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Ursula De Moe holds a flier from the celebration of life held for her son, Robert Bien, who died in Ogden under mysterious circumstances on March 14, 2023. De Moe was photographed Friday, April 14, 2023, in Washington Terrace.

Tim Vandenack, Standard-Examiner

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A flier from the celebration of life held for Robert Bien, who died in Ogden under mysterious circumstances on March 14, 2023. This photo was taken Friday, April 14, 2023, in Washington Terrace.

Tim Vandenack, Standard-Examiner

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WASHINGTON TERRACE — When Robert Bien went fishing, chances are he’d come home empty handed, jokes his mom, Ursula De Moe.

“Never got one fish. But he had a lot of good stories — ‘It got away,'” she said.

Either way, it didn’t seem to matter. The more important thing for Bien was commiserating with nature, chilling out. “I guess it’s relaxing,” she said.

She laughs thinking about it, but it belies the sadness that’s just below the surface. A little over a month ago, Bien, 34, was apparently shot and killed in a residential Ogden neighborhood around 30th Street and Childs Avenue.

Ogden police have only said that they found Bien with “injuries consistent with gunshot wounds” in the area after receiving phoned-in reports of gunshots at around 3 a.m. on March 14. He died despite first-responders’ attempted life-saving measures and the matter is still under investigation, according to Lt. William Farr, a department spokesperson.

De Moe, citing information she received from the funeral home that handled the cremation of his body, says her son suffered three gunshot wounds to the chest. Moreover, when he was found by police, he didn’t have a wallet, which she says he always carried, making her suspect her son may have been robbed and killed by an unknown assailant or assailants.

Police department reps, De Moe said, have told her they’re close to making an arrest, but she’s not so sure. “I think it’s mainly to pacify me,” she said.

Meantime, she worries a dangerous culprit or culprits remain free. “They’d do it again if they’d done it to one,” she said.

Perhaps more significantly, she remains heartbroken at the loss of her only son, a graduate of Ben Lomond High School. For now, she’s living at a rehabilitation center in Washington Terrace as she recovers from a broken hip.

“He was my light. He was here for me all the time. He was a good son, one you could only hope you’d have,” De Moe, who also has a daughter, said from the facility. “My son didn’t have a mean bone in his body.”

She’s not really sure what happened, though a family friend, who asked to remain anonymous, suspects it was a robbery attempt gone terribly awry. Bien was walking in the area early that morning with a second person — who escaped uninjured — when the incident occurred, according to the family friend.

Bien was a cook at City Club, a bar on Historic 25th Street in Ogden, and regularly got off from work in the early morning hours, perhaps figuring in his presence on a city street in the wee hours of March 14. His mom, though, doesn’t know why he would have been there.

She, however, puts the focus on the good guy that her son was.

“He hadn’t even lived yet at 34. He was enjoying life. He hadn’t even thought of settling down,” she said.

Food and cooking were “his thing,” and before City Club, he worked as a cook at an assisted living facility in Ogden. He would readily offer help to those in need, his mother recalls.

“He was a guy who helped you out any minute. He just loved life. He was kind,” said De Moe. His obituary says he loved the music of Simply Red and Whitney Houston, “enjoyed gambling in Wendover and collected pocket knives.”

Now, De Moe says her main hope is that those behind her son’s death are apprehended. “Just that they catch him and that I see them go to prison. That is my hope,” she said.

Otherwise, the other unavoidable sentiment is the grief. “My son is gone and he’s not coming back and I’ve got to live with that. It’s hard every day. Every day my heart breaks more and more,” she said.