A Springfield church congregation continues to mourn after Pam Fultz died earlier this week, more than two weeks after an Aug. 6 hit-and-run crash that left her critically injured and took the life of her husband, Randy.
“It’s a double slug in the gut. I mean, that doesn’t even cover it,” said Deanna Trujillo, associate pastor at City of Destiny Church. “But it’s the only hope we had, was that Pam might survive.”
Randy and Pam Fultz, both 73, had been out walking near their home on Aug. 6 when, according to police, a white SUV struck them both shortly before 9 p.m. on Sixth Street near the G Street intersection.
The SUV reportedly continued northbound, made a U-turn after striking another vehicle, then collided with the couple a second time after doubling back.
A suspect in the hit-and-run, Edgar Solorio Lopez, is being held at the Lane County Jail on a murder charge stemming from a fatal stabbing on Aug. 7, the day after the collision. Springfield police have described that stabbing as a random attack.
“This is the kind of thing that you ask, ‘Why them?’ And we don’t know why,” Trujillo said. “I don’t know if we’ll ever know why.”
The Fultzes joined City of Destiny Church, an Assemblies of God congregation, about a year and a half ago, but had long been involved in various church communities across Springfield, Trujillo said. She had known the couple for decades.
“They were the same inside the church, outside the church. You talk to their kids, they were the same inside their house, and that’s beautiful. That’s a beautiful legacy to leave behind,” Trujillo said.
The couple, married for close to 20 years, walked around their neighborhood “almost every night,” Trujillo said.
Trujillo and her husband, Dan, the church’s senior pastor, lived in the same area for years. Both couples joined in what Trujillo described as “prayer walks.”
Back when she lived in the neighborhood, Trujillo recalled that many of the houses frequently saw drug-related activity. During their walks, she would ask for “God to change and to renew and clean it up.”
The neighborhood has improved significantly since then, she said. Even so, prayer remained part of the Fultzes’ walking routine.
“I knew that they had been prayer-walking because they mentioned that to us,” Trujillo said. “But they had never told us if they specifically were targeting any area or anything like that. I think they just loved their neighborhood. I think they chatted with people as they went by and greeted people.”
Randy Fultz played guitar and sang during church services, Trujillo said. He often stopped by the church’s building, which also houses food and clothing donation services, to help with whatever was needed. He had been getting ready to help paint a mural.
Trujillo believes Pam helped Randy come up with songs. At the church, “she’d help with the hospitality, the coffee area, or set up and take down different things that we were doing.”
Trujillo’s son attended the same high school as Lopez, the suspect, she said, but at a school the size of Springfield High School, the two had not crossed paths. She said she was not aware of any connection between Lopez and the Fultzes.
The couple’s lives “were stolen,” she said, “not just from this church and the other churches that they still loved and served when they had a chance to. But they were stolen from this entire community.”
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