'Smell of … rotten fish': Dead man sat for so long at housing complex he had no fingerprints or hair after staff failed to do welfare checks, lawsuit says

An Oregon family is suing Portland‘s biggest housing provider, claiming a loved one died at one of its transitional apartment complexes and his body went unnoticed for weeks despite required welfare checks. The provider has allegedly become notorious for undiscovered deaths.

Eric Eno’s family says workers at the Central City Concern (CCC) housing complex where he was living in 2024 — the Shoreline Apartments — were supposed to perform “mandatory” wellness checks on him as part of a “care and safety plan” he had in place after his release from prison.

The housing provider, which helps unhoused residents and adults on parole transition back into the community, was contacted by Eno’s sister repeatedly in July 2024 and August 2024 and asked to perform a welfare check on him, but “employees refused,” according to the family’s legal complaint, which was obtained by Law&Crime on Monday.

“On information and belief, at or near the time of Eric Eno’s residency at CCC, the Shoreline Building’s occupancy level was at a record minimum,” the complaint says. “Discovering that Eric was missing or deceased would have substantially compromised CCC’s revenue source that was or may have been contingent upon maintaining minimum occupancy levels at the Shoreline Building.”

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On Aug. 17, 2024, CCC employees called 911 because other residents were reporting “a foul odor emanating from Eric Eno’s room,” the complaint says. The employees allegedly asked police to perform a wellness check due to concerns about Eno. In their 911 call, one of CCC’s employees stated:

We had a client on a completely different floor complain of the smell with his window open … and so … we took a – a stroll on both floors after looking at – just to see who had been on the “AWOL roster” quite a bit, or not signing in on the floors. That’s what we’re referring to when we reference “the 10th.” That client stopped signing in on his floor on the 10th – um – he has discovered when we looked for his fob entry that he, actually, either didn’t ever have a fob, or he just came in with somebody else every time he entered the building because he didn’t have anything for that card.

According to the complaint, CCC did not perform a wellness check “or an occupancy check” on Eric at this time. The following day, a worker called Portland Police’s nonemergency line and explained what was going on.

The employee once again requested a wellness check by police, saying, per the complaint:

He’s [Eric] been “MIA” for a while, um, looking at his fob he hasn’t used it in 11 days… uh… clients, I guess, last night were – I wasn’t here last night – but clients were reporting that there was a smell coming from his room . . . um . . . I guess someone said they had called for a welfare check but I don’t see any notes or any incident reports or anything written about it, so . . . I question that. Um… but I just went up there, I knocked on the door, there’s no response and there’s, I mean, there’s a smell of like rotten fish in there.

When asked by the 911 dispatcher if CCC employees could access the room, the worker stated, “Uh, I have keys for it, I’m not really supposed to, but, uh, if you guys come we will make an exception,” according to the complaint.

“My supervisor is out of town, so let me call her supervisor, um, see if I can get permission to [open the door],” the 911 caller also said, according to the complaint. “But, I figure if it’s an ’emergency,’ um, they’re willing to bend the rules a bit.”

CCC workers performed a welfare check on Eno and discovered that he was dead with “significant postmortem alteration” and “signs of death indicating a number of weeks had passed since he died,” per the complaint. A cause of death is not listed.

“During the time Eric Eno was missing, defendant [CCC] could access and review Eric Eno’s key fob history, case file, and other materials, and it was aware of Eric Eno’s failure to sign in on the daily sign in sheets,” the complaint alleges. “The condition of Eric Eno’s corpse at the time he was discovered had reached a level of postmortem decay and alteration that the plaintiff was forced to cremate her brother’s remains when she would have otherwise chosen burial.”

The complaint adds, “Eric’s remains no longer had fingerprints. Kristine could not get even a lock of Eric’s hair as a result of the decay.”

The Eno lawsuit is one of at least seven filed against CCC concerning undiscovered deaths at its apartment complexes. According to local NBC affiliate KGW, the lawsuits seek tens of millions in damages. Multnomah County is also named as a defendant in several of them because it has a service provider contract with CCC.

The Eno lawsuit cites one of the other decedents, Brendan Mackey, whose “decayed corpse” went unnoticed for approximately two months before finally being found in February 2024.

“The Shoreline building and the CCC programming facilitated therein, where Brendan Mackey was discovered, is the same location and includes the same CCC staff members involved in Brendan Mackey’s case,” the Eno complaint says.

One resident at CCC’s Blackburn apartments, Donald Mahar, wasn’t found until maggots started crawling near his doorway, according to his sister and mother, who filed a lawsuit against CCC in June 2025.

The Blackburn complex reportedly has had at least three residents die and go unnoticed since 2021, KGW reports.

According to the station, CCC provides more than 2,280 housing units while owning, leasing and managing approximately 34 buildings.

A lawsuit filed in January 2026 by attorneys for the seven families who have sued CCC claims the provider’s insurance company agreed to dole out $8 million to settle the claims, but has not actually distributed any of the money.

The company, Alliance of Nonprofits for Insurance Risk Retention Group, has not responded to requests for comment. Multnomah County and CCC have both declined to comment, citing the pending cases.

The post ‘Smell of … rotten fish’: Dead man sat for so long at housing complex he had no fingerprints or hair after staff failed to do welfare checks, lawsuit says first appeared on Law & Crime.