After two long months, MAX beating victim returns home

The 71-year-old struggles with effects of Nov. 3 MAX attack

By Marcus Hathcock

The Gresham Outlook, Jan 8, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (5 Reader comments)

Marcus Hathcock / The Outlook

On Tuesday, Jan. 8, Laurie Chilcote, left, reviews his acceptance speech for “Keep the Dream Alive” Lifetime Achievement award he will receive on Jan. 21. His sister, Caren Topliff, looks on.

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When MAX attack victim Laurie Chilcote returned to his Sunset Street home in Sandy for the first time in two months, the experience brought him to tears.

Stepping into his home Wednesday, Jan. 2, made him realize how much his life had changed since he was nearly beaten to death at the Gresham Transit Center on Nov. 3.

“It just seemed a terrible thing … you want your life to be meaningful, and you watch it almost wind up in the trash,” Chilcote said. “I was very disoriented, and I knew I was going to have a long, hard haul.”

That long haul began with 10 days at Oregon Health & Science University hospital and continued with more than 50 days of aggressive rehabilitation at The Village nursing home in Gresham.

“He’s slowly but surely recovering,” said Chilcote’s sister, Caren Topliff.

Over the past couple months, he has relearned how to walk and nearly conquered the paralysis that had taken over one side of his face.

“It’s almost completely unnoticeable now,” Topliff said.

Difficult days

Despite that progress, life hasn’t been the same for the 71-year-old Sandy man since the attack, which police say was carried out by 15-year-old suspected gang member Abel Antonio Chavez-Garcia. Authorities say Chavez-Garcia started beating Chilcote with a baseball bat, unprovoked, as he left the MAX train a little after 9 p.m.

The brutal attack — which nearly killed Chilcote — left the elderly man with injuries “up and down his body,” Topliff said, including at least two major blows to the head that caused bleeding inside his skull and his brain to swell.

“It’s been a horrible ordeal for him,” said Topliff. “It’s very traumatic to have someone try to kill you; that was a horrible blow to absorb. To run into kids so callous and so cold-blooded just stunned him.”

It was stunning for a man who has dedicated his golden years to helping children and at-risk teens like the one accused of beating him.

The injuries have somewhat dulled Chilcote’s historically sharp mind, Topliff said. Chilcote finds himself frustrated with the side effects of his brain trauma, unable to remember PIN numbers, addresses, phone numbers, names and so on.

“Last night we went to Safeway and my sister put everything in the car, and then I didn’t remember what I was supposed to do next,” Chilcote said. “Then I started to cry. I know how to do this and that — why can’t I remember?”

This wasn’t the first time Chilcote was criminally injured. In 1985, a suspect trying to elude Los Angeles police hit him with his car, crushing his legs. Chilcote has walked with a cane ever since.

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