Friends say 29-year-old Barry Parnel didn't have a mean bone in his body, and now they're trying to understand what happened before a La Center homeowner shot and killed him.

Parnel worked at a Vancouver car wash for eight years and was a regular at the Out-A-Bounds Sports Bar and Grill across the street. That's where friends gathered Wednesday night and struggled to try to make sense of what happened.

At the bar, Parnel played pool and taught others the game.

"He would rack up the balls and wait for someone to play with him. He was a pool shark," said Anne Proudfit.

Parnel used to sit in a seat right next to a pool table that was turned into a memorial, filled with pictures, a poster board of well-wishes and flowers – just like the ones he brought the bartenders.

"Barry would walk down to Safeway, get them flowers just for no reason," said friend Jennifer Maul. "He remembered their birthdays; he remembered their kids' birthdays; he remembered everything special about everybody because that's who he was."

Several people say the last they knew Parnel went to La Center.

"He was taken out there by a friend, out to one of the card rooms," said Proudfit.

Deputies say around 12:30 Tuesday morning, Parnel was shot in front of a home owned by 59-year-old Leland Larsen. A neighbor says Larsen's wife let her dogs out when she saw Parnel.

"She opened the door. The male dog was snarling at this individual, a hulk of a man, she called him, in a black hooded sweatshirt. And she closed the door really quick-like and screamed, and her husband came to her aid," said the Larsens' neighbor Barbara Barnhart. "And I guess he got his gun and he went out."

"They talk about him being a hulk, we're talking about a guy who was about a buck twenty-five soaking wet," said Proudfit.

People at the bar say they're not sure what happened but say they do know that Parnel was not a confrontational person.

Parnel has a clean record in both Washington and Oregon. A law enforcement official says the homeowners said there was a struggle.

They also say only one weapon, belonging to the homeowner, was recovered from the scene.