Salem man gets 15 years for 2022 shooting death of man at Geer Park 

After nearly three years, Debby Clark still has no idea what started the fight that resulted in her husband’s death.

She told police at the time, in August 2022, that a man attacked and ultimately shot her husband, Scott “Scotty” G. Tanner, 35, in a parking lot at east Salem’s Geer Park where they all lived out of their cars. Officers arrived to find Clark screaming and lying on top of her dead husband.

Marion County Circuit Court Judge Tom Hart on Monday sentenced Tanner’s killer, Thomas P. Healy, to 15 years in prison. Healy, 59, of Salem, will receive credit for the roughly two and a half years he has spent in jail and was also sentenced to three years of post-prison supervision.

Healy pleaded guilty on Jan. 17 to first-degree manslaughter and possessing a firearm as a felon. 

He tried five days later to back out of the plea deal, telling Hart in a letter that he felt “bullied” by his attorney to take the deal and that he wished to proceed to trial with a self-defense claim. The judge denied his request. 

A Salem Police Department affidavit for an arrest warrant and statements in court provide an account of what led up to Tanner’s death.

Clark met Tanner five years before his death, and they had been married for three years. She told police that they became homeless in September 2021 and started living out of her car.

She said the day of the shooting, they had met up with Healy to get milk he had bought for them. She had known Healy for about a month and said he was also homeless and lived out of his car.

Clark told police she pulled into Geer Park around 2:20 a.m. on Aug. 27, 2022, walked over to Healy’s car and talked with him before returning to her car to get Tanner a cigarette.

Healy then opened her passenger door and “swung” at Tanner, who used his arms to block the punch before trying to kick Healy.

Clark, afraid her husband would try to fight Healy, said she grabbed his shoulder and prevented him from getting out of the car.

She then saw Healy pull a gun from the back of his waistband and point it at Tanner.

Attorney Patrick Ehlers, who represented Healy, said at the sentencing hearing that Tanner eventually broke away from his wife’s grip and approached Healy holding a torch lighter.

Clark told police that Healy fired one shot which struck Tanner’s neck. Healy then ran to his car and drove out of the park.

Marion County Deputy District Attorney Katharine Semple said at the sentencing hearing that a week before the shooting, Healy had sent threatening texts to a phone shared by Tanner and Clark.

Semple said Healy disposed of his phone and gun, and he abandoned his vehicle at some point while fleeing to Bend. 

Other texts found on a new phone Healy obtained showed he was selling fentanyl pills and his own prescribed hydrocodone while on the run.

Police eventually arrested Healy in Bend on Nov. 2, 2022, over two months after the shooting. 

Ehlers said Healy had little parental support growing up and started using substances at age 12.

He said Healy wasn’t a master criminal but “a poor drug addict taking quarters out of laundry machines to support his habit.”

Ehlers said Healy shouldn’t have had a gun but did so because he was afraid for his safety while living out of his car.

In the days leading up to the shooting, Healy helped repair Clark’s van and bought them items from the story, according to Ehlers.

“That is not the kind of person that is out to kill her or Scott Tanner,” he said in court.

Ehlers said a toxicology report showed fentanyl, methamphetamine, methadone, morphine and cannabis in Tanner’s system after his death. He said Healy was afraid when he shot Tanner.

Healy has criminal convictions dating back to 1991.

He pleaded guilty in October 2016 to second-degree burglary and first-degree theft in Lincoln County Circuit Court. Two months later, he pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree criminal mischief, five counts of second-degree burglary and possessing a firearm as a felon in Marion County Circuit Court. 

He was sentenced to seven years and six months total in prison for the two cases but was released 10 months early in December 2020 under criteria set by then-Governor Kate Brown. He had been scheduled for October 2021 release.

Six weeks before Healy’s sentencing for the shooting Judge Tom Hart said in court on March 4 that Healy’s self-defense claim was “not a very good claim.”

“You’re the one that left town and went to Bend,” Hart said. “They had to hunt you down … That does not operate like somebody that got involved in something and needed to defend themselves.”

Clark told Healy at the sentencing hearing Monday that he destroyed her life and many others’.

“I went through hell. I have nightmares every night, still,” she said. 

In an interview with Salem Reporter on Monday after the hearing, Clark described her husband as caring, giving and loving. 

“Scotty had his demons. We all did, but he was a beautiful soul,” she said.

Tanner struggled with drugs, she said, but “he would do anything for anybody when he was in the right mind.”

Clark said she “went downhill” after her husband’s death but eventually graduated from drug court and has been sober for 15 months.

She said Tanner had rekindled his relationship with his mother shortly before his death. 

Tanner’s death destroyed his mother, who died last July, according to Tanner’s uncle, John Nelson.

“Her head hurt. Her heart was broken. Her faith was nearly shattered,” Nelson said.

When it came time for Healy to speak, he said he felt “tremendous remorse” for Tanner’s death. He said he wished he would’ve stayed and rendered aid instead of leaving the park.

“This isn’t about self-defense,” he said. “I’m here to take accountability for my actions.”

Before imposing the sentence, Hart said the evidence showed Healy was the aggressor.

“His subsequent conduct post-shooting did not help,” Hart said. “He crossed the line, significantly, in a manner that cost the life of Scott Tanner.”

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Contact reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian: [email protected] or 503-929-3053.

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