Warning signs were there in the weeks before Bryan Michael Penner took his life in a shower in the Deschutes County jail, according to his mother, as well as relatives of the woman authorities suspect he killed.

It matters because Sara Diana Gomez remains missing, and Penner was considered vital to the search.

“We’re still looking,” said Gomez’s stepfather, Michael Kuhn. “But it got a lot harder when he died.”

The 31-year-old Penner died at St. Charles Bend on March 12, one day after his body was discovered in a semi-private shower area off the dormitory he shared with 14 other inmates.

Penner was being held at the jail on suspicion of violating a restraining order Gomez, 24, had taken out against him in December. He had not been charged with crimes associated with her disappearance.

But authorities are clear: they think Gomez is dead, and they think Penner is responsible.

“I think he killed her,” Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel said the day of Penner’s death.

Gomez and Penner dated for five years before breaking up in November, according to a petition for a restraining order she filed the next month.

Penner did not take the breakup well, according to relatives.

In the early hours the day after Thanksgiving, he attempted to kill himself by drinking brake fluid. The attempt put him in a coma for three days at St. Charles Bend, according to his mother, Brigitte Thomas, of Portland.

After his release he attended one therapy session, but Thomas doesn’t think her son attended any more.

He came to Gomez’s workplace, Albertsons in north Bend, on two occasions.

On Dec. 5, Gomez wrote to Judge Stephen Forte that Penner had texted her suicide threats and that he had not been following through with mental health treatments after his suicide attempt.

She told Forte he had written to her on Facebook that “his only option is to stalk my job and pistol whip me.”

Forte granted the order, requiring Penner to stay 150 feet from Gomez and avoid her workplace.

Penner’s mother said her son did have contact with Gomez after the restraining order was granted, but that Gomez initiated contact with him as often as he did.

Gomez was reported missing Feb. 20. The next day, Bend Police searched Penner’s apartment in the 1800 block of NE Purcell Boulevard. He was taken into custody the same day.

As friends, family and supporters of Gomez searched the less-populated areas in Central Oregon, Penner was reportedly receiving death threats in jail.

Penner’s mother said he feared for his life. She said she shared her concerns with jail staff, by phone and in person. She said she told his attorney, Matthew Baughman, on three occasions that he had attempted suicide and remained suicidal.

The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office on Friday said that, with his security in mind, jail staff moved Penner to a different dorm.

“We believe he felt, and we have information from him that he felt safe there,” said sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. William Bailey.

According to Bailey, the sheriff’s office cannot comment on other matters related to Penner’s death, which the sheriff’s office has listed as suicide by asphyxiation. This means details, including the method and materials used, remain under wraps.

Bailey said when the jail staffers receive information that an inmate is suicidal, they are given an evaluation by the jail’s mental health staff.

The investigation into Penner’s death is being headed by the Oregon State Police.

Thomas said she could hear something in her son’s voice days before he hung himself in the shower of his dormitory. She said afterward, she promptly alerted jail staff.

“When somebody’s going through something like this, there’s only so much you can do,” she said. “And there’s only so much they’ll tell you.”

Gomez’s stepfather, Kuhn, said he took Thomas aside when she showed up at an event for the missing woman. He said he explained to Thomas that her presence there was difficult for Gomez supporters to take.

“Yes, it’s difficult. But you got to remember, she’s got no culpability here. She didn’t make him do it,” he said. “No matter what he’s done, a mother’s gonna love her child.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0325, gandrews@bendbulletin.com