Widow seeks justice after husband killed over dog at Oregon coast

The widow of a man fatally beaten on a one-night getaway to Lincoln City last year filed

a lawsuit Wednesday against her husband’s accused attacker and the Oregon coast hotel where the suspect was staying at the time.

The lawsuit contends the suspect, Roland Evans-Freke, now 31, had a history of involuntary psychiatric hospitalizations and had been bouncing from hotels financed by his father. The lawsuit also names Evans-Freke’s father,

a retired Wall Street investment banker

, as a defendant.

A Lincoln County judge earlier Wednesday extended Evans-Freke’s commitment to the state hospital for another six months after finding him unfit to aid in his defense shortly after the May 2024 killing.

Evans-Freke faces charges of second-degree murder, first-degree manslaughter, second-degree assault and first-degree robbery charges in the killing of Bradley Cole, 69, of Milwaukie, outside the Ashley Inn & Suites.

A forensic psychiatrist told the court during Wednesday’s commitment hearing that Evans-Freke suffers from schizophrenia but that Evans-Freke doesn’t believe he has a mental illness. His defense lawyer Elizabeth J.C. Baker said Evans-Freke has had a long-standing mental illness with no prior use of consistent medication.

The suit alleges the hotel and Evans-Freke’s father were negligent and reckless when they failed to intervene and prevent Evans-Freke’s “worsening violent outbursts” from harming others.

Bradley Cole and his wife Debra Cole had gone to Lincoln City for a one-night stay to celebrate their 37th wedding anniversary in May 2024.

Courtesy of Family

Bradley and Debra Cole had traveled to the hotel to celebrate their 37th wedding anniversary. Shortly after they arrived and checked in to a room, Bradley Cole went out a side door to walk his pit bull-lab rescue Callie on the hotel grounds, according to Debra Cole and the lawsuit.

Evans-Freke was smoking a cigarette outside and approached Bradley Cole and demanded his dog, according to the suit. When Cole refused, Evans-Freke punched and kicked him for several minutes before leaving with the dog, but came back two more times to continue the attack, according to the suit.

Debra Cole, who was in their hotel room on the first floor watching TV, said she went outside to check on her husband after about 30 minutes had passed and he hadn’t returned.

She saw a stranger with their dog, walked up to him and asked why he had her dog, she said in an interview. The man wouldn’t let go, so she unclipped the dog’s collar from the leash, dragged the dog into the hotel and locked her in their room.

When she went back outside to look for her husband, she saw him lying motionless on a sidewalk, his face bloodied. She said she identified the stranger by yelling, “That’s him! That’s him!”

“I was just really scared … I had no idea what was going on,” she said.

Two other people wrestled Evans-Freke to the ground while Debra Cole called 911, she said. When police arrived, two officers struggled to handcuff Evans-Freke and repeatedly fired a stun gun at him to take him into custody, according to the suit.

Bradley Cole lay on the ground, his right ear severed, and stopped breathing despite an officer’s cardiopulmonary resuscitation attempt, according to the suit and court records.

The suit alleges the Ashley Inn & Suites failed to take any action to protect its guests from Evans-Freke’s history of alleged violent and mentally unstable behavior or remove him from the premises. It also alleges that Evans-Freke’s father, Stephen Evans-Freke, “enabled and encouraged” his son’s violent behavior since his teenage years.

A woman who answered the phone at the front desk of the Ashley Inn & Suites declined to provide the name of a manager, owner or supervisor who could comment.

Evans-Freke’s father didn’t return email and phone messages seeking comment.

The suit claims Stephen Evans-Freke previously paid for a three-time world boxing champion to train his son despite his son’s history of “violent, aggressive” behavior that included an obsession with fighting and martial arts and a collection of knives and guns.

Roland Evans-Freke had been involuntarily committed to psychiatric hospitals outside of Oregon -once in New York after an attempted arson charge and then a second time after he deteriorated again, according to attorney Ben Turner, one of the lawyers who filed suit.

Roland Evans-Freke moved to Oregon sometime in 2022 and his father paid for his son to live in temporary hotel housing after finding out he was living in a homeless camp in Bend, the suit alleges.

On Dec. 1, 2023, Stephen Evans-Freke sought to have his son committed to a psychiatric hospital a third time in Oregon but his petition was denied. By then, his son was living in motels on the Oregon coast, according to the suit and court records.

Evans-Freke was repeatedly arrested on trespass allegations in Lincoln County and appeared “incoherent,” frantic and confused, according to the suit. Staff at a Comfort Inn in Newport had reported to his father that his son was talking to himself and carrying knives in the public shared areas of the hotel.

The father reported that his son was suffering severe paranoia, was not on medication, had become “very violent,” and was hearing voices telling him to kill someone, according to a court report. A couple of days earlier, he had punched a social worker, the father reported.

Two days after the father’s petition to the state, his son was excluded from the Comfort Inn after an outburst when he began to scream, throw benches and threaten his father and others at the motel, according to the suit and court records.

By April 2024, Roland Evans-Freke was living at the Ashley Inn & Suites in Lincoln City. The hotel had received numerous complaints about his “violent and unstable” behavior and his father also knew of his actions, according to the suit.

The suit seeks at least $20 million in damages, in addition to holding Ashley Inn & Suites and Stephen Evans-Freke liable for abuse of a vulnerable person because Bradley Cole was over 65 when he was killed. If a jury agrees to the abuse allegation, the damages would triple under state law.

Debra Cole said her husband retired in 2017 as an HVAC engineer for Multnomah County. They have a daughter and two sons. She described Bradley Cole as “quick witted,” the life of the party who was an avid reader and involved in civic life in Milwaukie, including youth baseball when his kids were young.

When he was 60, Bradley Cole needed two knee replacements and often walked with their dog Callie as he underwent physical therapy.

“She kind of helped him through it,” Debra Cole said. “She was kind of his baby.”

She said she filed the suit so what happened to her husband doesn’t happen to others. People should expect to feel safe, she said, when they stay at a hotel.

She said she can’t accept how her husband’s life ended.

“It’s so hard to do every day without him,” she said.

— Maxine Bernstein covers federal court and criminal justice. Reach her at 503-221-8212, mbernstein@oregonian.com, follow her on X

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