BEAVERTON, Ore. — Many nurses and friends of Melissa Jubane gathered at Ridgewood View Park Monday evening to honor her memory. Beaverton police found the body of the 32-year-old days ago.
"The moments that we had with Melissa are gifts. Moments filled with laughter, friendship and joy," said one person during a speech at the vigil.
Jubane was first reported missing on Wednesday, Sept. 4 after she didn't show up for her shift at Providence St. Vincent that morning. Detectives spent the next two days investigating, as friends led community-wide search efforts near her apartment complex.
Officers arrested her neighbor, 27-year-old Bryce Schubert, for his alleged involvement in Jubane's disappearance. Then, after finding her remains, investigators charged Schubert with second-degree murder. On Monday, court documents showed two additional charges against him: kidnapping and abuse of a corpse. A preliminary hearing for Schubert is scheduled for Sept. 16.
During Monday's vigil, her colleagues and friends focused not on how Jubane died, but how she lived: with laughter, friendship and joy. It was also an opportunity, nurses told KGW, to come together in grief to support one another.
"We came here in solidarity, with the sad news of her murder," said Mafe Chase, a Providence nurse with the Philippine Nurses Association. "It was closer to heart because she is part of our community."
"I actually don't have words to say how impressed and heartfelt and touched I am to have all of these people here right now," said fellow nursing colleague Kathy Keane.
Keane remembered Jubane as smart, fun and reliable, with a big heart who would built community and lasting friendships wherever she went. Like so many others, she's heartbroken by Jubane's death.
"When it's somebody that you love and somebody that you have worked with, somebody that you've been elbow-to elbow-with at a bedside when things are going sideways. Working through COVID, I mean it's, it's just a very different feeling," Keane said.