Linn County Sheriff’s detectives have made two additional arrests related to the Oct. 11 stabbing of a transient on Quartzville Road, northeast of Sweet Home, Linn County Sheriff Michelle Duncan reported last week.
Carl William Serpa, 38, and Michael Allen Kulp, 30, both transients from Albany, were arrested Thursday, Oct. 13. Both were charged with first-degree assault.
Duncan reported Tuesday, Oct. 11, that an unidentified Arizona man had been both struck by a vehicle and stabbed early that morning near milepost 20 on Quartzville Road .
According to Duncan, the Sheriff’s Office received a 911 call at around 6:08 a.m. from a trucking dispatch center, which reported that a truck operator had radioed with news of the incident.
Deputies responded to the scene, where the operator flagged them down and provided additional details. The victim, a 36-year-old male transient, was found and transported to Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital, then taken by Life Flight to the Good Samaritan Regional Center in Corvallis. Although he suffered life-threatening injuries, the Sheriff’s Office said, he was expected to survive.
Investigators determined that the man traveled to the Quartzville area with a group of people that included John Kersey, a 72-year-old transient from Albany. The men had allegedly gotten into an argument before Kersey got into a vehicle and rammed the victim, then jumped out and stabbed him several times. According to the Sheriff’s Office, no one at the campsite provided medical attention to the injured man, who was able to walk 250 feet before the truck operator found him.
Kersey was subsequently arrested and lodged at the Linn County Jail for first-degree assault.
Duncan said one of the suspects who were arrested Thursday was apprehended when he came to the Sheriff’s Office, “not suspecting he would be arrested.”
The investigation is continuing.
Anybody traveling in the area of milepost 20 on Quartzville Road between the late hours of Oct. 10 to the early hours of Oct. 11, or who can contribute information in the case, is asked to call Detective Scott Tennant at (541) 967-3950.