Couple's ties to Crook County area ran deep

PRINEVILLE -- Things had not been easy for Raymond and Deanna Donaca in recent years, and their troubled deaths saddened many in this central Oregon community this week.

The couple, descendants of some of Crook County's oldest families, were found dead Tuesday in their home on the land along Mill Creek their parents had ranched and farmed. Their four dogs lay dead, too.

After losing the land and house to foreclosure, they were to clear out by midnight Monday. Instead, Crook County Sheriff's Office investigators said, Raymond, 71, and Deanna, 69, committed suicide by closing all the doors except the one into the garage and leaving their Cadillac running, filling the home with carbon monoxide.

"I knew that they were having problems and that they didn't want to leave the place," said Fred Kowolowski, a Redmond lawyer who represented them in one of three bankruptcy filings in recent years.

Those who knew Ray Donaca recall him saying that he was born in the valley where he lived, and he would die there.

His folks, Thomas and Anna Donaca, farmed the bottom lands beside the creek and raised five children there. Ray Donaca's brother, Don Donaca, still lives just across the road.

"The Donacas are related to half the people in Prineville," said Gordon Shortreed, a friend of the family.

In better days, Ray Donaca made his living working in the woods on the same big D4 Caterpillar tractor that investigators think he used to position a large trailer to block access to the homestead.

"They were doing some Forest Service work, and that sort of ran out, so they ran out of money," said Larry Irwin, another attorney for the Donacas. "And they got elderly."

Ray Donaca was in poor health, Irwin said.

Crook County court records show the couple started borrowing against their inherited 18 acres as far back as 1988.

In 2001, they got a $200,000 loan from Long Beach Mortgage Co. of California. But in 2005, they started missing their monthly payment of $1,848.61, court records show.

The bank foreclosed on their house and sold it at auction last July for about $255,000. After an unsuccessful fight to reverse the sale, the couple were ordered to leave the house by midnight Oct. 22.

Friday, there was little evidence of the Donacas and the decades they'd spent at the property on Mill Creek Road, just a green and white real estate sign. Their two-bedroom house is listed for sale for $399,000.

No service has been scheduled yet for the couple. But brother Don Donaca said the family plans to bury them at Mill Creek Cemetery, where his parents are buried.

Matthew Preusch: 541-382-2006; preusch@bendbroadband.com