Springfield man with Alzheimer’s missing, Veneta homicide under investigation

A Springfield search for 70-year-old Harold Batchelder remains active after police said he was reported missing from the West Centennial area and last seen at home late on June 3. In Veneta, Lane County deputies are separately investigating a fatal shooting on Huston Road, and investigators say everyone involved has been identified and accounted for, with no ongoing threat to the community.

Batchelder has Alzheimer’s and Sundowner Syndrome, conditions that make the search more urgent because he may be vulnerable and disoriented. Springfield police checked the area on foot and by drone but did not immediately locate him, and officers were still asking residents to watch for him.

Batchelder was reported missing about 9:30 a.m. on June 4, after Stephanie Bachelder said she last saw him when she went to bed around 11 p.m. on June 3. He was last seen wearing a navy blue baseball cap, an olive green zip-up jacket and olive green pants. Anyone who sees someone matching that description is asked to call Springfield Police at 541-726-3714.

State emergency managers say missing older adults are increasingly at risk because of cognitive decline, medical conditions and environmental factors, which can turn a local missing-person report into an urgent search-and-rescue response. That risk is part of what makes the Springfield case especially time-sensitive: the longer Batchelder is unaccounted for, the more important fast public recognition becomes.

The Veneta case unfolded around 9 p.m. on June 3 in the 87000 block of Huston Road, where deputies responding to a shooting found one person dead. The deceased was identified as 40-year-old Mark Thomas Tierney.

Deputies said multiple people were contacted at the scene and that all people involved had been identified and accounted for. Martin Grant Tierney, 63, was arrested on second-degree murder and unlawful use of a weapon charges and booked into the Lane County Jail on June 4 in connection with the case.

Together, the two cases show the range of public-safety work moving through Lane County at once: a vulnerable Springfield man whose safety may depend on a neighbor spotting his clothes, and a Veneta homicide scene that investigators say is now contained.