‘Very senseless and horrific crime’: Crook County judge imposes 25-year prison term in 2022 kidnap, fatal shooting

PRINEVILLE, Ore. (KTVZ) -- A Madras man indicted on murder, kidnap and other charges in the 2022 killing of another Madras man was sentenced Tuesday to a 25-year prison term on a lesser manslaughter charge, after he denied shooting or burying the victim, whose grieving family members pleaded for a murder conviction and life sentence. 

Victor Manuel Romero Jr., now 29, signed a plea petition last month, pleading guilty to four of the nine charges he faced in the September 2022 abduction, assault and killing of Thomas Patrick Nielson, 61. 

Nielson was taken from his mobile home, which was then destroyed by fire. He was taken to a field in Crook County, off Lone Pine Road, where authorities said Romero and co-defendant Audrey Hahn, now 34, of Bend, shot him several times. His body was found there a year later. 

In November of 2024, Romero was returned from a California prison where he was serving time for drug crimes to face new charges in the killing. Hahn still faces the same murder and other charges, unless a plea deal is reached in her case as well. 

One of the victim’s five sons, Zack Nielson, had a statement read for him in court. He told of how, as a Marine serving in Afghanistan in 2012, he nearly killed an innocent man in the “fog of war.” Ten years later, almost to the day, waiting to retire from the Marines, he learned of the fire at his father’s home, and his disappearance. 

“I sat in that darkness for an entire year, hoping they’d find my dad, and he’d be OK.” Instead, he said, “I was robbed of a future full of freedom to visit my dad.” 

Zack Nielson said the plea deal was “made without family involvement” and that Romero and Hahn beat and kidnapped his father, torching his house and eventually killing him. 

“They should be given no relief from the consequences of their depraved actions,” he said. 

Another son, Brian Nielson, spoke in court, calling it “one of the most heinous, brutal crimes in Oregon history.” He said Romero was a “gangster” and “thug” who “came hunting for someone who wasn’t there” - not Nielson, a disabled senior who he said had “nothing to do with the gang, the cartel” Romero was associated with. 

“But innocent didn’t matter to Victor Romero,” Brian Nielson said. “This was not a crime of passion. This was not manslaughter. ... What happened to my father was murder. I’m asking you from the bottom of my heart to reject the plea. ... I do not believe justice is being served in this courtroom today. A plea deal is not justice - it’s paperwork.” 

“This will not be the end,” he said, vowing to pursue every avenue, from civil and federal court.  

“Your honor, please reject this plea,” he pleaded. “Give my father justice.” 

The victim’s brother, Tim Nielson, provided a recorded audio statement that was played in court. He talked of many difficulties, claiming authorities did not keep his father’s assets secure and that the family was forced to sell his property at a loss for expenses such as like removal of the burned home and burial expenses. 

And he said the family has not issued a death notice or obituary, “for fear of upsetting the process.” 

“We hesitate to imagine what Tom endured in the hours and minutes prior to his brutal murder,” Tim Nielson said. 

Nielson provided KTVZ News with the recorded statement:

When it was his turn to speak - if he wished, Romero said: “I did not shoot Thomas. I did not shoot the guy. I did not end his life.” But he added, “I made a mistake of being (involved). I did not shoot him. I did not bury him – other persons did.” 

He added that he was “sorry to the bottom of my heart” for what happened. 

Crook County Circuit Judge Wade Whiting, who oversaw the settlement conference, held to the agreed-upon sentence. 

“It’s clear to me this was a very senseless and horrific crime that didn’t need to happen,” Whiting said. “At the end of the day, I know my words may ring hollow” to the family, he said, adding that he hopes the sentencing “can bring some measure of closure to the family,” and that “healing can follow.”