Murder suspects await trial
Two of five local cases unresolved
Defendants in three of Flathead County's five murder cases have entered guilty pleas or been sentenced in recent weeks.
But however rapidly the court's docket clears of homicides, it's not unusual for Flathead County prosecutors to be working several murder cases in various stages of resolution, Flathead County Attorney Ed Corrigan said.
"It's not a unique set of circumstances," he said. "It's happened before and given the nature of the judicial system I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen again."
Still to be adjudicated are cases against 24-year-old Dwayne Scott Smail of Evergreen and 20-year-old Ross Elliot Johnson of Polson, both of whom are charged in Flathead County with deliberate homicide.
"These are cases that take a great deal of time and of course are treated as a priority," Corrigan said. "But when you bring a fair amount of experience to the table you're better equipped to deal with the demands of those types of cases."
Smail, who is being held in the Flathead County Detention Center in lieu of $200,000 bail, pleaded not guilty in May to the March 5 shooting death of his girlfriend's 19-month-old daughter.
Smail initially was charged with negligent homicide, but the charge was later amended to deliberate homicide after prosecutors determined physical evidence at the scene failed to support his claim that the shooting was an accident.
According to court documents, Smail told investigators he had placed a 9 mm Ruger pistol on an exposed portion of his bed's box spring before going to sleep and awoke to find the toddler, Korbyn Eva May Williams, tapping him on the shoulder, holding the handgun.
The gun discharged when he went to grab it from the toddler, he told detectives.
However, blood-spatter analysis indicates Smail and Korbyn were three or more feet apart when the shooting occurred and the absence of gunpowder residue on Korbyn's clothes suggests she could not have both held the gun and fired it, prosecutors allege.
Smail's trial, already postponed three times, is scheduled to begin in the March 9 jury term "unless something unforeseen happens," Corrigan said.
Johnson, who is in custody at the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs, is accused of shooting his father in the head during an Aug. 30 camping trip at a cabin near the U.S. Forest Service's Bend Guard Station about 45 miles west of Kalispell.
Mental health specialists, who are evaluating whether Johnson is competent to stand trial, are expected to report their findings to the County Attorney's Office later this month. Acquaintances of the family have said Johnson suffered a head injury about a year ago in a BMX bicycle crash.
If specialists determine Johnson is competent, the case could take another six to 12 months to resolve, Corrigan said. Then a second forensic evaluation to determine Johnson's state of mind at the time of the shooting may be necessary, he added.
Johnson was arrested Sept. 1 after a two-day standoff at his family's home outside Polson.
According to court documents, the shooting occurred during a gopher-hunting trip that included a disagreement in which Johnson - who recently had threatened to kill his father - fired rounds from a shotgun into the woods.
After finding the body, investigators tracked Johnson to the family's home on Meadow Vista Way in Polson, where an armed standoff ensued. No shots were fired and no one was injured during the siege.
Johnson has yet to be arraigned and a trial date has not been set. If Johnson is found to be unfit to stand trial, the state will most likely seek civil commitment to a mental health facility.
In the last six weeks, Flathead and Lake County prosecutors have sentenced or accepted guilty pleas from three other men accused of murder.
On Monday, 47-year-old Robert Dean Kowalski pleaded guilty by way of Alford plea to mitigated deliberate homicide in the March 2008 shooting death of 45-year-old Lorraine Kay Morin.
The Flathead County Attorney's office alleges Kowalski shot Morin once in the face after an escalating domestic disturbance and then fled to his home on Montana 35 in Creston, where he involved SWAT teams from three jurisdictions in a 31-hour armed standoff.
Kowalski is scheduled to be sentenced on March 12.
On jan. 2, a Bigfork man pleaded guilty in Lake County District Court to deliberate homicide for the Dec. 31, 2007, shooting death of 24-year-old Clyde Wilson of Ferndale.
Ronald Lon Petersen, 20, was on leave from the U.S. Army when he broke into Wilson's home and shot him while he slept.
Petersen is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 4.
In December, 35-year-old Michael Gerald Cuchine was sentenced in Flathead County District Court to 15 years at the Montana Department of Corrections with 10 years suspended.
Cuchine was convicted of negligent homicide in the strangling death of 47-year-old Steven Guy Maycumber after a May 26 argument about a neighbor's fence escalated into violence along the shoulder of U.S. 2 in Evergreen.
Reporter Nicholas Ledden can be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at nledden@dailyinterlake.com