Man arrested in assault on ex-wife

Kalispell police arrested a man early Monday morning whom they say stole his ex-wife's car and then returned to assault her.

William Frederick Arnot, 44, stole his ex-wife's Ford Taurus at about 1:45 a.m. from the parking lot of the Blue and White Motel on U.S. 2, police said. About an hour after Arnot's former spouse called police to report the theft of her car, Arnot allegedly returned to the motel and assaulted her.

Police returned to the scene and arrested Arnot outside Finnegan's restaurant, less than a block from where the alleged assault occurred. Arnot is being held on a warrant for walking away from a pre-release center in Butte, where he was serving a 60-month sentence for aggravated domestic assault, while charges in connection with car theft and assault are pending, police said. Pre-release centers house programs in which inmates work their regular day jobs without supervision during the day but return to be incarcerated at night. The victim had not known that her ex-husband had escaped the pre-release center and was in Kalispell, police said. Police later found the victim's car totaled in Columbia Falls.