FAIRVIEW, Ore. -- Friends and family members are remembering the victim of a deadly Blue Lake Park shooting Tuesday as a beautiful and brilliant woman.
Tiffany Jenks, 35, was found at the entrance to Blue Lake Park Tuesday morning. An autopsy was completed Wednesday and the medical examiner said her cause of death was homicide by gunshot wound.
Victims' family in shock
Jenks had five siblings and grew up in Corvallis. She graduated with a science degree from Portland State University and according to her family, had worked as a hydrologist for the Bonneville Power Administration until 2010 when her father passed away from brain cancer. Tiffany was very shaken up by it and left her job to travel and think, her sister Jennifer said.
We're just all still in shock and trying to comprehend this whole thing and figure it out, her sister Jennifer Jenks told KGW from her home in Hines, Ore. What happened to her? She was a lot of fun, she was a good person and she had a good heart. She didn't deserve this, whatever happened to her, she didn't deserve this.
Friends in Portland were very emotional when they learned of Jenks' death.
I'm devastated. How else would you feel? It's absolutely visceral, I'm shaking, said friend Darren Littlejohn. This is a horrible, horrible, shocking story,
Sister: Some of her friends 'were dangerous'
Jenks was also an avid runner in Portland. Her sister said Tiffany didn't have a car so the family was unsure about how she ended up in Fairview or if she had connections there.
Jennifer admitted that Tiffany was a recovering alcoholic and had problems relapsing. She also recently started hanging out with some bad people.
She liked to meet people and a lot of the people she'd meet were good people but every once in a while she'd meet someone who wasn't good, Jennifer said. Tiffany had said there were some other people that had come into her life that she felt were dangerous.
Investigators closed Blue Lake Park for 10 hours after Jenks' body was found Tuesday, but have not said if they found any clues about who may have killed her. They also went door-to-door asking neighbors if they had seen anything suspicious.
Background: Woman found dead near Blue Lake Park
Jenks' family set up a memorial account to help pay for funeral expenses. It's set up at US Bank as the Tiffany Jenks Memorial Fund.
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KGWreporters Nina Mehlhaf and Abbey Gibb contributed to this report.
