PORTLAND, OR (KOIN/CNN) – Benjamin Lyons was young at heart, a caring man who loved to get out and explore.
That’s how the 83-year-old from Washington state is remembered by his son and widow.
Lyons, who worked as a security guard for Knight Hawk, was murdered overnight Sunday while making his rounds.
"It is a horrible loss," said Frances Lyons, Benjamin Lyons’ widow.
She said she never could've imagined the last 36 hours spent missing her husband.
Lyons had been married to him for more than five decades.
Lyons said her husband’s love, smile and arms made him special.
Those are among the many things she'll always cherish.
She said she can still feel his presence.
"He's putting his arms around me now holding me and telling (me), calm down, calm down," she said.
Vancouver Police said Lyons was on duty around midnight Sunday patrolling the Columbia Business Center, when he was murdered.
Lyons died from “multiple sharp and blunt force injuries,” according to the medical examiner.
It's a job his wife said he didn't have to do but simply wanted to do and had worked as security guard for the past decade or so.
"It's something that he thoroughly enjoyed because he just wanted to be out there protecting,” Frances Lyons said. “That's why I loved him."
Lyons said she never worried much about him on the clock, and that there had only been a few run ins with bad guys in the past.
They would usually would just run away, she said.
"The older he got and the older I got, the closer we got to each other," said his son Terry Lyons. "Dad and I used to do a lot of road trips to Utah and Arizona. He's the type of guy that you meet and you don't forget him."
The family dog who still waits by the door hasn't forgotten Benjamin Lyon as well.
"He'll always be with me. I mean he has been with me all these years," his wife said.
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