Oregon Public Broadcasting

A Wheeler County grand jury  ruled Friday that a Scappoose family will not face charges in the mysterious death of a 61-year-old hunter.

In the jury’s report, members of the Havlik family say that they shot Portland hunter Frank Means near Fossil in October, after he drew a 9-millimeter handgun and threatened them.

His widow, Jackie Means, says she is “devastated” by the news.

Jackie Means: “I just can’t understand that when somebody is shot five times, that a grand jury can find that it was justified. My husband was a wonderful guy, and he may have been drunk out there, but he was in his own campsite, I am having a real difficult time with this.”

The grand jury report says Means had a blood alcohol level of 0.24. The Havliks won’t comment – and the Wheeler County district attorney did not return OPB’s phone calls.

Means says she and her family have hired a lawyer to pursue civil wrongful death charges against the Havlik family, and possibly criminal negligence charges against the county sheriff’s office that investigated the shooting.