PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Police said they arrested and charged Nathaniel Freeman with murder after shots were fired at an apartment building in Southeast Portland — killing a man inside.
Thirty-year-old Morgan “Max” Victor was in his apartment near Southeast 28th and Division when he was killed by gunfire.
“I heard gunshots and popped up out of bed, and I saw him lying on the floor and people were yelling at me to get down and I will go over to him and I’m holding him screaming like, ‘Please don’t leave me. Just stay with me and just hold on,’ I tried everything I possibly could have, but I guess they were too late,” Victor’s soon to be fiancé Sabrauna Hedenberg said.
Hedenberg told KOIN 6 News they both are from Hawaii. When they met, it was love at first sight.
“He was the most amazing human I’ve ever met and I’m not just saying that because he was my fiancé,” Hedenberg said.
Born on the Big Island of Hawaii, Victor leaves behind a huge family with siblings who adored him.
Victor’s older sister, Keala Kahawai said “there’s 10 of us together, siblings, and those are blood siblings, but my brother was very close to a lot of people, and he has friends that are mourning just like us. They cry every day. I’m so happy that he had all those friends because they have so many stories that we didn’t necessarily get to live, but we get to hear about them now.”
His sisters say stories of him is all they have left after the senseless shooting.
“He was a big protector in my life. Especially with him moving closer to me, I felt better and better every day, knowing that if something happened, I could call him,” Victor’s younger sister Gabrielle Kosoff said.
Victor’s mother says he was her middle child who was born with natural talents. She feels like her future has been stolen because there was so much more she could have seen her son do.
“He was the guy that his neighbors felt safer because they were living near him. He was the guy who buys the kid next door his first pair of cool tennis shoes. That was the kind of guy Portland lost. And that’s a shame,” Tamara Charles, Victor’s mother, said.
As an entrepreneur, he just started his own homebuilding business, and his fiancé was going to be his real estate agent.
“So many things that we wanted to do together that now we won’t be able to,” Hedenberg said.
His family says his contagious laugh, infectious smile and warm embrace will be missed.
“I feel like I’m in another dimension. I can’t even accept that this is happening. So, just make sure to hug your loved ones and tell them that you love them every day,” Hedenberg noted.
Victor’s Hawaiian name, Kahoa Okekai, means friend of the sea, exactly where his ashes will be. Hedenberg will be spreading his remains at the beach in Hawaii where they first met before returning back to Portland.
There is Gofundme for Victor’s family as they are holding a celebration of his life soon.