Transients deny murder charges

by The Associated Press
| September 23, 2014 7:02 PM

DILLON (AP) — Two transients have pleaded not guilty to charges filed against them after the beating death of a Butte man at a Wise River campsite.

The Montana Standard reports 29-year-old Christopher Lee Stiles pleaded not guilty Tuesday to deliberate homicide in the Aug. 8 death of 60-year-old Mark Robert Mullen. Sandra Lee Ann Cantrell, who is 49, pleaded not guilty to accountability to deliberate homicide.

Court records say Cantrell told investigators she stabbed Mullen in the side with a filet knife after he tried to have sex with her and suggested Stiles join them. Stiles said Cantrell told him to “man up” and he hit Mullen in the head with a stick several times. An autopsy found the blows to the head were fatal.