On September 5th, 2011, the body of David Gates was discovered among bushes near Northeast 88th Street in Vancouver, Washington. David, who had been experiencing homelessness and living in the area, had suffered fatal head trauma. Authorities determined that his death was a homicide, though the available public records do not establish precisely when he was attacked.
The circumstances surrounding his final hours remain unclear. The sheriff’s publicly available case summary does not identify anyone who may have witnessed the attack, describe David’s last known movements, or establish whether he knew the person responsible for his death. It also does not disclose a suspected motive or the type of weapon, if any, used in the attack.
Without additional publicly released evidence, there is no reliable way to reconstruct what happened to David before his body was discovered. There is no identified suspect in the sheriff’s current case summary, and the agency has not disclosed a specific motive.
As of September 2026, the Clark County Sheriff’s Office continues to include David Gates among its unsolved homicide cases.
