Day four of the Nancy Crampton Brophy murder trial in Portland went underway on Thursday, April 7th, 2022.
Wilke said he and Daniel were co workers for over 20 years, and when he opened up the OCI Daniel was one of the first instructors he hired.
On the morning of Daniel's murder, Wilke said that he was getting ready to drive to the school when he received a call from Paul Woodson Bailey. After the call, Wilke immediately went to the school. At the school, he saw a lot of police officers and crime scene tape around the building. Chef Dorothy Sadie Damon was standing in the parking lot and was “not doing well.” The students were still in the student lounge, waiting to be escorted out of the building by police.
Wilke was the person who suggested to police that they take the students across the street to the administrative building.
Later, Wilke had a walk around the school. He didn't notice anything disturbed or out of place. The only thing that wasn't there normally was the paper medical garbage left behind by the paramedics and EMTs.
Wilke said that he knew Daniel's routine and figured he was filling the water jug for the students when he was shot.
He said he saw Nancy at the scene and went over to talk to her.
“I walked up and I lifted the tape for her and she said, ‘This doesn’t sound good, Brian.’ And I said, ‘It’s not good,’” he recalled.
He then introduced Nancy to police officers and watch as she stepped into the police RV.
He also said that he saw Daniel's dad at some point at the scene.
Wilke then testified that he didn't have much of a relationship with Daniel or Nancy outside of school.
Wilke said that Daniel never missed a day of work and that he was consistent and seemed to really love his job. He also said that Daniel's father, Jack, worked downtown with the homeless. Daniel and Jack would take leftovers from the school to them.
Wilke's said that he had overheard Nancy telling the police that her and Daniel owned a gun. He said that he and Daniel never talked about guns or school shootings. Daniel didn't seem like a gun man to him.
After Nancy talked to the police for a little while, Wilkes and the police talked about someone driving her home.
Wilkes talked about the drop down ceilings in every room except the Janitorial closet where you could see the roof. He said that there was a crawl space there, but if a person chose to go up there that it was just tile and no substantial enough to support a person's weight. He said that one would need a ladder, which there was one in the building.
There also is a ladder inside the building that goes up through a hatch to the roof. That where the swamp coolers and such are.
Wilke answered questions for police officers on June 2 and spent all day near the campus. He talked about how one of the students had had problems in the past with a relative and there had been a flyer circulated about them so the students and staff could be aware.
Wilke said he’d heard there’d been an intruder in a nearby condominium. He said he didn’t know much about the incident and couldn’t remember exactly when it had happened. He also said that besides that, there had been no break-ins in the area to his knowledge.
He said that after Daniel's murder, he'd call Nancy once or twice a week to check in on her and that went on for a couple of months. In one phone call, he explained to her that since Daniel had died at the school, there were some benefits available to her.
He worked as the facilities manager and kitchen teaching assistant at OCI. He said he’d known Daniel since he’d started working at OCI in 2006.
Baily said that the alarm system on the doors was run by Philips Electronics and instructors all had codes to disarm the door alarm system.
Bailey said not until after Daniel's death were their security cameras in the OCI building. There were only two-way mirror left in the corner of a room from the building’s last tenant. He would sometimes make an act of cleaning the glass to fool the students into thinking there was a camera.
He said that Daniel would bring a cart of some of his vegetables he’d sell to the students. The cart is too big to go through a normal doorway and Wilke said he would usually bring it through the garage door on the storage supply room.
Bailey said that Daniel was the primary fieldtrip instructor because he had great passion for the job and he wanted to show the students all the different jobs that was possible for them. Bailey said that he would accompany Daniel’s field trips with his students. He also said that he and Daniel were fairly close and that they spent time together outside of school.
Bailey said he doesn’t remember Daniel ever discussing finances, his plans for retirement, or firearms.
He said that at one point Oregon Culinary Institute budget grew tighter and there were no raises for faculty members, but no one was forced to stay. People like Daniel stayed because they were passionate about their jobs.
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