February 19, 2010

02/19/10: Tyler Brady, 22, Portland, OR

Tyler Brady, 22, was last seen Feb. 19 by a roommate at their home on Southeast Division. It was determined that he then went to the Couture Ultra Lounge on NW 4th/Couch, where his image was captured on surveillance footage. Afterwards, he apparently went to a bar called Tube, where he was refused service for being too intoxicated. According to reports, he made it home, dropped off his messenger bag, and took off on his bike. Friends say Tyler owned a car but regularly commuted by bike. His housemate, Kara Stubbs, noted that the bag was there when she got home from her bartending job at 4 a.m.; Brady was not.

Over ten days, his housemates grew increasingly concerned. Brady hadn't been home and his cell phone was off. They were scheduled to move out of their home in southeast Portland at the end of the month. Unable to find a phone number for his parents back in Potlatch, Idaho, his housemates mailed them a letter, then reported him missing. His family says the disappearance was completely out of character for Brady.


The Search for Tyler Brady

Brady’s father Dave arrived from Idaho after his disapperance was reported. He says Tyler would typically check in once a week by phone, but he hadn't heard from his son in more than ten days. When Dave Brady arrived in Portland, he found all of Tyler's belongings still in his room at SE 11th and Division Street.

Surveillance camera images showed Brady on his bicycle on Feb. 17th outside Safeway stores at NE Martin Luther King and Ainsworth and near Lloyd Center at approximately 10 a.m. The images show Brady wearing a yellow knit cap, which he is believed to have been wearing when last seen, and the white, bull-horn handlebars of his black, fixed-gear Schwinn road bike. Police believe Brady stopped at the store on his way to work, then worked a full day at his job in the Delta Park area. Brady was seen again on video at approximately 7:30PM., when Brady stopped at the Safeway store again, after leaving work that evening before later returning home.

At approximately 11 PM, Brady enters the Couture Ultra Lounge, located at NW 4th/Couch, where he is again caught on surveillance camera. Detectives have confirmed Brady stopped by the lounge with a friend, an employee of Couture, where they visited briefly with another employee before leaving to socialize at other businesses in the vicinity. From there he reportedly went to Tube.

Brady is described as a white male, 22 years old, 5′10″, weighing 150 pounds. He has brown hair and blue eyes, a scruffy beard and mustache, and has tattoos on the back of his neck and on one of his arms, and a pierced nose. Detectives have determined Brady was last wearing a dark-colored hoodie with a large white design on the back, dark-colored pants and a yellow knit cap.


About Tyler Brady

"Every single person who knows Ty, the first thing that they said was maybe he just hopped a train somewhere," says Brady's housemate Kara Stubbs, who says Brady has hopped trains before. He's an adventurous but reliable kid, according to friends.

In addition to hopping trains, he had ridden his touring bike from Seattle to Portland and spent last summer working on a fishing ship in Alaska. For the past year at least, Brady had been doing maintenance work. He would ride his black Schwinn fixie around Portland to maintenance jobs all day long, his car growing moss in the Dustbin's driveway. "Even if he partied all weekend, he would get up and go to work on Monday. I never knew him to miss a day of work," says housemate Ben Johnson. "He was one of my only roommates who always paid his rent on time."

On 3/17/10, Tyler Brady was found in the Willamette River near OMSI. The Multnomah County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed the cause of death as accidental drowning.

Police said they still have not been able to locate Tyler's bicycle. One commenter on BikePortland.org said he had seen a bike like Brady's locked to an oak tree not far from where Brady's body was found. It took two weeks for bike thieves to begin stealing pieces off the bike; it appears that all that eventually remained was the lock.


Anyone with information that may help in the investigation was urged to contact detective Mike Weinstein (503) 823-0446.

Posted 4/1/10.

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