Gavel 2

A Medford man accused of murder after an argument at a city dry cleaner and laundromat in 2021 pleaded guilty Friday to a lesser charge and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Lorenzo Laray Fisher, 48, of the 500 block of Mary Street, Medford, pled guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the May 29, 2021, shooting of Robert Douglas Houze, 45. 

Fisher, a registered sex offender, was originally charged with second-degree murder, two counts of unlawful use of a weapon, and felon in possession of a firearm after he shot Houze once in the chest in the parking lot of Weldon’s Cleaners on Crater Lake Avenue. Fisher was scheduled to go on trial for those charges Dec. 4.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Allan Smith said Fisher’s sentence for manslaughter is five years above state sentencing guidelines because the circumstances of the case “came down in between” murder and the lesser charge. The plea deal was made in consultation with Houze’s family, Smith added.

Smith said he is hopeful Fisher will reform himself in prison.

“I’m confident that he will not resort to the use of firearms or weapons in the future, and hopefully he’ll be a more reserved, calm and a person who functions well in our society,” Smith said.

Fisher and two of his daughters went to Weldon’s May 29, 2021, where they did laundry. Prosecutors say Fisher, who is Black, ordered them to stay inside because he did not want his girls, who had just recently moved from Texas, to deal with “any kind of racial issues that might arise” in Medford, Smith said.

But when the girls went out to the parking lot to look for a lost belonging, Fisher chastised them for not doing what he told them, Smith said. Houze was reportedly in the laundromat with headphones on and watched the group, leading Fisher to lash out at him merely for observing, according to Smith.

Although there is no audio recording of the event, security camera footage did not show Houze and Fisher come to blows inside the laundromat, Smith said. However, one of Fisher’s attorneys, Samantha Evans, said Houze jumped up from his seat and took off his headphones when Fisher asked him, “Is something wrong?”

Fisher’s attorney, Alyssa Bartholomew, added that the two then went outside the business and “exchanged words.”

“I don’t think I would describe it as calm,” she said. 

Evans said that at one point Houze told Fisher to leave. 

Both prosecutors and defense attorneys say Fisher went home — which was around the corner from the business — and drove back to the same parking lot, where he found Houze. 

Both sides of the case say Fisher had a gun, which he pointed at Houze, who is legally blind. Smith said because Houze had a disability, he might not have seen the firearm. But Evans said Fisher told Houze he had a gun.

After the shooting — which Fisher’s daughters witnessed — Fisher fled the scene. He returned to his home briefly before heading to Josephine County, where he was found by Medford authorities and arrested. 

“He just wanted things to calm down,” Evans said of Fisher’s initial decision to leave. “He’s a Black man, and he was concerned about whether or not he would be immediately shot.”

Once he was arrested Fisher gave a statement to investigators, but they did not find it believable, according to Smith. 

“It was not the type of conversation that people have in real life,” Smith said. “(Fisher) didn’t like the the way the victim was looking at him and watching him chastise his daughters, so (Fisher) confronted him.”

Evans said Fisher had a different justification for getting upset with Houze. 

“He was afraid; he didn’t know if (Houze) had anything,” Evans said. “(Fisher) came from an area if you tell someone you have a gun, they don’t keep coming at you. He was afraid of what Mr. Houze might do.”

Both sides in the case said that Fisher wrote a letter of apology to the Houze family. At the sentencing, Fisher heard from people who knew Houze, including his mother. 

Bartholomew called her client’s plea “a very good resolution” for him personally and also spared both families from trial.

“In a post-George Floyd world, I think that a lot people’s emotions were charged, and I think that it’s an unfortunate event that happened,” Bartholomew said.

Public defender Colin Murphy added that with Fisher’s sentence rendered, neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys can agree on the exact sequence of events in the crime. 

“A plea bargain is a compromise between the parties that is based not only on what the truth is, but what the risk is,” Murphy said. “In the end, we all came to an agreement and … we hope everyone can move on and heal.”