Jurors review accused killer’s interview with detectives

Jurors in Del Orrin Crawford’s murder trial on Wednesday watched him struggle to explain to detectives in 2022 why he needed to shoot two people — killing one of them — outside a Martin City bar.   

Prosecutors charged the 42-year-old Kila resident with five felonies in Flathead County District Court following the deadly Aug. 27, 2022 shooting, including deliberate homicide, assault with a weapon and tampering with evidence. Crawford maintains he fired in self-defense as a confrontation over a golf cart outside the South Fork Saloon boiled over.   

Special Deputy County Attorneys Thorin Geist and Selene Koepke are prosecuting the case. Crawford is represented by a team of lawyers led by Missoula-based attorney Kris McLean. Judge Dan Wilson is presiding over the trial.   

Witnesses have offered differing accounts as to how the disagreement unfolded but agree that Crawford pulled a gun out after falling to the ground and fired several times. One bullet struck and killed Whisper Sellars. The other wounded her husband, Doug Crosswhite.   

Jurors had previously heard recordings of 911 calls Crawford made following the early morning shooting. On Wednesday they saw him alternately friendly, self-righteous and distraught during a recorded pre-dawn interview with Flathead County Sheriff’s Office detectives.   

“How [expletive] am I?” he asked detectives as they entered the room with him about 3:12 a.m.  

Crawford painted himself as the victim to investigators, telling detectives that the group that included Crosswhite and Sellars became confrontational when he asked them what they were doing clustered around a golf cart in the parking lot.   

The cart was earlier used to ferry wedding party members — a group that included Crawford — to the saloon after a rehearsal dinner at the nearby venue. Crawford told investigators he was leaving the bar to drive a friend back to the venue when he crossed paths with Crosswhite, Sellars and several of Crosswhite’s siblings.   

“I argued with these folks for some time,” he told detectives “They won’t let me get on the golf cart and leave, and all they can tell me is, ‘If you don’t like what we’re doing, call the cops.’”  

He recalled ending up on the ground during the disagreement, alternatively suggesting he tripped while trying to flee the interlopers and accusing them of possibly pushing him. Hurt and scared, Crawford remembered looking up to find several of them towering over him.   

“I stood up, produced my handgun and shot twice,” he recalled.  

He said he believed their taunts to call the authorities indicated that they knew too much time would pass before deputies arrived at the scene to help. Crawford told detectives he “was not going to be a victim.”   

“I was on the ground and they were on top of me in a public area, what more do I need to explain?” an exasperated Crawford later asked the detectives. “So I produced and I called law enforcement and you guys showed up. And now they know how long it takes for the sheriff to show up.”  

Crawford grew agitated as detectives questioned his story. He said the golf cart did not belong to him — the groom testified to ownership of the vehicle earlier in the week — but could not explain why he felt he needed to protect it.  

He also struggled to explain why he did not walk away. Why not just return to the bar, detectives asked him.   

“That’s not a requirement for me,” Crawford told them. “I am allowed to defend myself; I am allowed to defend the people around me; and I am allowed to defend my property and the things entrusted to me.”  

He grew coy, his voice growing higher in pitch, when detectives asked him where he had stowed the Smith and Wesson Shield 9mm used in the shooting.  

 “You’ll never find it,” he told them.   

And asked whether any of the members of Sellars’ and Crosswhite’s group had touched him prior to the shooting, Crawford appeared unsure.   

During one of several breaks, he apologized to the detectives. On the tape they can be heard saying, “You’re good, man.”  

“No, I’m not,” Crawford replied.   

THE VIDEO capped the prosecution's case against Crawford. During opening statements, Deputy County Attorney Selene Koepke told jurors that they would hear Crawford explain, in his own words, that he considered Sellars telling him to call the cops an act of aggression.  

“His version of violent, by his own words, is being backed up by a 5-foot-7, 140-pound female,” Koepke said on Monday.  

Prosecutors have argued that Crawford chose his targets and fired at two unarmed people in anger rather than self-defense. Questioning one of the detectives in the interview room with Crawford — Cpl. Scott McConnell — Special Deputy County Attorney Thorin Geist asked whether the accused killer mentioned seeing weapons in anyone’s hands? Did Crawford say he saw anything in anyone’s hands?  

“No,” McConnell replied to both.   

Crawford’s defense attorneys had conceded in their opening statement that jurors would see the Kila resident doing “some very strange and bizarre things.” Those included refusing to reveal where he hid his gun — authorities eventually found it hidden behind the wheel of his Jeep — or explaining who owned the golf cart.   

They spent the day raising questions about the evidence collected at the site of the shooting. During cross-examination of Kate Mason, a county evidence technician, attorney Kris McLean homed in on blood collected outside of the bar. He asked why samples were taken but never sent to the Montana State Crime Lab for identification.   

“At the time of this ... we knew that two people had been shot and were bleeding and we were focused on who shot them,” Mason said.  

“So you and [the detectives] had already decided there were only two people bleeding?” he asked.   

“That was the information we were given from the scene,” she replied.      

He also pressed her on the amount of time the area was left unattended between the shooting and when deputies arrived. Although Mason said she could not answer that inquiry, she conceded in her answer to another of McLean’s questions that people at the bar could have moved objects in the interim.   

But Crawford’s team of attorneys signaled late Wednesday afternoon that they would not put on a defense case. Judge Dan Wilson informed the jury of the decision following a recess after the prosecutors rested their case.   

He reminded jurors against drawing any negative conclusions from the decision, telling them that they could expect closing arguments to begin around 1:15 p.m., Thursday afternoon.