Police confirm grisly details in Clackamas County murder case

(Updates with new police info)

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – Police have confirmed that the severed head of a woman brought into an Estacada grocery store before a stabbing belonged to the mother of the suspect.

Sandy police said in a news release Monday evening that responding officers in the Mother’s Day incident determined that the woman’s head belonged to a victim, 59-year-old Tina Marie Webb, whose body was found at her home in nearby Colton.

Joshua Lee Webb, 36, has been booked on charges of murder and attempted murder in Clackamas County.

Authorities say he killed his mother, then went to Escada and entered a Thriftway store carrying a human head.

Webb is then accused of stabbing a checkout clerk before being subdued and arrested.

Sandy police identified the man stabbed as 66-year-old Estacada resident Michael Wagner. He is expected to survive.

Webb’s father said his son “seemed normal.” David Webb said his son had vision problems and lived at home.

(Update with name of suspect and his mother, the victim)

Clackamas County sheriff’s deputies said Joshua Lee Webb, was released from the hospital and booked into the county jail in Oregon City Monday afternoon.

The victim was identified as his mother, Tina Marie Webb, 59, of Colton, who shared a home with her son on Elwood Road.

Police said Monday that Joshua Webb was in a “catatonic state” after he was subdued by other workers at the store.

Sandy Police Chief Ernie Roberts said the suspect had no physical injuries and was taken to a Portland hospital for an evaluation because he wasn’t speaking.

He said the suspect told someone at the market before the stabbing that he was thirsty.

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Earlier story

A man who entered an Estacada grocery store Sunday afternoon, covered in blood, holding a knife and carrying what looked like a human head, stabbed a worker but was caught by other employees, Clackamas County sheriff deputies said. They also said the incident is tied to a woman’s death at a home in Colton.

A 911 call from the Estacada Harvest Market Thriftway around 2:15 p.m. laid out the grisly details, deputies said. The suspect, who has not been publicly identified, was being held down by store employees, they said.

Deputies and Sandy police, who provide contract police services in Estacada, went to the scene and took the man into custody, later taking him to the hospital for what authorities called unknown injuries.

Around 2:35 p.m., a 911 caller in Colton, about 12 miles southwest of Estacada, reported finding an apparently dead woman in a home, bringing deputies, Oregon State Police and Molalla police to the scene, as well as county detectives and a major crime team.

Deputies said the two incidents are connected, and that with the suspect in custody, there was no threat to the public, though further details were being withheld as the investigation continued.