By Erin Golden / The Bulletin
Published: March 12. 2010 4:00AM PST
SUNRIVER — A Sunriver-area couple and their 7-year-old son were found dead at their home Thursday morning.
Dispatchers received a call around 10:30 a.m. from someone who reported seeing a person hanging outside of a garage at a home on Hermosa Road, south of Sunriver. When responders from the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office and Oregon State Police arrived on the scene, they found Joachim Steffan, 40, hanging outside the garage. Inside the light blue house, they found the bodies of Dagmar Steffan, 49, and Pascal Steffan, 7.
By Thursday evening, officials had released no information about a cause of death for the family. They were calling the incident a homicide, but said they were not looking for suspects and did not believe residents in the area were in any danger.
Neighbors on Hermosa Road said they didn't know something had happened until the emergency vehicles started showing up late Wednesday morning.
Darren and Robin Weeks live across the street and said they'd known the family for a few years. They described Joachim, who went by “Joe,” as an entrepreneur always looking for a new business venture, from construction to a decal business to a coin-operated laundry.
“He was very easygoing, very optimistic,” Darren Weeks said.
State business records list Joachim Steffan as the manager of Steffan Construction LLC, a business based at the Hermosa Road address, and Dagmar Steffan as the contact person for La Pine Dry Cleaning.
Dagmar, neighbors said, was a talented baker who had once held a neighborhood bake sale and had plans to open her own bakery. She specialized in sweet treats from Germany, where neighbors said both Joachim and Dagmar were from.
Pascal came over to the Weeks' home frequently to play with the couple's two boys. Robin Weeks said the short, stocky boy had impeccable manners and a fondness for jumping on the trampoline.
“The boys would want to come in and play video games, and he'd want to jump on the trampoline,” she said. “He'd stay out there and his mom would call him to come home, and he'd say, ‘No, no, I'm having too much fun.'”
Several neighbors said they'd often see Pascal playing outside in the yard or walking down the street to the bus stop.
Hunter Ramsey, 11, and Brandon Mehren, 12, who had ridden over on their bikes to check out the scene, said they waited for the bus every day with Pascal, a student at Three Rivers Elementary. But on Thursday, they'd opted to bike to school and didn't find out something had happened to the boy until they returned home at the end of the day.
Jerry and Betty Rockow, who live down the street, said the family seemed to have a close relationship. Joachim, they said, was often outside with his son, and both enjoyed riding on four-wheelers.
“He was proud of that little boy,” she said.
As the sun set Thursday, detectives were still on scene in the otherwise quiet, wooded neighborhood. Wearing gloves and yellow crime-scene coverings over their shoes, police walked back and forth from the house, sometimes carrying items out.
Capt. Marc Mills of the Sheriff's Office said the family was last seen Wednesday afternoon, but detectives aren't sure if they died Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. No new details were available at 11:15 p.m. Thursday.
Neighbors said Joachim Steffan had been out of town for several weeks because he'd found work out of the area. He had been back home for a couple of weeks, but they'd recently put their house on the market, and hadn't been coming and going as often as they had in the past.
A “for sale” sign remained up outside the home Thursday evening.
Erin Golden can be reached at 541-617-7837 or at egolden@bendbulletin.com.
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