A Vancouver resident whom police say died in a homicide over the weekend was a 66-year-old woman who had mental and physical disabilities, according to her family.
A friend who looked after Sharon L. Allison, 66, hadn’t heard from her in a couple of days and called 911 at 11 a.m. Saturday.
Vancouver police were sent to do a welfare check at her residence at the Columbia House, 130 W. 24th St. When they arrived about a half an hour later, they found Allison’s body inside her apartment.
Officers determined the death was suspicious and called for detectives with the agency’s major crime unit to investigate.
“It was definitely determined it to be a homicide investigation,” Vancouver police spokeswoman Kim Kapp said Monday.
Kapp did not specify how Allison died, saying that investigators are waiting for the Clark County Medical Examiner’s Office to make that determination.
No arrests have been made, and no other information about the investigation was released Monday.
Allison’s brother, Paul Allison, 54, of Oklahoma, said that his sister suffered a double brain aneurysm 20 years ago, which left her slower mentally and paralyzed on one side of her body. She got around with the aid of a walker.
“She was handicapped — mentally and physically,” Paul Allison said. “She would be someone that should have been in assisted living.”
Before her aneurysm, Sharon Allison was a free spirit and worked multiple jobs to provide for her daughter, her brother said.
“She was never one that could be tamed,” Paul Allison said. “She worked her tail off … she was motivated.”
But in recent years, he said, Sharon Allison started drawing Social Security and had trouble keeping track of her money.
Columbia House is a Vancouver Housing Authority building for low-income senior citizens near downtown Vancouver.
Mark Wilton, assistant minister at the First Christian Church, said that Allison was a regular member of the church and had told the congregation that some unsettling things were going on at the Columbia House. She wanted to move out, he said.
“We don’t know exactly what it was, but it made us really concerned,” Wilton said. “She wanted us to pray for peace in the Columbia House.”
Wilton said that Allison, whom he described as a very religious lady, will be missed dearly at the church.
Paul Allison said that Sharon Allison was kind to everyone and touched a lot of lives in her time.
“She never met a stranger,” he said.
But with little information about what happened to his sister, he’s left with gnawing questions.
“Did she suffer? Was it something very brutal?” he said.
Knowing that she was not sound, physically or mentally, he said he can’t imagine who would want to harm his sister.
“Obviously, I would love to see the justice part of this taking place,” he said. “How could someone do that to her? She wouldn’t hurt a fly — she couldn’t hurt a fly.”
He said he finds some peace in knowing that his sister is in heaven and that she will not suffer from her constant headaches anymore.
“She’s not in any pain,” he said. “You cannot have anything better than that.”
Anyone with information related to her death is asked to contact Vancouver Police Detective Lawrence Zapata at 360-487-7420 or lawrence.zapata@cityofvancouver.us.
