otto saw, to his horror, all six of his colleagues, similarly bound and piled on top of each other—a writhing tangle of bodies. They threw Otto in with the rest, doused them and the van with gasoline, and set it on fire. The three assailants then fled the scene as the van burst into flames. Only one of them, Casey Jarrett of Tacoma, has been identified and charged. Jarrett, who belongs to a pro-death evangelical sect known as Terminal Earth, defended his actions only by saying, “A little bit of bloodshed now or a lot later on.” Otto, Madden, Lo, Brown, Malkin, Ganji, and Duggan all perished in the blaze. Just hours later, David Spitz was gunned down outside his home in Seattle.
President Lack still has trouble accepting that his friend and colleague died in such a horrifying manner. “It’s inconceivable to me,” he says. “If there was anyone you wanted to invent this
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