REEDSPORT, Ore. — One man's crime, led to hundreds of hours worth of labor down the drain. On April 21, Joshua Heckathorn broke into a fish hatchery, the Gardiner Reedpsort Winchester Bay Salmon Trout Enhancement Program (STEP). He poisoned 18,000 young salmon with bleach.
"They were all dead," said Deborah Yates, the president of STEP. "They had been murdered by bleach being poured into it."
Court documents show that Heckathorn told an officer that he was high on marijuana. He also admitted to removing the bleach from a shed, but couldn't remember if he poured it into the tank.
"I was super angry and in disbelief," Yates told KGW over the phone. "You just can't wrap your head around why somebody would do that."
Heckathorn was sentenced on June 7. The judge ordered him to pay $15,000 in restitution and avoid all Oregon hatcheries. He also had to serve 30 days at the Douglas County Jail and will be on three years of supervised probation.
"It's just devastating," Yates told us. "You can't replace them, they are just gone."
Yates said his penalty does not match the amount of damage Heackathorn left behind.
"He caused harm to the fishing industry in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia," said Yates. "So, not only did it impact our hatchery but it affected two countries."
Yates said generous people from the area donated money towards upping their security systems, in hopes of preventing future break-ins at the hatchery. While still holding out for Heckathon to receive a harsher punishment.
"Unless you have a legal system that is going to enforce the laws and do a reasonable punishment," Yates expressed. "I don't know where you are going to go with it."
Heckathorn did not have any prior criminal record here in Oregon before this case.
STEP Hatchery said, they are still taking in donations to make their hatchery as secure as possible.