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PENDLETON – An Oregon corrections officer was killed late Monday after stopping to help a stranded motorist, a state official said this morning.

Buddy R. Herron, a four-year employee of the Oregon Department of Corrections and a corrections officer at the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton, was killed about midnight Monday, said Jennifer Black, a corrections agency spokeswoman.

A suspect, 22-year-old Joshua Charles Weeks of Pendleton, is in custody, said Umatilla County Sheriff John Trumbo. Weeks has a long criminal history. Said Trumbo: "He has had a troubled past."

Weeks was convicted in Multnomah County of five counts of felony identity theft in September 2010 and last February, he was convicted of second-degree forgery and and second-degree theft in Umatilla County.

Oregon State Police referred questions about the case to the Umatilla County District Attorney.

Black said Herron, a 42-year-old father of four from Helix, had stopped on his way to work to help an apparently stranded motorist near milepost 3 along Oregon 11, an area straddled by wheat fields three miles east of Pendleton. He was then killed, though the circumstances surrounding his death remain unclear, Black said.

Suspect Joshua Charles Weeks is in custody in Umatilla County Jail in connection with Corrections Officer Buddy Weeks's death.
“It’s really very upsetting,” Black said. She said Herron was well liked and “was just trying to be a good Samaritan” when he stopped last night.

Fellow law enforcement and corrections officers were shaken by the death, the sheriff said.

"It's a brother in arms who tried to do what we do -- stop and help someone," Trumbo said. "We're all very upset."

Kimberly Herron, Buddy’s wife, was too distraught to speak about her husband this morning. “He was a wonderful husband and father,” she said.