Trials pending in seven cases involving deaths

Flathead County began 2007 with charges in seven deaths and two more under consideration.

Five of the cases stem from fatal traffic accidents.

Another case involves a Canadian teenager who drowned in 1982 after a plane landed in Bitterroot Lake. The pilot escaped; he was arrested last year in Texas on a 24-year-old negligent-homicide warrant from Flathead County.

Another charge is against a woman who shot and killed her husband in the North Fork. And two cases involving the deaths of babies remain under investigation.

Alcohol was said to be a factor in all five fatal vehicle crashes:

. Jason DeShazer, 23, of Kalispell, faces trial on a negligent homicide charge. He is accused of causing a crash Oct. 26 that killed Dawn Bowker, 27. Officers said he was intoxicated when his vehicle crossed the center line of Montana 82, striking Bowker's vehicle head-on.

. Curtis Thomas, 29, of Kalispell, is charged with negligent homicide and negligent vehicular assault. A passenger in his vehicle, Bo Motichka of Columbia Falls, died when Thomas rolled his truck near Olney on Aug. 27.

Thomas and another passenger were hurt in the accident.

. Terry Miller, 44, was arrested after a hit-and-run accident that killed a motorcycle rider near the Blue Moon bar. David McCann of Oceanside, Calif., died at the scene. "He had his helmet on, but it didn't do any good," said Trooper Erick Fetterhoff of the Montana Highway Patrol.

. Steffanie Schauf was 26 when her Mazda Miata crashed into the back of a truck near Whitefish on July 2. The impact killed Brett Adams, 24, of Bigfork, a passenger in the truck. He was ejected and later pronounced dead at Kalispell Regional Medical Center. Two other people in the truck were hurt. Officials said Schauf had a blood-alcohol level of 0.34 - more than four times the legal limit.

. Genevieve Baker will be sentenced this year for an accident on April 29 that killed two people. She was 48 when she was charged with two counts of negligent homicide for the deaths of William Haller Jr., 25, and Georgia Johnston, 46. Baker's vehicle hit Haller's motorcycle near the airport. It then rolled into a ditch, killing Johnston, Baker's sister, a passenger in the vehicle. Baker, who was critically injured in the crash, pleaded guilty.

The five fatal accidents contributed to a 50-percent increase in fatalities in the western district of Montana last year. The Montana Highway Patrol reported 66 fatalities here, compared to 44 last year.

Two other homicide cases pending in Flathead County may go to trial this spring.

Jaroslaw "Jerry" Ambrozuk, 44, was arrested Aug. 30 in Plano, Texas, on an arrest warrantfrom 1982. That year, he piloted a plane from Canada to Montana, where he crashed the plane in Bitterroot Lake. He swam to safety and left behind his girlfriend, Dianne Babcock, 18. She drowned inside the plane.

Ambrozuk vanished immediately after the crash. In phone calls to a friend in Canada, he said he and Babcock had planned to land the plane in the lake and disappear into new lives in the United States. Babcock was unable to get out of the plane before it sank, Ambrozuk told his friend.

He started a new life under an assumed name in Texas. He confided some of his past to a woman he dated. She did an Internet search on his real name and discovered a Daily Inter Lake story describing how he still was wanted on negligent homicide charges here.

The woman contacted then-Sheriff Jim Dupont, who notified Texas officials. Ambrozuk was arrested and was returned to Montana.

Also pending is the murder charge against Rebecca Braunig-Haag.

She is accused of shooting her husband, Von Stanley Haag, 60, at their North Fork home in November 2005. He was 60. She is 52.

The couple had moved to the wooded area of the North Fork from San Antonio, Texas, where both had been longtime employees of the parks department. She was reportedly a horticulture supervisor and he was a maintenance supervisor.

Braunig-Haag said that her husband threatened to burn down their home if she didn't return to San Antonio with him for his father's funeral. She said she shot him in the chest in self-defense.

Kalispell attorney Patrick Sherlock represents both Ambrozuk and Braunig-Haag. They will be prosecuted by Flathead County Attorney Ed Corrigan.

Corrigan said he still is considering charges in the deaths of two babies.

One infant was found buried in the back yard of a Columbia Falls home. The mother reportedly disclosed last year that she buried her newborn there years ago. The baby was exhumed in April.

In May, an autopsy was conducted on a 6-month-old baby who suffocated.

Abigale Rose Horns body reportedly was found beneath couch cushions at a home at the Hideaway Mobile Home Court near Columbia Falls.

Corrigan said investigations continue into both of the babies' deaths.