Martin City shooter found guilty of deliberate homicide

A Flathead County District Court jury on Thursday evening found Del Orrin Crawford guilty of deliberate homicide in the shooting death of Whisper Sellars outside a Martin City bar in August 2022. 

The 12-person panel also found the 42-year-old Kila resident guilty of attempted deliberate homicide, one count of assault with a weapon and tampering with evidence. They found him not guilty of a second count of assault with a weapon. 

Deliberations began about 3:45 p.m. The jury returned to a packed courtroom with a verdict about 8:45 p.m. 

Judge Dan Wilson, who presided over the case, set sentencing for Sept. 19. 

Wilson revoked Crawford's bail following the verdict. Detention Center officers escorted him from the courtroom as relatives sobbed in the gallery.

Crawford had maintained that he fired in self-defense after a confrontation over a golf cart in the parking lot of the South Fork Saloon ended with the death of Sellars and the wounding of her husband, Doug Crosswhite. Prosecutors alleged he shot the pair in anger, charging him with deliberate homicide, attempted deliberate homicide, two counts of assault with a weapon and tampering with evidence.  

Over three days, jurors heard testimony from eyewitnesses, investigators and forensics experts as Special Deputy County Attorneys Thorin Geist and Selene Koepke laid out the case against Crawford. Though accounts varied — occasionally widely — witnesses agreed the disagreement began after Crawford found Sellars, Crosswhite and Crosswhite’s siblings hanging out in and around a golf cart in the early morning hours of Aug. 27.  

The cart belonged to the group that Crawford arrived with at the bar, a wedding party that had just wrapped up the rehearsal dinner at the nearby venue. Crosswhite and Sellars were out celebrating their birthdays when the two groups crossed paths.  

During the ensuing argument, several witnesses said Crawford pushed Sellars. Crosswhite, by his own admission, shoved Crawford to the ground. The Kila resident pulled out a gun and fired twice, according to a statement he gave investigators and evidence collected at the scene. Sellars died in the parking lot, shot in the chest. Crosswhite underwent multiple surgeries after a bullet passed through his arm and ended up in his liver, he recalled on the witness stand. 

During closing arguments, Koepke asked jurors to focus on the similarities in the accounts given by witnesses, which included Doug Crosswhite’s sister Alicia Crosswhite, their brother, Brad Crosswhite and his girlfriend Kristen Lundstrom. 

No one else involved had a weapon, she argued. The threat Crawford faced came in the form of an intoxicated, 140-pound woman who was yelling and taunting him, telling him to call the police, Koepke said. Yes, he was pushed to the ground, but only after he allegedly laid hands on Sellars.  

“Everyone has seen or heard some sort of argument happen over the course of their lives; we’ve all seen them get heated too,” she told the jury. “That doesn’t mean that you get to bust out a gun and shoot two people.” 

Referencing a video recording of an interview Crawford gave detectives played on Wednesday, Koepke hammered on inconsistencies in his account as well as his refusal to tell investigators where he put the Smith and Wesson Shield 9mm used in the shooting. Deputies with the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office later found the weapon tucked behind the wheel of Crawford’s Jeep.  

Crawford, she argued, was unsure if anyone touched him prior to opening fire. He could not accurately recall who was with him during the argument. 

“You get to decide the weight of the defendant’s statements that the state played for you,” Koepke said. “You get to consider all of the times it just didn’t add up.” 

ATTORNEY KRIS McLean, who opted against presenting evidence or calling witnesses after the state rested its case, also latched onto previous testimony, arguing in his closing that the inconsistencies between the stories made it impossible for the state to prove that Crawford didn’t act in self-defense.  

“In fact, the most consistent thing about the states witnesses was the inconsistency,” he told the jury.  

But he highlighted testimony that portrayed Sellars and Doug Crosswhite as aggressors. Sellars taunted Crawford while her husband stood nearby, backing up his wife, McLean said. When contact was made, Doug Crosswhite slammed Crawford into the ground.  

He asked that jurors put themselves in Crawford’s shoes. A woman was yelling at him to call the cops if he disagreed with their actions, knowing that Crawford would take that to mean help was a long way off, McLean argued. Her husband loomed behind her.  

Finding himself on the ground, a dazed Crawford looked up to find three of his assailants standing over him, McLean said. He referred to testimony given by Kristen Lundstrom, reminding jurors that she described getting down to eye level with Crawford and yelling at him to leave.  

“[Crawford] is in a bad situation,” McLean said. “That’s why he drew his firearm. That’s why he defended himself.” 

As for the recording of Crawford’s interview with detectives, McLean told jurors that the terrified Kila resident had been awake nearly 24 hours, undergone a traumatic experience and been arrested.  

“[Crawford] was not thinking clearly,” McLean said. “There is no doubt about it. He was under extreme stress.” 

But he did cooperate, McLean said. He called 911 following the shooting and he agreed to speak with investigators without a lawyer present. He repeatedly told the authorities that he fired in self-defense, McLean said, referencing recordings of the 911 calls played for jurors.  

McLean ticked off the elements needed for justifiable use of force. By crowding around him after he had fallen to the ground, the Crosswhite group represented potential harm, he argued. They had engaged in unlawful force by pushing Crawford, he said.  

And, as evidenced by the 911 calls, Crawford was in fear for his life, McLean said. 

“Finally, a person who is lawfully in a place or location — standing by a golf cart trying to go home, for example — threatened by bodily injury or loss of life has no duty to retreat from a threat,” he said. “That's the law in Montana.”