MARYSVILLE – Charles Hughley’s friends will gather around a fire pit Saturday to celebrate his life.
Friends and relatives will bury him next weekend, as Marysville police seek the public’s help to compile a timeline of the homicide victim’s last days and hours. His body was found April 13 in an abandoned house in the 100 block of Beach Avenue.
Michael V. Martina / The Herald
“It’s just unreal,” his sister Amy Hughley said Thursday as she sat on a couch in her home browsing through pictures of her only brother during happier times.
Charles Raymond Hughley, 39, was a friendly man who loved hunting and fishing, playing the guitar and listening to the music of rock icon Jimi Hendrix.
Hughley attended Marysville schools and earned a General Educational Development certificate.
He worked for a time for the Everett Parks Department, and loved being outdoors, she said.
“He liked to go with his friends to the river,” Amy Hughley said.
She helped plan his funeral Wednesday and said the time since learning of his death “has just been overwhelming.”
Charles Hughley, the youngest of four siblings and the only son, was close to his parents, she said.
He continued to live with them, at their behest, until they died, months apart, in 2003. Louise Hughley died of a heart attack. Her husband, Charles Hughley Sr., died three months later “of loneliness,” Amy Hughley said. They had been married more than 50 years. Their deaths hit their son hard.
“When they died, he started drinking heavily,” Amy Hughley said. “He just had a bad time in his life. When the house was sold, he didn’t know where to go. Charles didn’t have any confidence.”
While many friends and relatives offered him help, Hughley declined.
“He didn’t want help from us,” she said. “He wanted to do it on his own.”
He took off for about 18 months, spending much of that time in Bellingham, where he spent some time in a mission. He had been through alcohol rehabilitation programs a couple of times, trying to find in himself the strength to get his life back on track, she said.
A few weeks ago, Hughley returned to Marysville to reconnect with his family.
He had dinner with another sister and stayed overnight at her home,
“The last thing she said was, ‘Be careful and take care of yourself,’ ” Amy Hughley said. “He looked at her and said, ‘You know I can take care of myself.’ “
He then stayed about a week with a nephew. One night about two weeks ago, his nephew gave him $20 and Hughley left to go to a store, but never came back, she said.
Two of Amy Hughley’s relatives went to the house where Charles’ body was found and told her they “saw some things that upset them,” she said. She didn’t want to know the details. She believes he suffered before he died, and she doesn’t like to think about that.
“I’m concerned that the person that did this wasn’t caught,” she said.
Police are asking anyone who saw or talked to Charles Hughley in the last couple of weeks to call Detective J. Maples at 360-363-8317 or Detective B. Akau at 360-363-8301 to help investigators construct a timeline of his movements, Marysville Police Cmdr. Robb Lamoureux said.
“We have no leads,” he said. “We don’t really even know where he was, what he was doing or who he was with before he died.”
Detectives are “really scrambling here trying to get (the investigation) kick-started and get it moving again,” Lamoureux said.
Reporter Cathy Logg: 425-339-3437 or logg@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
