Eugene police say Ricardo Chaney had been homeless and living out of a car before he apparently killed two people last week in a crime spree that ended with his own death.

But according to a Portland State University spokesman, the 32-year-old Chaney was registered as a student there during winter term, which ended just three days before the March 19 slayings of a retired University of Oregon professor in Eugene and a sheriff’s deputy in Mendocino County, Calif.

It was unclear when Chaney, a computer science major, had last attended undergraduate classes, PSU spokesman Scott Gallagher said. “They don’t take roll,” he said.

Public records and social media postings provide some clues about Chaney’s recent past — including that he had filed paperwork with state officials in December to form a new business that appears to have produced pornography.

But police have spoken little about the suspected killer’s background, and they have not said whether they have identified a motive for last week’s violent rampage.

Chaney’s friends and family, meanwhile, have declined to make any public statements about him since authorities announced that the Eugene native most likely was responsible for the two-state crime spree.

According to The Register-Guard’s archives, Chaney attended South Eugene High School, where he was a member of the school’s wrestling team during the late 1990s. His father, Richard, died in 1998 after a 20-year career as a cultural anthropology professor at the UO.

Ricardo Chaney was twice convicted of misdemeanor crimes in Lane County during the early 2000s. He took a number of classes at PSU between 2004 and 2006, but was not a registered student at that time, Gallagher said.

In 2007, Chaney filed for divorce from a woman with whom he had a child. The woman in 2006 had accused him of domestic assault, but the felony charge was later dismissed, according to court records. The woman declined to comment when contacted by The Register-Guard.

Family’s home sold

Chaney enrolled as a student at the UO before the 2007 winter term. After a one-year break, he re-enrolled for classes there during the spring and summer terms of 2008, university spokeswoman Julie Brown said.

Chaney did not declare a major while at the UO.

He was admitted formally to Portland State during the winter 2010 term and remained a registered computer science student there through the term that ended March 16, Gallagher said.

Chaney “had enough credits to be a senior,” Gallagher said, although he declined to say how many credits Chaney had completed at the university.

State court and Driver and Motor Vehicles Services Division records show that Chaney, at least officially, maintained an address at his family’s longtime home on Floral Hill Drive, which sits at the end of a driveway near the east entrance of Hendricks Park in south Eugene.

In December, Chaney used that address when he filed new-business paperwork with the Oregon Secretary of State. Chaney named his venture Zero Dark Films LLC. An Internet search for the company — along with social media postings to accounts made under Chaney’s name — indicate that it produced pornography.

Chaney’s mother, Martha Chaney, died in May. She was survived by two sons and a daughter, but in a will named her son-in-law as her personal representative. Those family members, all of whom live outside Lane County, have not returned telephone messages requesting comment.

The home on Floral Hill Drive sold Feb. 25 for $218,000, according to Lane County property records. Martha Chaney’s will bequeathed a car to Ricardo Chaney, jewelry to his sister, and stipulated that all remaining property would be split among the children, meaning that Ricardo Chaney was entitled to proceeds from the home’s sale.

Sudden crime spree

Eugene police say they are reviewing an unspecified number of recent unsolved crimes to determine whether Chaney can be linked to any of them.

Chaney was driving a friend’s pickup when officers arrested him in Eugene after a traffic stop on the night of March 5. Police found him driving without valid registration or insurance; they took him to the Lane County Jail after finding that he had a concealed handgun in the vehicle’s glove box as well as 14 tablets of the drug Ecstasy.

Authorities apparently still are working to determine whether an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle found in the pickup had been modified illegally to fire automatically.

Chaney — who also had three 30-round magazines, another loaded handgun and body armor in the truck — spent 18 hours behind bars. He was released after Lane County prosecutors declined to file formal charges.

On the morning of March 19, Chaney carried out a series of violent crimes in Eugene and in Northern California, police say.

Investigators suspect that the spree began when Chaney shot and killed retired UO professor George Wasson, then set fire to the 79-year-old Wasson’s home, not far from the Chaneys’ former property on Floral Hill Drive. Police said Chaney and Wasson were acquainted, and that the slaying was not random.

A short time after torching Wasson’s home, Chaney carjacked two men at gunpoint on Kinsrow Avenue and left the area in their BMW, police said.

Later that morning, Chaney exchanged gunfire with the owner of a business situated along Highway 101 in Northern California, then shot and killed Mendocino County sheriff’s deputy Ricky Del Fiorentino after a vehicle pursuit, authorities said.

Chaney was found dead after he was shot twice, apparently by a police officer who arrived at the scene of the deputy’s killing and found Chaney there. Chaney was wearing a military-style ballistic vest and was armed with two assault-type rifles during the incident, Mendocino County sheriff’s officials said.

Eugene police were among those who attended a memorial service for Del Fiorentino on Wednesday in Fort Bragg, Calif.

Follow Jack on Twitter @JackMoranRG . Email jack.moran@registerguard.com .