#569 - A Stalker To Die For - Geraldine, Montana

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When Luigi Mangione was arrested for allegedly shooting the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, he didn't just spark outrage, he ignited a cultural firestorm. Is the system working or is it time for a reckoning? I'm Jesse Weber.
Listen to Law & Crimes Luigi exclusively on Wondery+. This week in Geraldine, Montana, a mystery unfolds when a veterinarian is brutally murdered and the suspects include girlfriends, ex-girlfriends, girlfriends, ex-boyfriends, and others.

But will the bungling of the crime scene make it impossible to solve?

Welcome to Small Town Murder. Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy.
Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo.
I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman.
Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another insane, wild, crazy, murderous edition of Small Town Murder, as you're used to. We have a crazy story for you today, a definite mystery.
I mean, this is a, oh, it's a weird one here. We will get to that for sure.
But definitely head over to ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com. Get your tickets for live shows.
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And all the ones at the end of the year are selling very fast. I think Portland sold out.
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Get your tickets right now. Also, get yourself some Patreon.
Oh, boy. I'm sure you've listened to all the crime and sports episodes.
Oh, my gosh. Because you don't have to like sports.
You just have to like, I don't know, crime and humor. So check that out.
And've listened to all the your stupid opinions and you need more and patreon will provide that this week uh what you do is anybody at patreon.com slash crime in sports anybody five dollars a month or above you're going to get immediately hundreds of bonus episodes you've never heard before all right there access to that and then you get new ones every other week. One crime and sports, one small town murder, and you get it all.
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And this week, which you're going to get for crime and sports, we are going to talk about disasters. We've done industrial disasters.
We've done hot air balloon disasters. We're going to do just a bunch of just disasters.
Things happening, buildings exploding of crazy things, steel melting people, you name it. We're going to talk about it.
Crazy stuff. Then for small town murder, this is a weird one.
We usually do a lot of like debunking. That's kind of a thing that we do of like, you know, dumb shit that people think.
This week we are going to do an episode on psychics that actually succeeded in what they were trying to do. Yeah.
Yeah. Psychics that found bodies and stuff like that.
And I don't know. The ones that were right.
The ones that were right. We'll figure that out.
So patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all of that, and you get a shout-out at the end of the show, too. Oh, yeah.
Jimmy will mispronounce your name all to hell, but that's okay because he wants to get it right. It's the, you know, the feeling is there.
It's a promise, yeah. That said, it is disclaimer time.
Oh, yeah. This is a comedy show, everybody.
We're comedians. There also is murder that happens.
And you might say, how do you mix comedy and true crime? Very easily. First of all, here's one thing we do is we don't make fun of the victims or the victims' families.
Why, James? Because we're assholes. But? But we're not scumbags.
See how that works? It's pretty easy to do there. And we kind of think that the humor aspect of it kind of maybe disarms it a little bit.
So it's not so creepy and so weird. And, you know, there's plenty of jokes to be made around stupid things.
It's not the actual murder. That's the funny part.
So if that sounds good to you, wow, do you have a good story ahead of you? If you think true crime and comedy should never, ever, ever go together, I don't know.

Maybe the show isn't for you, but maybe it is. Either way, no complaining later.
That said, I think it's time, everybody. Let's all sit back.
What do you say? Let's all clear the lungs and Let's all shout, shut up and give me murder.

Let's do this, everybody.

Okay.

Let's go on a trip shall we we are doing this we're going to montana this week oh yeah to geraldine montana geraldine told geraldine geraldine and uh this is in central montana it's about an hour and 10 minutes to Falls. That's the closest.
This place is the middle of nowhere. This is like you don't want to have your car break down out in this area.
You are screwed. That area of the country really is sparse.
It's really sparse. And it's about five hours and 10 minutes to Hot Springs, Montana, which was our last episode a long time ago, too.
It was 70 episodes ago, 80 episodes ago.

Episode 490, Hot Tub Horrors.

Remember that?

The guy in the hot tub with the other guy?

That was a creepy one.

Oh, yeah.

This is in Chateau County.

Chateau?

I don't know.

It's French-looking.

It's got an EAU at the end of it, so it's French.

Yeah, it's hardcore French.

I assume French trappers did this. I don't think the Shoshone speak that way.
Yeah, Chateau. Area code 406 here.
It was originally created just as a stop on the Milwaukee Railroad. That's the only reason why this is a place.
And, yeah, it was named for, and this happens so often, it was named for Almyra Geraldine Rockefeller. Hell, yeah.
Who was the wife of William Rockefeller, who was the director of the railroad. So they were trying to kiss his ass, and they named it after his daughter.
Kiss her ass. Kiss everybody's ass.
This county, by the way, the entire county only has 5,800 people in it. Hell, yeah.
whole county. So this is the middle of nowhere.
The county seat is Fort Benton. The county was established in 1865 as one of the original nine counties of Montana, and it was named after Pierre Chateau Jr., a fur trader.
See? Knew it. I knew it was a a fur trader who established a trading post that became Fort Benton,

which was, you know,

is the county seat here.

So the Chateau County is the home to the Chippewa Cree tribe

as well.

And on the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation.

Okay.

Rocky Boy.

This area contains part

of the Lewis and Clark National Forest as well.

Okay.

So it is a very pretty area if you want to see land go on forever kind of a thing. So reviews of this town.
Just about as much history as America's got to offer. It's got a lot here.
Now reviews of this town, there are zero reviews of this town because there are very few people in this town. But what I found is literally the only establishment reviewable in the area because there is no restaurants there's no anything in this town i found the sundown motel which is a nearby stanford which is another barely populated place a little bit down the road look at this place fuck yeah it is a one story what you expected to be one story in the middle of a field look at that i mean there's nothing around it for miles and miles and miles that's it is that is it several cottages no no no it's there's i guess there's a couple of cabins out back or whatever but it's just a row of that single row of motel one story deal there it is it's interesting the way, here's a picture of the interior of the room.
Okay. Okay.
That is, yeah. I mean, it's like the county.
It's like the county. There's not a lot there.
No, there's like elk printed on the bedspread. That's nice.
That's very nice. But, yeah, it looks like a jacked-up hunting cabin, basically.
Yeah. Here are some reviews of this place because they're funny.
Five out of five here from Kimberly. My husband and I were driving through Montana from Alaska to Iowa.
That's a ride. That's a ride, yeah.
Wow. That takes a minute.
My husband called and booked our room contactless check-in. That's nice.
They have some technology at this. You would expect them to give you like a physical key.
Right. Like one of those big skeleton key looking things.
Yeah, with a big tag on it. Yeah, with the room number hanging off it.
They sent our room number and check-in code via text. Our room was wonderful and cozy.
The bed and pillows were comfortable and made for a good night's sleep. There was coffee and popcorn available.
That's nice. A microwave, refrigerator, and coffee maker in the room.
We thoroughly enjoyed our stay and would without a doubt recommend this lovely little place to everyone. I wish there were more places like this along our journey.
I wish more people had standards as low as hers. That's fantastic.
Yeah, she's jacked about it. They gave me popcorn.
Sold. That's all it takes.
Being honest, I was staying in some pretty nice hotels. Never had popcorn offered.
Never. I mean, cookies, if you stay at like a Doubletree, you get those cookies, but that's it.
Other than that, this next one, five stars. This is crazy.
If you ever get caught in a snowstorm between Great Falls and Lewiston, Montana, you know, like we all find ourselves from time to time.

Brian's Sundown Motel is the best.

It meets all survival needs.

That's good.

Survival needs, you know, walls and a ceiling.

The low ceiling these people have.

Wow.

Packaged in fantastic attitude and helpfulness.

They even brought me a care package of food that has lasted me three days. That seems above and beyond.
Three days worth of food? I just picture some old lady coming out with like, here you go. Giving him like a picnic basket or something.
Three days of food. Three days.
That is fucking insane, man. That's incredible.
Absolutely wild. Okay, Jessica here, three stars.

Bit pricey for off-season.

We stopped here during a snowstorm and stayed for the night.

Seems to be a common theme here.

Yeah, feels like the snowstorms will get you.

The room was standard, and we were only allowed to use one bed in the room for $5 more.

What?

You were only allowed, I don't understand that. That's correct.
Go in your room, but only more you were only allowed i don't understand that that's correct go

in your room but only leave that other bed alone if we have to use if we have to make both beds tomorrow morning we're charging that is wild so they got a response from the owner hello there thank you for the review there is new ownership here now and we can honestly say a charge for bed use is an odd thing. Yeah, it is.

We charge for the room,

not what is being used inside of it that's what they say that's good but how'd you like the three days worth of groceries yeah that's amazing oh that's amazing uh john gives one star no accountability whatsoever from the manager plays super nice, but if something isn't working, it's your fault. No question.
What'd you break? Your fault. And the owner replies, normally I don't reply to negative reviews, but when all the reviews you have given are negative and your name has never stayed at our motel, my guess this is a fake review or you have the wrong property.
It would help everyone if you explained why it's a one star, especially since you haven't stayed

with us before and we don't warrant

one star reviews. But thank you for trying

to hurt small businesses.

Yeah, and don't come for the first time.

And I'm not going to make you three. I'll make you

one day worth of food tops.

Not three.

Finally, Marvin

one star sucked.

That's it.

Just sucked. There's another review where this lady talks about how she got there late in the middle of the night and they had given her room away and she was texting the manager from outside the door and the manager told her, nothing more I can do.
Please leave the property. It's like, there's nothing around here.
Nowhere to go. Crazy people in this town can do.
There's no vacancy. No, bye.
And then you're just out into the Montana has plenty of vacancy. That field is empty.
Knock yourself out. Look out back if you can see through the snowstorm.
People in this town, population 202. Wow.
And that's just in this area.

I mean, there's nobody here.

That's in like ranches that are spread out and farms and things like that.

There's no real town center or anything.

It's kind of awesome.

It's kind of cool if that's what you're looking for, you know, the middle of nowhere like that.

There is 52% male, 48% female because it's a lot of like ranching type work.

Because it's hard.

Median age here is 60. Good Christ people holy shit how much ranching are you doing yeah it's dying this ain't gonna last much longer man those kids gotta want to take over um it's about 48 percent of the people here are married 26 and a half percent are single with children which is for a rural place like that That's normally not like that.
Race in this town, 99.1% white, 0.9% Hispanic. That's it.
Wow. Nothing else.
Yeah, nothing else. 86.3% religious.
Is that right? I guess while the snows are falling, you got to pray to something. You know what I mean? Thank God nobody's here.
This is wild. 59.6% are Catholic.
Is that right? That's so strange. I mean, there's only 202 people, so that could be like five families that are Catholic.
But that's a lot. Seems like a lot.
Unemployment rate is low here, which there's no people. So, yeah, who's looking for a goddamn job? And the median household income also very low here.
Rest of the country right now, the average is about $69,000. Here it is $32,083.
That's fixed income. That is.
I mean, it has to be. It's got to be a lot of Social Security because the average age is 60, so that makes sense.
Cost of living here, 100 being regular and average in the rest of the country is 78.6 which is not bad the housing is the low thing housing uh median home cost here 227,100 what not too bad but what you get for that is not too great as we'll talk about in our coming up if you in case we convinced you, in our Geraldine, Montana, Real Estate Report.

Average two-bedroom rental here is $860.

I don't know how many rentals there is in a town like this.

It's very affordable.

Yeah, somebody's bunkhouse or something.

There's no apartment complexes or anything. You're trying a trailer on the side of somebody's house.
Maybe. Here's a four-bedroom, two-bath, 2,638 square foot.
There's no other way to put it, but it's a shack. It's a shit shack.
You'd see this and go, oh, God. Even if you were on E and whatever, you'd be like, I'm taking my chances with the wilderness.

I'm going to keep going.

You would not stop here.

See how these fumes treat me.

Yeah.

There's absolutely no way you're not going to be murdered here.

There's literally just a big tire sitting in the yard.

Oh, my.

Plywood on the door.

The interior's a piece of shit.

It's really not a good house.

$125,000 for this house. I mean, you have to just basically knock it down and rebuild it.
No, no. Small lot.
Just that. Here is a three bedroom, two bath, 1,900 square foot, 1,900 two square foot house.
It's a basic house. It's just a little raised ranch.
The listing lists it as situated in the outskirts of Geraldine, which is everything. It offers single level living and an expansive yard that showcases views of Square Butte Mountain.
So there is that. They also say while some finishing touches are needed to complete this, it's got some problems here.
There is new flooring and fresh paint.

$165,000 for that, though.

Okay.

So not too bad.

It's fine.

I love that they're advertising that.

Single level living.

If you got a walker, this house is for you.

Mobility problems?

We got you.

You got yourself.

Not a problem here.

Here's a three-bedroom, three-bath,

T-ball for each and every bee hole.

2,028 square foot.

It is on 20 acres.

Wow. Yeah, it's nice.

They list it as having a beautiful yard

that's landscaped with a nice shelter

belt wind break. That's how

windy it is. Something to keep

the wind from knocking you over. And an

amazing garden pond with goldfish.

Oh. Cool.
That property has a well for the house and yard and a cistern for drinking water. I don't.
So if Clint Eastwood rides up on a horse, you got him covered. He can water his horses.
He can water his horses. 574,000 bucks for that, which is 20 acres.
20 acres. Yeah, it's a lot of acreage and that's not bad at all but i mean

you are in the middle of you got a sister you got a sister yeah i don't know either it looks i feel i picture a big ladle in a small well and you just take it out and sip from it i have no clue um things to do here yeah the chateau county fair sure found that uh this is interesting I look I'm looking for what they have here, and they say they have carnivals, and a carnival and adventure zone, bouncy houses, bumper boats, water slides, all this type of shit. But the main thing they're advertising in big letters with pictures is pig wrestling.
Not shitting you. And this isn't you know, you dress two pigs up in different costumes and give them entrance music and see who wins.
This is people wrestling pigs in the mud. And not nude girls or anything.
This is people, not nude women. It's not a joke.
No tits are out. This is crazy.
There's just teenagers covered in mud wrestling people, wrestling pigs. It is Thursday, August 15th, and it is $10 for adults and $5 for kids.

If you want to watch this.

Tickets are available for pre-purchase.

You don't want it to sell out.

No.

Imagine if they got real wrestling up here.

This place would be packed.

Forget it.

They'd lose their mind.

I watched a boy wrestle a pig last week, so there's two big fellas going at it. It's going to be something.
Pig wrestling is what I call my 20s. Yeah.
Oh, God. Demolition Derby also.
I guess. I hope the pigs aren't involved in that.
They're driving the cars also. That's just torture.
That's abuse. It's just animal abuse.
The Old Trail

Museum also is something else to do

and you can learn about the many histories

of the Rocky Mountain Front. Explore

ancient trails, dinosaur

fossils, and exhibits

and also grizzly bears, large

elk, waterfowl migrations

and the unique geology

of the Rocky Mountain Front. Local

meteorological

phenomena as well as the

color and cultural history

I don't know. and the unique geology of the Rocky Mountain Front, local meteorological phenomena, as well as the color and cultural history of Chateau, Montana, Teton County, and the greater Rocky Mountain Front region.
There's all sorts of trails and shit like that. Hiker, hunter, angler, scenic driver wanted to explore and learn more about beautiful public lands, they should come here.
Find out is what they say here. You can a local wanting to know more about the rich history of the area.
A Montana dinosaur trail explorer. Apparently they have a Montana dinosaur trail where it's like they found a lot of fossils there.
So you walk around and go this is where dinosaurs were. Sure.
That's cool. Footprints, we prove it.
Neat. So crime rate in this town, what we are interested in.
You'd figure it would be non-existent because- How could it? Not even like a town square. Somebody vandalized your farm, like what else can you do? Knock down your crops? Yeah.
But one tagging and all of a sudden it's dangerous as shit around here. One person fucking spray paints their name on the side of a cow.
It's over. It's all over.
One dude professing his love on an overpass. And this is Memphis.
This here is South Chicago. So property crime here is only about a quarter under the national average.
So it's three quarters of the national average, which seems too high.

And then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and of course assault is, I mean, just below the national average.

Really?

Yeah, I don't know what they're doing here.

And I don't know how it's happening, but they're doing something.

Okay.

And it's fucking weird.

That said.

Here we go.

Let's talk about some murder here.

Let's do it.

Let's do this. All right.

Let's go back in time a little bit to June of 1996. Sure.
All right. So no cell phones yet.
I mean, cell phones if you wanted to have a giant thing. It's tough.
It's tough going. It's tough.
This is pager time right here. This is everybody walking around with a pager and shit.
Sweet spot of it. That's great.
No social media on a pager. It's just fucking the number of a payphone with 911 after it.
That's all you're good. Or some fascinating numbers.
Oh, yeah. You can spell out boobs and all sorts of stuff.
It's fun. Yeah, 143.
Yeah. You love them.
So June of 1996, let's talk about Dr. Brian Rain, R-E-I-N.
Dr. Brian here.
He is born in 1965. He is the son of Robert and Shirley Rain, and he has a couple of sisters here, Charlene and Teresa.
We'll come into everything later. He's born on Valentine's Day, 1965.
Romantic, yeah. He's Cupid himself here.
He's born in Rocky Ford, Colorado.

I'm not sure where that

Rocky Ford, do you know that one? No, never

heard of it. You're a Colorado guy.

He lived there and in Sugar

City, Colorado as well.

Sugar City.

I don't know. The look on your

face when I said Sugar City, you were like, nope.

404, fucking

not found is what I got out of you. That was a look on your face.
Search and search and nope. That's got to be some Western Slope Rifle area shit.
There's nothing over there. No, it has to be.
In 75, he moved to Scott City. Colorado? Where the fuck is this man living? It's wild, isn't it? Wow.
And graduated from high school. They have a school there, apparently.
Yeah. In 1983, he attended Colby Community College in Kansas.
Jesus. Colby Community College in Kansas.
That's a tough one. That's rough.
For two years, and then Kansas State University for two years as well. Okay.
So, yeah, he started out in community college and worked his way up to a four-year. It's got to be where all those cities are.
It's got to be their towns near the Kansas line. It's got to be.
It's probably over there, yeah. Nobody gives a fuck about that area in Colorado.
Once it gets flat, nobody cares anymore. Once you pass the airport, it may as well be Kansas because nobody gives a shit.
Once the mountains are over they're like oh you can have all that that's garbage land nothing nothing east of denver is even mountainy it's no that's what i mean it's all shit flat the east line of denver is already flat we go do shows in denver and we'll talk and say to people now where are you from and they're like oh about an hour and a half to the southeast and we're like what's it like out there they're like oh it's weird it's terrible the weather's awful and crazy storms come in and you know blah blah blah and i'm like oh shit that sounds weird out there too it does uh so he then after kansas state university he worked at the sork sork veterinary clinic in scott city he's a vet not like a human doctor. Animal doctor here.
Maybe they use him to check those pigs after they're done wrestling. Yeah.
I'll make sure they're fit for fighting. He could probably just check everybody, I think.
It's fine. He knows.
So in 1994, he moved to Geraldine, Montana, where he and his sister, Charlene, owned and operated Prairie's Edge Veterinary Services. And they also have an auxiliary office in Denton, Montana, as well.
Okay, yeah. So they have all this going on here.
So at this point, not a bad life. He's a 30-year-old veterinarian.
Yeah. I feel like you're going to do very well with the ladies if you're a 30 year old veterinarian i care for the puppies and i you know oh man that's that's a this guy's gonna do well up here and but he goes to the middle of nowhere here and he ends up living in a he rents a pretty isolated trailer near geraldine wow which doesn't really fit in with the jet-setting lifestyle of the rest of them.
I'm 30, I'm a vet. Now he's like, yeah, come to my rural trailer.
Huh? I mean, he must be used to this rural life. That must be he's a rural guy through and through.
He rented a trailer house located on a property owned by Richard and Marlene Prostman. Richard Prostman.
Yeah. Dick Prostate Man.
That's all I could say. I saw that.
First, I misread it as Prostate Man, and then I saw Richard, and I'm like, that is crazy. He is Dick Prostate Man.
And the woman who, the wife of this combo here, Marlene, helped Brian organize the clinic and get that set up and later became his office manager. Okay, okay.
So people like him, obviously, if he gets people to do that. He opened up, the business started to grow, and then he opened up the satellite office in Denton, Montana.
And, yeah, things are unfolding for this guy. It's working.
He's certainly getting it going, yeah. It's all working.
He's had some relationships, obviously. Like I said, he's got to be popular with the ladies here uh one woman jody lee uh she said that she had a close relationship with him all throughout 94 and 95 and uh the relationship became romantic in early 1996 okay okay um she also said though that she suspected while they were together that he was dating another woman during this time.
I don't know how suspected. There's 200 people here.
Go to the bar, and if he shows up with her, there it is. Yeah.
It would be so hard to sneak around in a town of 200 people. She's got suspicions, though, James's a very suspicious gal wild um their relationship started to deteriorate by may of 1996 and apparently they had a they planned a last minute trip to yellowstone and she said that brian called her and canceled her at the canceled it at the last minute like when he was supposed to come pick her up he's like no we can't we're not going never mind okay so then she was like yeah there's got to be somebody else here um so she went on the trip without him oh yeah look at that i don't need you to go to yellowstone all right choice but all right fuck it yeah go went by herself and while on the way back to town from yellowstone she stopped in gardner and was talking to somebody and got offered a job and decided to take it wow how weird is that like i mean you gotta figure though if you're if you go on a trip that you're supposed to take your your better half or you know your other person on yeah and you don't and they don't go and then something like that happens that changes your life you You got to accept it.
You got to accept it.

Just on the weirdness of who would have thought I would stop for gas here or stop at this restaurant. Yeah, that's just fate, my friend.
It's very weird. And also, you're stopping at a rest stop and someone offers you a job.
Has that ever happened to anybody out there in the world? No. So then she said after that she heard that Brian was dating another woman.
and this was just like she takes the job and moves to

Garth. Then she said after that she heard that Brian was dating another woman.

And, you know, this was just like she takes the job and moves to Gardner and then starts hearing that he's like with another woman. So he's like she's like, OK, that's what was going on there.
Right. That's right.
So her sister Jennifer, Lee's sister Jennifer, basically told everyone that she could tell that he was a womanizer. He's a womanizer, this one.
He had two girlfriends. Or he's playing the field.
He's a 30-year-old vet. Are you kidding me? He's got a puppy under each fucking arm walking around.
Chicks are flocking to him. He's got a big heart.
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So this woman's sister who calls him a womanizer here said she got a call from a stranger, a man. They don't know each other personally.
Never met before. She never heard of of this guy but he called to try to track down contact information to discuss something with brian okay the thing he

wanted to discuss with brian was the fact that brian in his estimation this man's was fucking

his girlfriend that's a that's a big thing to sort out that's gotta sort that out so didn't like

that so now this woman who's been calling him a womanizer is like see i told you yeah womanizer that guy yeah so now these two are gossiping the sister of brian's ex-girlfriend and the apparently current slash ex-boyfriend of his current girlfriend are now gossiping about the girl he's just fucking one of the yeah who knows so this sister said that she told this guy that brian dated at least three women in a short amount of time he's a womanizer and she does not like how he treats women just dropping them willingly he's not beating them up or doing anything he's just single and shit. They're just single.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. This is just kind of the single life.
She later said that she felt guilty for making those statements because she said, you know, because this is Montana, and they're like, you know, she said, quote, the opinion was, quote, not mine to give. You know, she's like, you know, hey, not for nothing is what she just said yeah that's the

montana version of you know none of my fucking business but let me tell you i stuck my nose

where it doesn't belong yeah so this lady in question that this man calling the sister

complaining about is a lady named ann wishman yes yes it is if you if you switch your h

if you move the h over to where you are it's the same letters we can make wishman out of it so

I'm not going to... yes yes it is if you if you switch your h if you move the h over to where you are it's the same letters we can make wisman out of it so making it wish yeah that's pretty fucking funny it's you with a speech impediment well it's what everybody fucking i'm jimmy wishman yeah my entire fucking childhood it's better than whoa i don't even know how to say how do you say it what the hell is your last name yeah i got wishman i got weissman i never nobody ever says my favorite mispronunciation was a gym teacher who did it for a year and a half and called me petraglio for a year and a half a year and a half i'm like not my name thank you petraglio all right i know i was just i'm not fixing that shrug.
I'm like, not my name. Thank you.
Petraglio. I was just, I laughed.

Shrug, I'm like, whatever.

So my friends would be like, hey, Petraglio.

They'd start calling me that too, so it was fun.

Now,

Ann Wishman, she's

born in 1974, so she's about

nine years younger than Brian.

Her family owns a farm near

Geraldine, so on the outskirts of Geraldine. Everything is outskirts of Geraldine, family owns a farm near Geraldine.

So on the outskirts of Geraldine.

Everything is outskirts of Geraldine because there is no real Geraldine.

There's no Geraldine.

So apparently sometime in 1996 here in May,

they spent, Anne and Brian spent an evening together talking.

And at the end of the night, after a night of just saying and spilling their their guts to each other they decided that they're going to talk to each other again later in the week that's how this started this talking is so good i'll talk to you later so this is the best talking we've had in a while so um they talked a lot about her cat probably too but still it's a good talk so this all started who's the guy she's with now that's calling to complain that she's having sex with Brian is a man named Thomas Jaraxki. Jaraxki.
Jaraxki. J-A-R-A-C-Z-E-S-K-I.
Whoa. Jaraxki, I'm going to say.
Don't look at me. Jureski, yeah, something.
Thomas. Let's go Thomas on him.
Tommy J. Tommy J.
Tommy J was born in 1973, so he's right around Ann's age. And they got together when Ann was just barely 18 years old.
And, you know, he was 19 or whatever. That's when they started hooking up in 1992.
So this relationship has been going on a while before Brian comes into the picture here. It's, you know, four years.
Now, his family, the Thomas family, we'll just say, the Jureskis, they leased a farm in the Geraldine area. So same thing.
He grew up on a farm in the area. So did she.
And they both attended college in Bozeman. And that's how they met each other and started dating.
Or they knew each other, but that's how they started dating was then. Now, he's got a brother named Randy Jureski or whatever the fuck it is.
And they lived in they live on the farm, but in separate houses in the farm. There's separate buildings, tons of outbuildings.
They live in two different ones. So they don't, you know, see each other's comings and goings exactly.
That'll come in handy later. So December, 1995, after, you know, about three years of being together, Ann and Thomas here moved into an apartment together in Great Falls, an hour and 10 minutes and ten minutes away or whatever.
But the problem is as soon as they move in together, he really, really steps up his jealousy a lot. Yeah, Thomas starts getting real possessive of her and disapproved of any associations with other men, basically.
No talking to other guys. And he didn't like it when she went out with her friends either oh boy you know controlling like obviously i get the other men thing you know that could be like hey who's that guy or you know go tell your wife you have a ton of women friends and they'll really be thrilled with you for that so that's that's just asking questions but going out with her friends what do you mean a fucking don't be an asshole like that Let her be out.
her go out she's just if you don't let her go out or you do you make her feel weird about it she's just gonna want to fucking go out and even more so you're not helping your situation yeah you're gonna force a dick down her throat you better knock it off forcing dick guy don't do it so according to ann thomas had a pretty good temper on him and would punch a wall or throw things around when he was angry. He sounds great.
Sounds like a lovely gentleman here. Yeah.
Immature. He doesn't apparently hit her, but he does punch holes in walls and throw shit around, which is not great either.
Obviously, that's pretty simple. It's not the same thing.
But you know what I mean. It's on the road, too.
It's certainly, yeah. It's certainly coming.
It's on the road, too, here, for sure.

If it's calming.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Everybody's had a spectacular event where they punched something.

Yeah, kick a fucking door or some shit, but not all the time.

This isn't a spectacle of yourself.

Yeah, your house isn't Swiss cheese.

If you've got Swiss cheese holes all over, you've got some anger issues, man.

Yeah, absolutely. If you go in and see lots of holes in the drywall, you go, oh boy, bad things have happened here.
So June 2nd, 1996, that's when all of this is going down, because late May is when Thomas called the other lady's sister to complain about Dr. Brian fucking his girlfriend.
So June 2nd, 1996. This is after Anne and Brian have had their chat all night and they want to talk again.
That was earlier in the week. So, Anne calls Brian Rain and leaves a message for him.
On the answering machine at the time. And so, Brian returned the call.
And left a message for her. Because she wasn't home.
Problem is, she lives with Thomas. And this isn't cell phone days.
This is an answering machine with a blinking light in the middle of the living room. And whoever presses play is going to hear it.
With a tiny little tape in there. Tiny little tape and a little blinky light.
Tiny little tape of evidence. Thomas got home before she did.
Shit. like anybody the day walked up to the answering machine hit the play button and here's the voice of a guy saying hey and can't wait to hang out again and yeah like you know all that shit so he is fucking pissed yeah which anybody would be a little pissed at that that's not even that's not out of the realm of of normal for being pissed at like i said reverse that around and you know have your have your girlfriend or wife find that it's not good sure but that's not info for a wall puncher to hear no no no this is definitely you're gonna you're gonna make somebody's somebody who does drywall is gonna profit from this somebody's about to get another job for sure so thomas knew where ann was so he called her up and asked her quote what the hell's going on yeah why is this guy calling what the fuck so she said this guy brian asked me out so thomas said that at that moment he said i knew right then she must have cheated on me that was it he jumped right to it thomas.
Thomas called Brian now because he has his number because 96 is caller ID.

So he knows the number.

He calls Brian here and leaves a message for him saying, quote, I don't know what your intentions are, but they're going to stop.

Got your message.

Got your message.

Called my house, too.

Thanks for calling.

Fuck. Here's my call.

So the next day, Anne drove out to Great Falls to meet with Thomas.

And Thomas said, listen, whatever happens, happens.

Whatever has been passed in the past, I am going to change.

I'm a changed man.

Oh.

I am the one for you.

Just love me and don't go out with this other guy and everything's going to be better.

The walls are going to be my wall punching days are in my past.

Walls will be pristine from now on.

Everything is going to be fine.

I swear.

So she said, I, she, he said, I don't want to break up.

I want to make this work.

So the next day she broke up with him.

She broke up with Thomas, not Brian. Yeah.
So this is a four-and-a-half-year relationship now. Ooh.
Yeah, done. So she immediately started hanging out with Brian.
And, I mean, to her credit, she broke up with the guy. It's not like she was like, oh, okay, and then, you know, let him on and all that.
She said, no, I like this guy, broken up, moving on. That's that.
You guys are fucking 23 or whatever yeah what are you talking you know yeah that's that's what happens so um yeah she breaks up with him now thomas's sister sandy jay uh she was asked how thomas was feeling after the breakup and she said he just he said he just keeps thinking it's a nightmare.

And he thought that they had a good relationship.

I don't know what happened.

I thought everything was great.

I thought everything was great.

He said he realized that he probably should have done more with Ann and that he would

like to take her to Chicago to see her family and all that good stuff.

And she also said he just kept saying he was going to give her her space and maybe she'd

come around.

That's the answer. Yeah, that's it.
It's all you can do. He said, I thought they had a good relationship.
I should have done the things she wanted to do. I wish I had the chance.
I'd do it now. I'd take her to see her family and do all that kind of thing.
So that's a healthy reaction. Yeah.
This is what I've done wrong. What have I done to cause this? Okay, this A, B, and C and C and okay maybe she'll come around if not I don't know now later on though Sandy says the sister Sandy says that she describes a conversation with that Thomas had with his mother while Sandy was present his mother's name is Dorothy and this is about a week after he and Ann broke up here.
And she says, and I quote, yeah, and after they, Anne and Tom, had broke up, he had gone home. And I just think within the first week of them breaking up and mom was cooking hamburgers for supper and Tom just went to his bedroom.
And on his way back to the bedroom, he asked mom if she had a minute that they could talk. And then he told her he just couldn't handle it and he said he felt like doing himself in.
And mom said, oh no, don't do that, you know. And he was just crying really hard and by the end of the talk, he was feeling a lot better.
He had no one to talk to about this. Yeah, he internalized a lot of grief and didn't let it out.
He needed to get a good cry out and had nobody to do it. That's what it was.
So he went to mom and did it. So mom will always listen to you.
So that's good. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. So Dorothy and the sister both said that Thomas was crying and very upset and that the mother told him and the sister, too, told him that he should probably maybe try to get professional help.
Like, you really seem to be in a funk here. Maybe talk to somebody a couple times.
Maybe they have some tricks and tools for you to be able to get over this type of shit. So he considers that and then obviously doesn't do anything like that.
No, no. That's the healthy thing to do.
We're not doing that. I am going to stew in my room and punch holes in the wall, though.
Anne also talks about his breakup reaction here. She received a phone call and a letter from him shortly after they broke up.
And here's a quote from her about those two things. Quote, then he had wrote me a very long letter before like a 25 page letter what and this is handwritten wow that's a manuscript that's a that's a novella at that point yeah you you could have a structure and an arc and a story and that shit you man so there's got to be a lot of rehash Shakespeare plays shorter than that.
It just keeps going, Tom, really sad. My mama says I should get help.
Dr. Seuss taught many lessons and way less books.
Jesus, way less time than that. No shit.
She said, this was right after we broke up and went on and on about one, about on and on and on about our relationship and how he wanted us to get back together and get married and have kids and do all this stuff. Yeah.
And he was told me that I should save the letter and not do anything with it. And I asked because he might need to make and I asked because he might need to make copies.
And he's because that kind of, it didn't make sense to me. And he goes, well, if I go to counseling, the counselor might need to have a copy of it and read it to see what's wrong with me or something like that.
So this is like, yeah, he's written a manifesto essentially. And he's like, I might need to take this to a therapist, probably.
He should have saved the letter and just brought it to a therapist. Cut out the middle man year of her.
Yeah, she doesn't need this at all. So and I just said, OK, fine, whatever.
And I said, well, that that was the night that he was very upset and talking about killing himself. And I just said, well, maybe you should go talk to somebody now.
Maybe you need to go see a counselor right now. And because he'd talk and he'd be crying.
And then I heard his dad knock on the door and he goes, yes, I'm on the telephone in a very normal voice. And then he'd start talking to me and he was crying and upset.
So, yeah, he cleared himself. No, I'm good, Dad.
Great. And then back to her and to weepy, which people do.
Yeah, I mean, he doesn't want Dad to hear it. Yeah, especially if you're like a Montana farmhand, and you're like, Dad, like, you don't want him to fucking, he's going to come in here and beat the shit out of you probably.
What are you doing? Get out there and shoo a horse or something. Jesus christ calling you names and shit so god forbid so thomas isn't taking this well at all let's just be realistic here he's not taking it well no he's i mean he's done a healthy thing so far yeah he tried to get it back i mean he's he's doing nothing outwardly that's going to hurt his reputation.
He's just doing it in the family. Yeah, he's just sad and telling people.
Everyone's thinking he's just going to kind of, it'll all work itself out. He's a sad fuck right now.
He'll punch himself out. Yeah, and he's going to be tired, and then that's that.
He'll meet somebody else. Soon as he finds some other chick, he's going to be fine.
He's a young guy. He's going to find a country song that's gonna speak to that heart that's right gonna play it 3 000 times and off he goes and then find a girl with some nice boobs that's what he's gonna do who knows that song oh so during the month during this june month he makes numerous phone calls to ann to her family and when i say her family I mean her mother her brother, her father, sister everybody and her friends even.
All of this to try to reestablish a relationship he's just, it's crazy so here's a rundown of some of these here and kind of what Thomas is up to. June 4th 1996, Thomas quits his job in great falls yeah so he is done done like he is he's imploding this whole life yeah that's what it is everything reminds me of her he was living in great falls with her so now he's going back home and he returns to the family farm in geraldine yeah so the farm is seven to ten miles by the way from, from Brian, Dr.
Brian's trailer. Okay.

It's in the area of there.

On June 4th, 1996, Thomas called up a woman named Trish Judeman, who is a close friend of Ann's.

And he calls her up just to see if Ann has talked about their relationship with her.

Oh, no, she's way too busy talking about this new guy's dick.

Boy, she is excited about it so wow thomas believed that it was this woman trish who introduced ann to dr brian so he wants to kind of know shit she this woman said yes she got a call from thomas who asked about their relationship she later Trish said, I did know more about what was going on with Ann and Brian than I told Tom that I knew. But I didn't want to create more of a problem than it already was.
I didn't think it was smart to do that. Yeah.
Especially you're not going to get in the middle of it. You go, I don't know.
Shit. I don't know anything about it.
Yeah. No clue.
So Thomas made a phone call to Heather Buck, who was another close friend of Ann, who was living in the state of Washington at the time. He's calling long distance.
He's paying for this exorbitant amounts of money at the time. So this lady, Heather Buck, said that Thomas called her and asked numerous questions about Brian and Ann's relationship.
she said she told Thomas that Brian had dated other girls around Geraldine and he had used them. That's what Thomas is telling the friend.
Like, this guy's a womanizer. I talked to his ex's sister and she said womanizer.
He dated all these girls around Geraldine and had used them. And it's not that he's jealous, see.
He's just concerned that Dr. Brian is using Anne, and he's very concerned for Anne's well-being.
Yes, using her for sex, which she is happy to take. Maybe she's using him, man.
They're using each other. She used me.
I used her i used her she used me but neither one cared we were getting our share they're working on their night moves jimmy what do you want from me what am i supposed to do with that that's 60 chevy's mad comfortable that's what i mean i feel like that's this is a appropriate environment for that song they're certainly night moving they moving like a motherfucker. So that's what happened.
This woman, Heather Buck, described the conversation as quite bizarre, and she said she could not understand why Tom was calling her since they weren't friends. Can you call her and talk some sense into her? She's being used.
It's not like they all hung out as a group. She barely knew this guy and was like, I don't fucking know you.
I don't care. Heard you know her.
If you could keep her from being used, I'd appreciate it. If you could completely dismiss your loyalty to a longtime friend and transfer it to a stranger, maybe do some stuff for me.
Wow. So apparently after the phone call was over, they never spoke again.
He didn't call back or bother. But Thomas also called Anne's sister, Marie, who lived in Illinois.
Again, this is costing him money. And he just quit his job.
The man doesn't have any money. He doesn't have long-distance money.
He's got no LD funds at this point in time. None.
So remember what a big deal a long distance call was pre-cell phones when it was just all everything is included and everything when my family i mean we were living here in arizona my grandparents were living in colorado my mom would call them like once a month and she'd be like we gotta make it quick but here goes jimmy and i'd be like you? Hurry up. Off, off, off.
This is costing me money. It's your sister's turn.
Dude, I told you about my grandmother with the 10-10-2-20. At 20 minutes when it would go to another dollar, she would be like, oh, okay, we got to go now.
She'd start getting panicky. I'd be like, oh, how are you, Jimmy? I'm doing all right.
How tall are you now? I think 4' four eight great to talk to you all right bye she hangs up the phone well i found out this is going on jimmy's four eight they're too poor to talk on the phone for too long so jimmy's 16 four eight four eight i think i think he's not growing because mom doesn't have any money. Seems pretty sad there.
Oh, God. So, yeah, this is fucking hilarious.
So he calls Marie. Marie said, yes, she did receive a call from Thomas in June.
This is about two weeks after the breakup. Marie, the sister, said she was surprised by the call because, again, not like they talked on their own all the time here.
She said Thomas poured his heart out to her. Oh, Jesus.
Stop pouring your heart out to people. Oh, how embarrassing.
Good God. He's like, this is crazy.
He's like a fucking John Cusack in a John Hughes movie. Like, this is wild.
It's just so painful when you show how vulnerable you are. It is.
Not only does it not turn her on, it does the opposite. It does the opposite.
She gets the ick and never wants to see you again. No.
Ann's just going to get calls from her friends and family going, this guy is pathetic. He just keeps calling and calling.
That's not going to help. Hey, Ann, this guy called me too.
Is he crying to you too? He sure was. He was.
He told the sister that Brian is older and a womanizer. He's older than her and using her.
Don't you know? They're taking advantage of her. Yeah.
Now, she said, well, I don't know this guy very well, and neither does she. And he said, well, I'm concerned for her welfare and the sister indicated thomas told her he'd been in her house and read her diary since then oh tommy why would you tell her sister that number one he's like i know for a fact yeah come back to me i also broke into her house and read her private shit yeah so marie the sister said that thomas told her that he had been by brian's house late at night and found her vehicle there he's like i know because marie's like you don't even know if they're seeing each other you have no idea what's going on he's like i do too i broke in i read her fucking diary then i drive past his house at two in the morning and guess whose car's outside oh Oh, my God.
Now who's crazy? See? He's confessing to so many crimes. It's not me.
I'm not the crazy one. I'm the criminal.
I'm a criminal. So according to Marie, Thomas told her that Rain and Wisman, that Ann and Brian were sleeping.
I've said Wisman way more in my life than Wishman, so it's going to come out like that. We're sleeping together.
He's like, they're sleeping together. Yeah, like adults? Who cares? This is not my concern, who my sister fucks.
So Marie said that Thomas told her he tried everything and he didn't know what else to do. Oh, boy.
Marie's like, I don't know. It's not me and I live in Illinois.
I don't care. And you're scaring me with your crimes.
Yeah. This is crazy because Thomas is still calling Anne.
He called her on June 5th, and she told him she needed her space and asked him to leave her alone for a while and that she wasn't going to change her mind overnight. She's buying time.
That's what that is. Maybe in two weeks, he'll find somebody else and move on.
So Anne told

Thomas that their breakup

she said this isn't a sudden thing. This has

nothing to do with Brian. This has been

coming for a long time and these are

just the events that pushed it over the cliff. That's

all it is. So June

6th, 1996

according to

here Thomas and then Anne as well

he called her in

Geraldine where she was staying with her family

and asked her to come to great falls for the weekend so they could spend some time together, which the day before he tells, she tells you, leave me alone. Give me space.
I don't want to be with you. I haven't wanted to be with you for a long time.
Blah, blah, blah. The next day he goes, let's go away for the weekend.
What do you say? No. She said

she's not going to do it. Not happening.

And that's that.

And he also called her on

Friday, June 7th and said, how about

that weekend? And she

said, still no, stupid.

I will be

knee deep in

veterinarian penis by then. I am not

won't be there.

So Saturday morning, June 8th, he calls her again. Oh, boy.
This is every day now he's calling her since they broke up. And he calls her and said that he was dying to see her.
I'm dying to see you. He said, I want to see you so bad.
So they talked on the phone for a couple hours, apparently. Wow.
And he kept saying that, I want to come see you. I want to see her and see you.
He said, I want to see you so bad. So they talked on the phone for a couple hours, apparently.
And he kept saying that I want to come see you. I want to see her and see you.
And she said, I don't want to see you. It's too soon.
I told you to give me some space. You call me every day.
So he said, all right, all right. You don't want to see me.
You want your space? Okay, I'll give you, I'll give you your space. And then he showed up at her house.
so this is not working he showed up at the wishman farm in geraldine as ann was getting ready to go to a dance in geraldine god damn i assume of the square variety i can only imagine i can only imagine a shape i'm not sure it wasn't like uh no diggity playing in the background i doubt i'm trying to think it was out. It was either line or square.
I'm sure of it. One of the two.
Yeah, there you go. Oh, they were probably still achy, breaky, hearting up there.
It's about three years late, but shit takes a long time to get to Montana. I just think it gets there last.
That Billy Ray boy. Yeah.
A handsome feller. So he shows up with a present for her, he said.
I got a present for you. you he said let's go for a drive and have a drink and she said no let's do some drinking and driving that's what he said let's go let's go for a drive and then get a drink so he told her she said no and he said he wanted to go to i want to go to town with you oh okay okay nothing to say yeah i want to go to town so ann said that thomas had brought a bottle of liquor with him and when she indicated finally that he realized she was not going to go for a drive with him he just started drinking right there at the house just in the yard all right start without you so ann asked him could you please not drink here? Because I don't like, what are we doing?

I'm trying to make you jealous. See? I got my lips on it.
Are you jealous? Oh, look at that. She likes it too.
And then he got upset and took off. Okay.
All right. He left.
So then Ann called Trish Judeman, her friend from before, that he called, who was bartending and Geraldine, and told her that Thomas was upset and he's drinking, and if he comes to town, if he comes on into town, you go ahead and let Brian know to look out for him. These people need cell phones badly.
Yeah, I mean... Giving messages through the bartender.
And I'd love to say that it's small town and specific it's not it's 1996 yeah this is just it's just what it is man you had to leave mess you had to wonder where someone was know their number try to find them and if they're not there leave a message to hey you know and people would actually deliver them too because it was an essential part of communication back then so june 15th, 1996, about a week goes by. Thomas encounters Anne and Geraldine.
Okay. Runs into her, I'm sure by pure accident, obviously.
Right. It wasn't on purpose.
So Thomas somehow, I guess in person, I don't know, he's a little more persuasive, he gets Anne to go for a ride in his truck so they could talk okay just come for a ride that's all i'm asking come for eventually you got a cave just be like i'm gonna have to sit him down and tell him no he's not getting it so maybe she thinks maybe if a once and for all if i can get it across to him whatever so she initially said no but then figured that she'd go hang out with him get it it over with. It literally said, I'll get it over with.

And then she thought, maybe he'll leave me alone after that.

Maybe if I give him this little bit, he'll go, okay, fine.

So as they're driving around, he then drives out of town toward the middle of nowhere and starts to really press on her to get back together.

God damn it.

She and he's accusing her of, you were always just looking for somebody else to sleep with. That's what he keeps saying to her.
You're always just looking. So she got angry and said, take me the fuck back to Geraldine.
And he said, no. Not gonna do it.
Here we go. So she tried to jump from the moving truck.
Oh, it was that bad. It's that bad i am in the fuck out of here take me back no take me back no and she said all right fuck you i'm jumping out of the truck and this will not be she won't be told what to do no no she won't be she's gonna do what she wants to do hey everybody just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you a little bit from our friends at Shutterfly.
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Now back to the show. So, he grabbed her and held her from jumping out and then gunned it.
Went even faster. Don that you want to jump out it's gonna hurt let me tell you something it's gonna be at 70 it's gonna be something so he kept pressing her about getting back together and according to him she just would not give in at all just which is weird you're holding her hostage right now while going 75 miles a fucking hour fucking hour.
Weird. If sane conversations weren't going to do it, this isn't going to do it.
If can I buy you a drink won't do it. Right.
Yeah. You know, if you're going to jump, it's going to you're going to die is not the way to get it done.
Somebody not accepting a free drink is a certain go fuck yourself. They are not interested.
Just move on. So he eventually said okay fine and turned around.
He eventually, she was like a stone wall and he was like well this isn't working. So he turned around and went back to Geraldine and dropped her off.
She told everybody when she got back she didn't feel safe the way he was acting. She didn't want to be alone that night either because she thought he would come back.
So she asked Brian if she could stay at his place that night. See what you did there, Thomas? You drove her right into his arms.
You might as well have inserted his penis into her. Like it's that.
Guide it. You might as well have said, hold on, guys.
I got this. Don't worry about it.
There you go. You brought the Astroglide man right like the third in a porn like it's you brought baby oil to a ditty party knock it off that's what happened man so june 16th 1996 1 30 in the morning oh boy now it's yeah now it's gonna get

out of regular daytime hours here now it's now it's criminal shit totally thomas is moving into night watchman hours here he's got a different thing going on crime o'clock crime o'clock here 1 30 so thomas figured out that no one was home at the wishman farm okay nobody there and he went into her house and went into her bedroom and this isn't the apartment they shared or where this is her family's home this is breaking and entering this is burglary is not good yeah sure it's her bedroom but it's her family it's her parents place that's fucking weird that's that's what i mean this is great and some farmer dad's not gonna pop out with a shotgun either is pretty pretty ballsy of you. So this is when he searched around and found her diary again.
Because he had read it when they were in the house together, but now they're here. Let's see if she counted the fucking veins on his cock and wrote it down.
How good his dick is. I almost hear about it.
And in this, it's just her talking about how great Brian is. Not good.
God damn it. Oh, man.
In there, he read that she had, quote, met the man of her dreams, Brian. And it's not Tom and fuck.
And not only that, she couldn't wait and wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. He's like, fuck, out in the fucking, oh, my my god and she also wrote that she did not want

anything to do with thomas and also she didn't want thomas to find out that she was so into brian because she was afraid of what he might do to himself so i'm gonna write it all down wow Holy shit.

So that's at 1.30 a.m.

By 3.22 a.m he's calling brian's house and asking for her in the 3 22 a.m morning oh my god um so brian told him that ann wasn't there yeah so thomas then called ann's apartment okay the one in great falls and she didn't answer the phone there either. So Thomas then said, well, I can't let this just fucking sit in the middle of the night.
Gets in his truck and drives to Brian's trailer to speak to Brian and ask him if Ann is there. Dude, stop doing all of this.
He needs a friend is what he needs. Sure does yeah not a sister not a brother he needs a buddy that's gonna go bro what the fuck are you doing man yeah fuck that shit no hell no i know this girl she's got lots of friends you don't need this this is fucking yo bro you're crazy you look crazy you know that right he needs more than one to say it, though.
You won't believe him. You need four guys around you just fucking pinballing you with insults.
That's what you need. Maybe some mockery, some derision.
That way you go, okay, fine. You had a friend like this, didn't you? Oh, I'm that friend.
No, I mean, you had a friend that did this, driving down. Oh, yeah.
Yes. yes yes i'm the guy for some reason i'm the guy that everyone tells everything to i don't know why they from since i was a small child they tell me all of their personal bullshit i've had friends of mine show up knocking at my door four o'clock in the morning with tears flying down their eyes i'm like what the fuck the fuck are you doing? And then they're telling me all this shit about their girl.

I don't want to know this.

I had a friend that I was like

the fourth call.

Everybody was like, dude, no. So he finally

called me and was like, would you go over

to her? I was like, no, I'm not going to her.

He goes, well, at least go over and get my

Click DVD. I was like, and Adam's

the worst. Your Click DVD? Your Click DVD.
The worst Adam Sandler movie? You want that? While you're there, grab my copy of Spanglish, too, if you could. What the fuck? What are you talking about? At least you have Jack and Joe's do, bro.
What are you doing? Oh, my God. That's the craziest request ever go over there fucking look around grab my copy of 50 first dates and fucking jet bro come back he literally told me i don't want her to watch it man oh my god like as soon as you walked out she was like ha ha i got his click DVD.
I win. And popped it right in the DVD player.
Oh, my God. I don't know what I'm watching it without me.
I was like, I assure you, she already threw that shit away. She frisbeed that shit across the parking lot of the apartment complex immediately.
That's the funniest request I've ever had. That's the greatest fucking dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life.
Holy shit. Just get my Click DVD.
Get my Click DVD. Oh, God.
So Thomas shows up looking for his Click DVD at Brian's house. Knocks on the door.
Brian tells him, she ain't here, bro. Yeah.
And her car's not not there either so you kind of knew that to begin with yeah when you pulled up you didn't see her car did you so thomas goes okay and then leaves okay i hope that brian was like and fuck off by the way and and don't come back don't come back here jesus christ so i will treat you like a a horse with a broken leg and put you down how's this thing though what if he is a womanizer and that woman's not there but another one another chick's there what the fuck dude get out of here you're fucking up my life crap in my style i'm drying out over here come on so at 6 a.m this was at 3 30 in the morning he's over at the house fucking night at 6 a.m. this was at 3.30 in the morning, he's over at the house.
Oh, fucking night. At 6 a.m., he calls Brian again.
Uh-huh. But this time, he doesn't say he's Thomas.
Yeah. He pretends to be Ann's brother, Carl.
Oh, for heaven's sake. Carl Wishman.
So, Jesus Christ. And he tells Brian, I really need to speak with my sister.
Uh-huh. If I'm Brian, I'm like, this like this is too much trouble I've been with this girl two weeks I can't even get a decent night's sleep this is crazy I'm dumping this jig all I've done is had a long night talk with her and now I got this guy all every three hours calling me fuck somebody else so um Ann gets on the phone because she was there hiding yeah so Ann gets on the phone, and as soon as she hears the voice,

she knows it's not her brother.

She knows it's Thomas.

So she said that immediately, basically she got on the phone and said hello,

and Thomas immediately started with just a tirade of calling her a tramp and a slut

and a whore and everything else.

You tramp, slut, whore.

Every loose woman word. What a piece of shit the phone she hung up on him obviously so obviously he called back yeah clearly spoke to her again um told her that now she's not a tramp and a whore and a slut or maybe she is in his mind but he only called her that because he's worried about her oh okay i don't want you to be of those be those things.
He said, I called your house at the farm there and there wasn't any answers. So I went looking in town for you and I couldn't find you.
And I also read your journal and your diary. So I didn't know what was going on here.
I did my own welfare check. Didn't find you.
So I started reading. Maybe you wrote down where you're going.
Maybe. No shit.
By the way, that call to marie gardner lady who was like yeah i don't know that was a 34 minute phone call these are not two minute conversations it is a lot to get him off the phone that's the sister who lives in chicago so that's a long distance 34 minute call he put out that's a woman that's concerned for her daughter or sister's safety because otherwise you just hang up on this fucking guy. I guess so.
Well, back then, if someone called you long distance, it was so expensive that no matter what they had to say, you felt like you owed it to them to listen because they were paying for this. Literally, someone could be calling you names, and you're like, this is costing them like $3 a minute.
This isn't, you know. This is crazy.
I'll just let him go. Let him go.

I'll just let him off his chest if he's willing to pay this much for it.

Oh, man.

So June 18th, 1996 now.

Yeah.

Brian shows up for work at his clinic and gets out of his car, and he's ready to start

another day of helping the animals out, and he discovers that a large rock has been thrown

through his front window of his clinic.

Oh, boy.

So we kind of, we get that here.

Not a lot of mystery behind that one.

Not a lot of mystery, probably.

Doubt it's kids.

Yeah.

Thank you. front window of his clinic.
So we kind of we get that here. A lot of mystery behind that.
Not a lot of mystery. Probably doubt it's kids.
Yeah. So June 21st, 1996.
Yeah. And and her brother now, Carl, actual Carl, not fake Carl on the phone, fake phone Carl and her brother and Carl's girlfriend were about to drive to Geraldine at approximately 10.30 p.m.

So I guess Carl said that he and Ann were going to Geraldine and that Ann was in her vehicle and Carl was in his with his girlfriend.

So they were in two separate cars.

Now, while this was going on, Carl said he noticed a vehicle with its lights on, quote, just sitting there. And he said that this vehicle waited till we left the driveway.
Now, he says, Carl says he recognized it as Thomas in one of his dad's pickups. Now, keep in mind, he's in a separate car than Ann, so they're not talking about this.
No cell phones. So Ann said that they were driving down their lane when she observed a vehicle approaching at a slow speed she said she didn't recognize the vehicle and kept on driving to geraldine she thought it was somebody lost or something but the carl said no fuck that that was thomas and one of his dad's pickup trucks just not his so they get to the bar carl and ann and carl's girlfriend carl said they went to a bar in Geraldine, and while at the bar, he noticed that Thomas was continuously driving up and down the street.
In front of the bar, just driving back and forth. Why? Either go in or go home.
What are you driving back and forth for? Maybe you'll see them come out and act like you ran into them, I guess. I guess that's what it is, yeah.
You can't go in. You're going to cause a scene.
Oh, it's going to be a scene, yeah. Yeah.
So Carl said that when he left the bar, he saw Thomas drive by, so he followed Thomas. And they met up at an intersection where Carl got out of his car and told Thomas to fucking quit calling my sister and quit following her around, god damn carl then asked thomas where you going and thomas said that he's going home he said good fucking stay there leave us alone did he go home no let's find out well he did go home but he didn't stay there he just switched vehicles Oh, for heaven's sake.
So he's like, poor... Just switched cars.

What the fuck, man? He's so exhausted.

I was just going say how exhausted are you right now just hearing about imagine living through this no he hasn't slept in days i don't know what his i don't know when this man fucking sleeps it's crazy so he went back switched vehicles then went back to gerald Oh, God damn it. So Anne comes out and she said that she exited the bar with Brian and observed Thomas sitting on a bench in front of the bar.
Dude, if I'm Brian, I'm hands up and I'm going, this is too much, guys. He's your problem, lady.
We've been going out for two weeks. It's not like, oh, we're just dating.

This is way too much drama for this shit here.

And it's not her fault, but still, if you're an outsider, you're like, I don't want any part of this shit.

Also, you'd kind of feel like anything that happens to her is going to be your fault.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

At some point, you've got to take some accountability to calm the fuck down and let that situation go away before you start interfering in it. I don't want to be seen with you for a while.
I mean, granted, we should have fucking some decorum and not treat people like this, obviously. Well, obviously, stalking would be as frowned upon in our society.
In the event that people can't follow the fucking rules, maybe let them handle it first before you pour fucking piss gas on this fire. Yeah, gas piss.
That's not good. That's the worst kind of piss.
June 24th, 1996. Carl tells Thomas again to stop bothering.
I'm sorry, Ann tells Thomas, stop bothering my family and friends because he continuously was doing that. Carl, the brother, said that they received telephone calls where nobody would talk and they'd hang up, hang up calls.
Carl also said that if he answered the phone, they would get about two calls per night if he was the one answering the phone. But if Ann answered the phone, they would receive 10 calls that night of hangups.
Real sausage fest around. I just wanted to hear her voice.
Yeah. What good is that? What good is that doing you? So just seeing if she's home, I guess, not out with Brian.
But when it's a sausage fest, I'm not calling. No, no.
Keep it out of that. July 2nd, 1996.
A good month has gone by here. It's about 10.30 p.m.
here. And Anne and her brother John, a different brother, are sitting on their porch watching a lightning storm in the distance.
Which is nice. A lot of distance to watch shit in there.
Oh, yeah. You can see one coming from miles.
Fuck yeah. So the house lights were off.
They were just watching like that. And they observed lights approaching their farm on the country road.
Yeah. Coming down.
Or county road. Sorry.
So Ann said she turned on some house lights and waited for the vehicle to drive in her yard. She suspected it was Thomas.
So after a period of time, she and her brother drove down their lane to look for the vehicle because it never popped up at the house. So she's like, where the fuck did it go? Now, Ann found, Ann said they found an ATV sitting in the middle of the road with its neutral lights on and nobody around.
It's running. A running ATV in the middle of the road with lights on.
That didn't just fucking fall from the sky i doubt someone had to drive it there so right that's interesting now her brother take gets on the atv and drives it to the house fuck it this is ours now we own this yes it's ours so ann said that they then woke up her brother carl who then drove around the area looking for anybody. Somebody on foot.
Somebody on foot. Carl then returned to the house and called up Randy, who is Thomas's brother.
Randy Jarecki here, and asked if Thomas and their ATV. Is Thomas and your ATV home by any chance? Is Thomas sitting there? Sitting on their ATV there um yeah so the uh ann said a short time later that thomas answered the questions for them because this guy said i don't fucking know i don't live in the same thing with him so i don't know what to tell you here a short while later thomas emerges covered in mud walking through their yard toward the house okay i don I don't know what he's been doing, crawling around in the mud or what here.
So Thomas said he was going to the farm, quote, just hoping to catch a glimpse of her in the window. Whoa.
What the fuck, man? Wow. He apparently was apologetic at this point, didn't get nasty.
Was apologetic and again talked about killing himself. He needs to talk to somebody.
This is too much. You can't do this for a month.
So Carl heard Thomas state that if he could not have Anne, he didn't want to live. If I can't have you, I don't want to live anymore.
If I can't have you, I want nobody else. Yeah.
I don't want nobody, baby. So they've moved on from night moves to fucking disco music.
Perfect. We're going on through the years here.
So Ann indicated that they talked for some time, and Carl offered to give Thomas a ride home because he felt bad for him. He was like, this guy's just a heap of a mess.
Tears going through the mud on his face, that's a mess. It's so embarrassing, yeah.
Yeah, that's terrible. So immediately after all this happened, Carl gets in the car to drive him home and calls Brian up here and tells her what the hell happened.
Jesus Christ, we saw this ATV, and then he emerges covered in mud like John Goodman in fucking Raising Arizona it was weird tears made the mud look like makeup running Schwarzenegger in Platoon is it Platoon? No it's it's fucking Predator Predator that's it Pl. It's a war movie.
Tom Barringer and Willem Dafoe. Yeah.
So that's fucking funny. So Brian told, then said that, listen, I can sympathize with you because at about 3.30 a.m., Thomas came to my house last night, too, claiming his truck had broken down and I need to use the telephone oh my god so you were just having to be coincidentally driving past my house when your truck broke down again okay the excuses he's making are just it's just it's stalking and he's giving shit excuses that are like obvious that you're fucking stalking man he's not a great stalker he's being found all the time and then has bad excuses for it not a good stalker fuck so brian told her that he let thomas come in and use the telephone and he said he returned to bed so he goes yeah use the phone let yourself out and then went back to bed would you let this guy just unsupervised wander your house while you went and laid down in bed i mean he's a isn't he a drywall punter this guy's scary as shit yeah i'm gonna just make sure this weirdo is out of my house anyway so um at that point ann told her that she was concerned and told him she was concerned for him meaning brian and said i don't know why thomas would be on the road that passes your house other than to drive by your house.
Like, let's be honest here. My truck broke down while stalking.
Can I use your phone? And Brian is just not, he doesn't seem real street smart at all. Like, he doesn't seem real or whatever, farm smart or any of that shit.
He just seems kind of book smart and doesn't really get shit here. I guess maybe that's why he deals with animals and not people.
Maybe he's better with animals.

Animals don't speak English.

So Ann told him, listen,

do me a favor and keep

a shotgun next to your bed, just in case.

Wow.

So Brian said that

I'm not going to do anything to

Thomas unless he did something to my clinic

again. If he tries to fuck with my clinic again,

then we'll talk about it. But otherwise,

I'm going to try to leave it alone and hope he just punches himself

out. I bought

and Thomas unless he did something to my clinic again. If he tries to fuck with my clinic again, then we'll talk about it.
But otherwise, I'm going to try to leave it alone and hope he just punches himself out.

I bought him two sheets of drywall and I said, listen, go to town, buddy, and just stood him up out in the yard against a tree.

He can come between me and a girl, but the clinic's how I get more girls.

Yeah, that's where all the girls are.

It's the source of girls.

So the weekend of July 6th and 7th here. All right.
So post 4th of July 1996. Brian stayed at Ann's apartment in Great Falls.
Ann said they received calls on July 6th, right before 11 p.m. and 1130 p.m.
And then again at about 2.30 a.m. that morning.
They got calls. They didn't answer the calls, believing they were from Thomas.
So Ann said that at approximately 3 a.m. that morning, the phone rang again, and Brian finally said, you've got to answer it.
We can't have peace. Tell him to fuck off, at least.
And, you know, maybe he won't call back. But otherwise, he's just going to call all fucking night.

Too much.

So Anne picked up the phone and she said she could hear someone on the line. However, no one's speaking.
It's a hang up. It's one of those again.
Now, later on, we find out Thomas's phone records show that calls were made from his residence to the apartment at 227 and 249 a.m. So July 8th, Anne receives a letter from Thomas where it's a completely different tone.

Now it's all conciliatory.

He's sorry for humiliating her.

Very sorry about that.

My actions have been unforgivable.

Very sorry.

But he doesn't say,

so I'm going to let you go

and you live your life and whatever.

He says,

but I really do want to get back together and get married and have kids with you. So that's why I did it.
I can't help it because I want to marry you. July 9th, 1996, Ann spends the night at Brian's trailer here.
And Ann said at 2.30 a.m. she saw headlights driving into the driveway.
The vehicle then departed quickly, though, before she could get a read on what vehicle it was. All she saw was the headlights.
So Thomas would admit later and to anyone who would listen that he often would drive to Brian's residence in the early morning hours just to see if Ann's car was there. Trish now, remember Trish, a friend? She said that based on the actions of Thomas and her discussions with Thomas, she was very concerned for the safety of Anne and Brian.
Very concerned. She gave this statement, quote, I called Carl that night and I told Carl's the brother and told him that I was a little concerned because I thought that Tom wasn't acting rationally.
That I was afraid for Anne being at Brian's house and not telling someone where she was. As far as what I thought he would do, I have no idea.
I mean, I don't know that he would do something, but I did feel very concerned, very concerned. I told Brian that same night I called and Carl told me that Anne was at Brian's house and I called over there.
Brian answers the phone and I told him to watch his back. I really felt that Tom was not handling it very good.
Then I spoke with Ann and I told her the same thing. I said, no matter what time you come home, whether you call me or you call Carl, which she never did, I said, tell somebody that you're on the road if it's the middle of the night and you're by yourself.
Let someone know where you are. Yeah.
So now she's just to check in all over town to make sure she hasn't been kidnapped and thrown in a gulch. So that's that's fun.
July 12th. Now, Marlene Prostman.
Prostman. Remember, that's the landlord and one of the landlord Dick Dick Dickie Prostate Man's wife.
She works at the vet clinic that Brian has here. She gets a call from Brian at about 4 p.m., and he said he was coming home from Bozeman that evening.
He was in Bozeman for some reason. Marlene recalled receiving a call after Brian had called from a young man asking for Brian.
Now, she told the young man that called, that she didn't know who the fuck it was, that Brian is returning from Bozeman this evening. So, you know, call back later or some shit.
You know? By the way, guy calling, it was obviously Thomas. Fake Carl.
Fake Carl. Fake Carl.
So, I love this. He's just fake Carl from now on.
So, Thomas Randy, now the brothers here, the Jureski brothers, they said they worked until approximately 7.30 p.m. on July 12, 1996.
Then they returned to the farm near Geraldine where they lived. Randy did not stay at the farm that night, though.
Randy left the farm at about 8.30 and went to Stanford, which is where that motel was where we did the review, and did not return home until about 430 a.m. Well, there's handing out popcorn like hotcakes over there.
How do you go home? Popcorn and coffee are flowing. So Thomas was alone at the farm, at the family farm in those early morning, late night hours here.
Thomas said that he was there the whole night. He'll tell everybody I was there all night, all night.
He did call Brian's residence at approximately 945 p.m. that night, but hung up when Brian answered the phone, obviously.
So so she knows Brian's home now and said that night she was at her apartment in great falls with her friend, Kelly Hines and Kelly confirmed that she was with her at the apartment and said at about nine 30 PM, she received a hangup call. So Thomas was doing his hang up nine 30.
It's time for my hangups. Call Brian.
Call you just, just find out where everybody's at. Okay, good deal.

I feel like he has a little map with pins that he puts on it.

I'm sure he knows where everybody is at all times.

Or like a police map, an old school one that lights up.

You know what I mean?

There she is.

And she blinks as she moves.

So, yeah, she made that.

She said she immediately called Thomas back because she thought it was him. She's like, I'm not taking this shit.
Called him back and got his answering machine. Okay.
Now, Thomas here says he didn't make the phone call later on. However, phone records show that he made the phone call at 930 p.m.
All right. And it was made from Randy's residence, by the way.
He went over to his brother's house to do it. So Anne didn't believe that Brian was going to return from the conference until the next day.

She thought that Brian would be in Bozeman the whole time.

Again, just a simple text if we had cell phones.

That evening, Anne suggested that her friend Hines there call Brian's residence so she could hear Brian's voice on his answering machine and hear how nice it was. You should call my boyfriend and just hear his voice.
It's so nice. You're going to love it.
So that's how much she likes him. She just wants her friend to hear his voice.
His voice smells cute. Oh, my God.
So she does. She places the call at about 10, 15 p.m., and Brian answers the phone.
Oh ann's like oh my god you're there great yeah so ann said hey have you been getting hang up phone calls because ann uh said that and then brian said yeah i had quite a few at the clinic and i just had one at my house here so they spoke until about 10 40 p.m when brian said he had to go he said i gotta to go. And I guess according to Ann, she said goodbye.
And he just hung up. He said, I have to go.
And she was saying goodbye as he hung up. And she said that he's never abruptly terminated a call like that ever.
Um, he always says, okay, goodbye. And it's a new love.
They're going back and forth. Goodbye.
No, you hang up. No, you hang up.
No, I love you. No, I love you.

Yeah, and he just instead

she's like, goodbye, and he was quick. That's it.

All right.

So during the

phone call with Brian, Ann

told Brian she was interested in obtaining

a temporary restraining order against Thomas

for both of them. We should both get this.

And so

yeah, that phone call ended abruptly. Now, introduce Bill Spevisek.
He lived about a mile from Brian's trailer here. He said at about dusk that night on Friday, July 12th, he heard what he believed to be two shots fired.
When asked if he had previously heard gunfire from a distance, he said yes quite a few times. And as far as my recollection, it was not a rifle.
It'd be more like a short pistol shot or, you know, more of a pop instead of a rap sound or whatever. These are hunters and ranchers and farmers.
They know what guns sound like. Hunters and ranchers can identify them like a young kid in Baltimore.
I was just going to say, or a kid in Baltimore. Yeah.
Abso-fucking-lutely again. It's crazy how that bridges the gap.
It bridges everything, man. They know.
So that was going on there. This guy also said he recalled seeing an unidentified male driving a dark green atv in the direction of brian's trailer randy owns a black and fluorescent green atv and uh it's the same atv that was at the house at that time uh the same one on from july 2nd so um by the way when we say dusk you're thinking you thinking? Around 6 p.m.
Nope. This is July way up north.
Oh, so it's 3 p.m. Dusk begins.
No, way late. Remember the summer here? Remember the 4th of July we had to wait until 9.30? This is the middle of July.
Dusk didn't begin until approximately 10.01 p.m. Whoa! And lasted between 33 and 48 minutes.
It's not dark till 11 p.m. These people hate daylight savings.
That is wild. Holy shit.
They are saving the shit out of it. So much to save.
And the winter, though, it's dark at 3 o'clock, so that's a problem. So, yeah, what is it, 1.30? it 130 shit pitch black out there so that's the time period after the phone calls and all that kind of thing um richard and marlene the landlords and friends of his of brian said that brian's trailer was always left open and that brian didn't even have a key to the trailer.
Really? Didn't even have a key.

It's wide open.

It's wide open all the time.

That's how these people live up here.

Ann also said when she went over to Brian's trailer on Friday, July 12th,

to mow his yard, she went over to mow his lawn.

Hey, sweetheart, I'm out of town at a conference.

My lawn's a little shaggy.

You want to grab the mower and come on over or what?

What are we doing?

I can't just let it go for four days.'m gonna need somebody to come by wow um when she was there uh she said his trailer was open as well and she said as all the time she's been there his trailer has never been locked and we know it's not locked because he doesn't have a key he's not gonna lock it so richard prostman here dickie prostate man said that on friday j 12th, he observed the lights, like we said. He observed lights on in Brian's trailer shortly after dark, which is after 11 p.m., indicating that he was home.
Richard said that the lights had been off while Brian was in Bozeman, so he didn't leave them on the whole time. So he said that he and his wife left for Laurel, Montana between 8 a.m.
and 9 a.m. the next morning, Saturday, July 13th.
And they arrived home back from Laurel at about 6 p.m. that night on July 13th.
That's a Saturday. So at around 7 p.m.
they left for Great Falls and spent the night with their daughter. There's a lot of driving around these people are doing.

So then Richard said they returned to their home between 9.30 a.m. and 9.45 p.m.
on Sunday, July 14th. And he called Brian and found the line was busy at his house.
Couldn't get a hold of him. Busy.
Which busy signal happened back then. Nothing you can do about it.
so then Anne said that she and Brian

had made tentative plans to see each other

Saturday evening July 13th. Ann called him at about 9 p.m.
on July 13th, and he never answered. It was busy.
I'm sorry. So she kept calling until 1 a.m.
over and over and over again, and it was always busy. Wow.
So she's like, what the fuck? He's really spinning a yarn tonight. Yeah, this is, wow, he must be really on one.
So this is interesting. So apparently the day of that week earlier, Wednesday, July 10th, before Brian left for Bozeman, he had talked to Richard Prostman and Brian was asking him questions if he knew anything about Thomas and shit like that.
So Prostman said that Brian told him that Thomas had come to his house one night at 3 a.m. and asked to use the phone because his vehicle was disabled or whatever.
And Prostman said that Brian told him he didn't ever hurt a hurt a vehicle enter or leave the area so he doesn't know even where the vehicle was so july 14th 1996 is the sunday okay richard prostan he can't get a hold of brian so it's still still busy has he been on the phone for two days this guy's really chit-chatting so 10 a.m on this sunday morning he goes over to Brian's trailer knocks on the door no answer but his car's there so he just goes in and right there on the kitchen floor there is Brian dead as fucking can be lying on his back here he's lying on the floor on his back with his legs crossed near the ankle and near his left hand is Brian's own .357 Magnum. Oh.
Near his left hand there. So they immediately obviously called 911.
He's very dead. Dickie Prostate Man said, I just kind of panicked.
He said, I may have checked for a pulse. I don even know but he didn't look alive that kind of thing uh he said yeah he checked his eyes and they were glassy he said there was blood everywhere and he saw a gun near him so he was like oh i think i know what happened here um he said he didn't see any of the injuries from the shots at the time so he said he drove the mile to his house and yelled for his wife to call 9-1-1 um telling her that brian shot himself he's like brian shot himself brian shot himself call 9-1-1 so he and his wife drove back down to the trailer after she made the call they go tramp traipse around the crime scene a little bit more she went inside and yelled quote he didn't shoot himself he's been in a fight something bad happened oh she went in and looked at everything, he didn't shoot himself.
He's been in a fight. Something bad happened.

She went in and looked at everything.

Richard was just like, holy shit, didn't expect to see this and took off.

She went in knowing what she was going to see and looking at it like a detective, like trying to figure it out.

So the cops show up, and this is when it really gets messy.

Okay.

Oh, boy.

So the investigators arrive, and they observe a handset to the telephone was under brian's left hand off the hook and he's got the the gun in his right hand he wore a button up outer shirt brian did the outer shirt was unbuttoned exposing a t-shirt underneath t-shirt with a you know dress shirt over it uh the The outer shirt was torn. Brian suffered two gunshot wounds to his right arm.
Yeah. That's not a normal suicide attempt, right? Really kicking his own ass.
And one to his right anterior chest. Okay.
Tore his own shirt, shot himself three times. Boom, boom, boom.
Fuck it. Can't take it anymore.
Yeah. So the forensic pathologist determined that the later wound to the chest, which was near a contact wound, was the death shot there, obviously.
They also noted an abrasion located in the mid-forehead and a second abrasion and the bridge of his nose. Okay.
Been in a fight. Yeah.
So they also noted his right eye was swollen and he had a contusion behind his right ear. Hmm.
They take the gun in. The .357 Magnum by his hand is the gun that fired the bullets that killed him.
Yeah. So this is a weird crime scene.
Yeah. Now, back to the crime scene, investigators reviewed the crime scene, and based on the location of the bullet holes, the spatter, and the droplets, which won't be there very long, as we'll talk about, they concluded that Brian had gone out to the back steps of his trailer, where he confronted his assailant.
One of Brian's shoes was located near the back door, and blood was also located on the sidewalk near the back door. They further concluded that a struggle ensued and that whoever did this shot Brian twice in the right arm.
As Brian attempted to retreat to the trailer, they believe that the assailant grabbed his outer shirt, ripping the shirt, and then shot him in the chest. Brian then retreated to the kitchen and attempted to use the telephone and died in the kitchen while he was trying to probably call for help.
Now, okay, this is a crime scene that there's a lot of different parts to it. And it's very important to keep all this shit pristine.
There's going to be trace evidence here, all this type of shit. So what they do is, here's Douglas Williams who's with the sheriff department at the time.
He's the guy who's supposed to be in charge of this shit, but he's away at a conference, a training conference at the time. So there's other cops that are in charge that aren't normally in charge of this type of shit.
And by the way, they haven't had a death like a murder, a suspicious death like this in 19 years in this town, in this area. Most of the people on the police force didn't even see that one.
Have never seen a murder before or anything that's close to it. Now, this guy, Douglas Williams, who's supposed to be in charge here, he says that they have a quote, unwritten policy with crime scene.

First of all, all crime scene policies need to be written.

So basically no policy at all.

Or too much of a policy, one of the two, because we'll find out this is too much.

No, I'm saying, if it's unwritten, then we don't have one.

Not a policy.

Well, they have an unwritten policy regarding the cleanup of bloody scenes, okay?

Okay.

And that is that, all right, well, basically,

I don't know. policy regarding the cleanup of bloody scenes okay and that is that all right well basically what happens is i'll tell you in a second here the deputies and the local coroner spent a few hours just fucking trampling this crime scene in this kitchen uh they take about a dozen photos which isn't enough 12 12 you could do that just with the blood spots outside never mind everything else holes in the walls and in the process uh what they do is after they take the photos they just start mopping the fucking scene up they don't document shit they don't swab for dna they don't dust for prints because the family started showing up and they didn't want the family.
That's the unwritten rule is they didn't want to see it. They don't let family see a bloody crime scene.
So they literally got a bottle of 409 and started destroying every piece of physical evidence in the house. Oh, that shit.
Wow. That shit's good.
It's great. You spray it on a scorpion and it dies.
That's awesome. That shit is the best.
That shit you can smell when somebody's cleaned. Oh, yeah.
You know when the 409's been out. Holy shit.
So not only that, the sheriff's deputy here, they cleaned up the blood under his body and everything. Removed his body.
They should have kept it exactly the way it was for two fucking days probably to process all this shit, or at least for a few hours. There's several scenes at this house.
No shit. Here's the other thing.
There was bloody towels nearby and the phone that was between Brian's head and the wall, they didn't want the family to see them, so they picked them up, put them in a garbage bag, and threw them out in the garbage. Just threw them out.
They just took evidence and threw it in a dumpster. Oh, get rid of that stuff.
You can't see it. It's too bad.
Holy shit. Now, one of the cops said all he did was, quote, clean up a small area of congealed blood with 409 cleaner because the coroner told him to.
What the fuck? The coroner's not even a fucking doctor, by the way. The coroner's not a crime scene investigator.
No. A medical examiner's a doctor.
A coroner can be literally anybody. It can be the pizza guy who got the job as coroner.
He always saves him. Someone's dead, right? They go, he's dead.
That's what they do. So, oh my God.
So anyway, he said, yeah, the guy told me to. And the later photos of the scene, though, suggest that it wasn't a little area.
He cleaned up a fucking huge area of wine. He cleaned up the whole room.
My Christ, this is crazy. So this is crucial evidence.
Fucking evidence fucking gone yeah gone um so they said well when would you clean up the crime scene what's the unwritten policy what the fuck this makes no sense and the cop said there were certain times we would clean it up okay great certain times that's what i'm saying what are they when it's most fucking detrimental to the investigation? One of the sacred hours that we clean up the crime scenes. Well, we do it mornings usually if we get there then.
You know, got an egg sandwich in your stomach. It's nice.
So he went on to say, though, that in 98 or 2000, he doesn't remember what year, though, his office stopped that practice. And they've been, you know, know processing crime scenes correctly then using a crime scene cleaning service afterwards like a normal police department would rather than just going hey bobby go ahead and get that 409 from the bathroom under the sink because it's a mess in here we don't want people to see this there's a scrub daddy under the sink you got going between the scrub and the Swiffer, I feel like we get this place in tip-top shape, right? So they also find out that nothing was taken from the trailer, including valuables, jewelry, and two rifles as well as the .357.
So interesting. Now, they're saying they think he killed himself.
The police are looks like a suicide boy did he hate himself he really took it out on him to be honest wow these cops are fucking dumb well see you you don't understand depression like we do around here when you're mad at yourself it's sad you really do you do a number on yourself this is, besides the mayor coming in and trampling in that one episode, this might be the worst crime scene I've ever heard in my entire life. Literally.
Even the 30s. Shot himself multiple times.
This is crazy. And really punched himself.
Fuck, man. Really.
I mean, right in the arm. I want to feel it first.
Punching himself, hitting himself like fucking Ed Norton in Fight Club. So the undersheriff told Brian's grandparents and two other family members that Brian's death was a suicide, even though he hadn't even been to the crime scene yet.
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Okay. So the grandmother said, you're full of it.
My grandson would never kill himself. I know him.
He's not suicidal. He's not even sad.
He's super happy. He's knee-deep in poon, man.
What are you doing? He's a vet, for Christ's sake. He gets to play with animals all day and then be knee-deep in poon.
That's a great life he's living. I love to do that.
Pet dogs all day. Jesus Christ.
Now, John Seabrant said that he'd been a friend of Brian's for about 10 years, starting in Kansas. He said that he helped Brian move to Montana in June of 1994.
And he said that indeed, Brian did own a .357 caliber short barreled nickel plated revolver. Wow.
He told the cops that Brian hated the gun, didn't like it at all, just hated it.

Too loud, too much.

And he'd been trying to sell it or trade it for a long time. He told the cops that Brian hated the gun, didn't like it at all, just hated it.

Too loud, too much.

And he'd been trying to sell it or trade it for a long time, and it's just been sitting there.

So he said that Brian generally kept the gun in his bedroom, but it was possible the gun could have been left in plain sight in his house or vehicle as well.

Anywhere, yeah.

Could be anywhere.

They live on a farm in a trailer.

Who knows?

So another one here, a guy named Rick Porter. Rick Porter is a customer of Brian's.
He said they became friends after that. He said that he had seen the hand-tooled leather gun case containing Brian's initials.
He said that's what held the .357. He had that and Brian had offered to sell it to him.
He said, you want to buy it? And he said, no, I'm good right there. He said he last saw the gun, though, on the seat of Brian's car in December of 95.
So the gun does move around. It's not just on a shelf up in the closet.
So according to people that knew Brian well, they were not aware of anyone who was angry with Brian or would have had any reason to kill him other than Thomas. I mean, he's been saying this guy's been stalking him, but otherwise he's happy.
So they look into the whereabouts of numerous friends and associates of Brian here. Investigators determined that all of these people that are everybody, his sister, his family, Richard and Marlene Prostman, Larry and Lori Hagenbuck, who we'll talk about at the end of this in a while here, Ann Wishman, John Seabratt, Jody Thorson, and Penny Porter all had alibis for the time period that Brian was killed.
And all their alibis were corroborated. They didn't do it.
They were not able to locate a single witness who could confirm Thomas's whereabouts because, remember, they got home from work. His brother went out until 4 in the morning, and he said he didn't go anywhere.
Thomas did, but no one was there to see that. So that's that.
So they have no alibi witnesses for him. So they have to bring him in and talk to him.
So they bring him in for a formal interview on July 15th. And he said, yeah, I was devastated by the breakup.

Yeah, absolutely.

He said, I was, quote, I was really hurt because it was almost like we were married, you know, going, went out four and a half years and living with each other for the last six months. And, you know, felt like we were married.

He told investigators that he knew that she wasn't being straight up with him and, quote, because she had told me Brian wasn't the reason that she dumped me.

So he said that he knew over time that Brian was the big reason she dumped me.

During his interview, he also told investigators he was home alone on the evening of July 12th.

And so he was asked why he didn't pick up a call from Ann at approximately 930. And he said, I may have been at Randy's residence, which is exactly where he was making those phone calls.
So we know that for a fact. In talking to him, he makes these statements.
He said he never went to the Rain house, the Rain residence, on July 2nd to seek assistance with his vehicle, even though he definitely did. Yeah.
He made phone calls from his house and everything. The last time he was present at Brian's trailer was on the morning of June 16th, 1996, a month ago when he went to the back door and asked to see Wishman.
That was the early morning. Yeah.
6 a.m. He shows up.
He denied he'd ever been inside the trailer. He said he was unaware of Ann's whereabouts that night that this all happened.
And that approximately 9 p.m. the night of the murder, he injured his back while working on his truck at the family farm because he had injuries.
And they were like, well, how'd you hurt yourself? Fighting a veterinarian? And he was like, no, no, of course not. 68 Ford out back.
God, no, yeah. He said that he called Brian at approximately 9.45 July 12, 1996, but hung up when he answered the telephone, and he just remained at his family farm until 8 a.m.
with his back hurting. He said that's when he and Randy returned to the fields to work.
Later that day, he said his back hurt so bad that he went to Great Falls and received treatment at a hospital. So fucked up.
So they were talking to everybody and the hospital and everything. They were able to determine that he did suffer an injury to his back that night, and he stated in an interview he fell from his truck that evening, and he received medical assistance for it.
Medical records say that he was in the emergency room on July 13, 1996. According to the hospital records, the diagnosis was a myofascial strain of LS spine.
So that's a condition. It's chronic pain in the muscle.
He strained his back. That's all.
Threw his back out. Yeah.
Threw his back out. Doctor said, I need a backyadomy.
Yeah. So he's got to, that happens when you're fighting with people, apparently.
It does. He has the funeral.
They have a funeral for Brian, obviously. And they had, you know, people were singing.
Really? I'm going to say this right now. Yeah.
Don't let anyone sing at my funeral, please. No.
It just makes everyone uncomfortable. And it's not cool.
Just just don't do it like single people singing like a somebody walking up to the podium saying and now they're saying amazing grace yes they had an organist and two different people they sung they sang precious lord take my hand in the garden and amazing grace obviously you gotta have the standard yeah you can't have christmas without jingle bells what

are we doing here so um christmas tomorrow i think this jesus christ so there's memorials set up to brian is the brian a rain memorial fund in care of q banks of geraldine will be distributed to the KSU Veterinarian Fund,

and the Livestock Judging Department.

What?

No.

I... will be distributed to the KSU Veterinarian Fund and the Livestock Judging Department.
What? I only put this in here to go, what the fuck is that? Is that a class you take to livestock judge? I don't know, man. You have to know all the standards.
Yeah. To judge the shit, you have to know all the standards.
You have to know this animal should have this and they should have a bit of color here and this should be like that so i guess it is fascinating to see a dog judge pick a dog up by its tail and its face and then be like his hindquarters suck yeah you're out it's a bad dog piece of shit dog dog looks great wagging its tail looking happy and shit yeah it's a good dog. So July 18th, 1996, two days later, three days later, because Thomas went home, they bring him back in for a second interview.
Okay. And this is, they're going to, you know, they're going to poke around a little more here.
And he indicated the following. He said, Thomas said he'd never been in or around the area of the shelter belt located near the rain trailer.
Shelter belt is the wind thing we were talking about. He had only been at the rain residence once when he went to the back door.
Never been inside. He said that again.
After he made those declarations, they said, well, we have evidence that puts you right in the shelter belt. So then he said, OK, I lied.
Sorry, my bad. When confronted with facts, he just gives it up.
You got me. Ah, yeah.
He said, yeah, I lied. He goes, yeah, I lied when I previously said that I didn't do that.
And he said, quote, okay, well, this is something that I didn't tell you guys the first time that I talked to you, which terrible right away. But it was something that you and Mike asked me about is that, um, this is what the story was, is that my truck supposedly broke down supposedly.
Yeah. And I went and asked to use Brian's phone.
Do you recall that? He said, this is all hypothetical. You asked that he said, and I walked to Brian's through the shelter belt and I told him, I asked him if I could use the phone, so I was in the trailer.

That's something I didn't tell you guys before, and I don't know why I didn't, but, you know.

So they were like, okay.

He said, I only went there to see if she was there, though.

That's all I wanted.

He said, yes.

My truck wasn't broken down.

I did come through the shelter belt, and I didn't actually make a telephone call.

I just faked it.

Yeah.

Did one of those.

Um, so he said he'd been there.

Um, they said that would there be any reason for any evidence to be tracked down to him

on a weapon or any components of a weapon?

Okay.

Anything, your fingerprints, blood, anything, DNA going to be on any of these weapons.

It's going to connect you to weapons.

And he said, I don't believe so.

Of course, I was right at that table where the phone was at, so if there's something to do with that.

But I don't recall seeing a weapon, you know, when I was there.

You know, but I mean, as far as, if you're talking like maybe bullets or something like that, that could have been lying on the table, I might have had my hand on there. What? I might have just touched bullets that were hanging around, you know, when I stopped for two minutes.
There might be ammo with my fingerprints on it. Wow, he said.
But, no, I don't, you know, when I was there, I never did recall seeing one. This is a terrible job he's doing right now.

So, holy shit. So, that is the 18th, July 18th, like we said.
And he said he denied calling her on the evening of July 12th, but he did admit that he called Brian at 945. But I didn't make the call right before that to Ann.
That wasn't me. So fucking weird.
so phone records for Randy shows that on 945

someone called Ann's Great Falls residence from the telephone at Randy's house. He admitted that he was the only person at the farm from 8.30 to 9.30 a.m.
He further admitted that he would call Brian, quote, just to annoy him on occasion by tapping on the phone with his fingers when he answered the phone

just to annoy him he admitted that many of the phone calls uh were to see if brian and ann were together that's why he was calling okay so they're waiting for the lab to come back with shit for what i don't know it's all destroyed and ruined and corrupted and everything else Coming back with nothing.

Coming back with shit.

But rumor and speculation in the town. Yeah.
Imagine this small of a place. God damn.
Down at the feed store, everyone is hanging around talking about nothing else. Oh, you.
You bet. Yeah.
Fucking period. This is the first local murder in 19 years.
And wow. The county attorney said everybody is kind of on edge.
They'd like this case to be solved. They don't know whether the person's still out there running around.
Yeah. They said they're conducting interviews, tracking down leads.
They have 89 items submitted to the crime lab. And they said that might be the key evidence.
Maybe that'll come back with something. They said we do have suspects, but we need the physical evidence before we can walk into court.

You destroyed the crime scene.

What the fuck are you talking about?

There's nothing there.

Yeah, they said they're proceeding cautiously because of the intense local scrutiny.

They don't want to fuck it up, basically.

They said that a lot of the early interviews where they were just getting alibis for people who knew him became fuel for gossip. People were saying, oh, that guy had to talk to the cops.
He must have did it. Or that lady talked to the cops.
She must have did it. I synced him with a click.
I synced it. Oh man, who had the click? So he said, we noticed we'd be working on something and talking to someone.
And next morning, the gossip mill had them arrested and convicted. Did you see they went to the police? They arrested him for the murder.
Meanwhile, the guy's making fucking eggs in his kitchen.

It's fine.

So July 24th, 1996.

Time has gone by now.

DCI agents led a ground search of the vicinity surrounding the trailer.

They're just doing this now.

Oh, no.

A member of the search team found a gun case to Brian's .357 Magnum in the tall grass about 85 feet from the trailer.

Okay.

It's got its initials on it.

They examined a shelter belt northwest of Rain's trailer and discovered that there was an area in the shelter belt where it appeared someone had stood and trampled the grass in that area.

Perfect.

Yes.

According to investigators, from that location in the shelter belt, you can see the back door to Rain's trailer and not be seen. Oh, no.
It's the perfect hiding, stalking spot, basically. They believe that the person who handled the gun case hid in the shelter belt, walked to the rear door of the trailer, confronted him, fought him, shot him, killed him, walked away.
There you go. Neighbors want it solved solved yesterday yeah yeah uh the some local residents have even accused neighbors of involvement in the murder like they're turning on each other that's how crazy is it i bet you did it no i bet you did it that's what the mayor said the mayor said last night yeah the mayor said people are turning on each other we got to solve this yesterday um he said the mayor went on to say people really close to Brian want this case solved.
At the same time, it's disrupting a certain number of families. But members of Brian's family say they've been in close contact with the sheriff's office and are satisfied with the progress of the investigation.
They said the sister Charlene, who helped him out with the vet, said they've been working on this case day and night. They're going to do what they have to to get the crime solved.
That's nice here. They said that the vet service will remain closed until they can find another vet to fill it in.
So there we go. August 1996.
Weeks have gone by. They finally searched Thomas's house.
Now? Now they search his house. You know, plenty of time.
We got tons of it. He ain't getting any debtor, so it's fine.
So they do this. They search it, and they find a letter to Ann.
The letter was written to Ann prior to July 12, 1996, and the death. This is what he writes to Ann, but I don't think he gave it to her.
Quote, I really hope that Brian doesn't hurt you too bad, but maybe that's a lesson you'll just have to go through. I sure haven't heard many good things about him.
Tammy told me that he goes through women left and right and has girlfriends in other towns. I talked to Jody Thorson about him, and she really hates his guts.
She called him a bastard and said that he cheated on her. She said that he's real good at manipulating younger women and that he uses people.
Different people that I've talked to said that it won't last long between you two because he'll either get tired of you or cheat on you, whichever comes first. Then he said, the first I knew you slept with him was June 15th,

but Jody told me that Glenda had told her that you were seen leaving together June 8th,

which was only four days after you dumped me and had slept with him.

So what? What does any of this matter at this point?

It's very irrelevant, yeah.

I am real hurt that you dumped me,

but I'm even more hurt that you started seeing someone else right away and jumped right into bed with them. Okay.
Okay. So that is August of 1996.
Rest of 96 goes by. Nothing.
Oh, fuck. All of 97 goes by.
Oh, no. No progress.
They've fucked this crime scene up so bad they have to figure this out april 4th 1998 they want to talk to him again yeah okay during this time um he again denied making the call to ann on july 12th and stated he did not know where ann was that night he did admit to calling ann's telephone in in the early morning hours of July 7th and July 11th. He stated that on those occasions, he set his alarm clock to wake him after the bars closed so he could check in on them.
He set an alarm for bar closing time. If you're setting your alarm, then you're sleeping just fine.
Just stay asleep, man. Stalking is a job for this guy.
He sets his he's like oh shit i almost i'm almost late that's some serious fomo man i gotta punch in this is crazy yeah that's a crazy amount of fomo so wow um he also conceded that he had driven by brian's trailer sure on many occasions other than those he acknowledged in previous interviews he said that he'd use different vehicles including the ATV in order to avoid suspicion by Brian and his neighbors and Ann. Many of those drive-by incidents occurred on weekends he also admitted on one occasion he drove into Rain's driveway one early morning then left.
That seems to be the one that they were talking about where a car pulled up and then it never

came.

During the April 4th, 1996 interview, he was again asked if he may have touched the weapon

or a gun case.

They said, and you said you may have touched some cartridges or something that was on the

table.

And he said, yeah, that's where his phone was located, was on the table.

And the only light he had on in the house was his bedroom light so it was dark so i said there's a possibility that just just leaning his hand on the table he might have grabbed some some ammo you know that goes so they said is there any way that you could have sat your your hand down on on a gun case or touched it or rubbed up against it and he said well yeah of course he said there's a possibility like i said it was dark and i could have you know leaned up against the table while i was on the phone so that's a possibility yeah and they said you're under arrest i think you're under arrest sir this is i may have touched all the things that were at the crime scene with my fingerprints on them. It's not a good excuse.
I get real handsy with things. This is weird.
You're real touchy-feely. It's just how I am.
Sensory, I have a problem. I need to touch.
I treat the world like a children's book. Sometimes there's some velvet.
I got to touch it. So, yeah, he's he's going to jail charged with murder and burglary.
And they this is the one of the undersheriffs here said we were hit with a lot of gossip and rumors and knew early on we couldn't say anything. We knew it was going to be a complex case.
We had a lot of folks to look at. Did you? I don't know, man.
If if someone's stalking you, I feel like that's the one to clear first a stalker feels like they he just thought we have to check everybody in town and it's pretty 200 people you could and then when we run out of people then we got to start looking out of town yeah eventually we're gonna check the whole country we could be he could be in philly for all we know so uh they said that um he was viewed as early on, but he said, I wouldn't say he's always been a prime suspect. No? Then how fucking stupid are you people? Are you kidding me? I just described him stalking.
They said the defendant's relationship with Wishman was hardly ideal. He was possessive of her and disapproved of her associations with other men.
On one occasion, the defendant threatened to kill other men that she might date. Okay.
Now, family members of Brian's praised the investigators. I don't know how.
I'd have been like, you dumb fucks are lucky you arrested somebody. You fucked up the crime scene.
It's been a year, two years almost. You people are useless.
Fuck you. I don't know why they're so grateful.
You fucked everything up and you finally did the right thing. Sorry, not really fucking doing that.
She said, I know they've been working on this a long, long time. That's the sister.
That's true. That's Brian's mother.
Yeah. They said they chased a lot of leads and rumors.
I give them credit for being persistent and not giving up. They wouldn't have had to if they wouldn't have cleaned the goddamn crime seat up.
So, wow. So his parents live in Scott City, Kansas.
Their son moved to Geraldine then and he said the sister was the partner in the business. They're talking about that.
Investigators kept close contact with the family as the months rolled by. Brian's mom said they've been very good.
They told us as much as they could, which was nothing. They acted like it was a big mystery rather than, listen, we know who who did it but we can't really arrest him now because we fuck some stuff up they didn't tell her that um she also said that she doesn't know why he was murdered she said i'm not sure we'll ever understand the why it was just so senseless yeah the sheriff said he spent considerable amount of time with uh thomas's family members after the arrests, many of whom are longtime residents.
And the sheriff said, the Jureski family are just darn good folks. Are they? Yeah, besides that murderer one.
Yeah, that one, yeah. I just hope people have some compassion for his family too.
And Brian's mother said there's still a wait here. They have to wait a lot.
lot they said we're thankful that there's been an arrest but happy there's two families that have been destroyed by this the suspects and ours can't be happy they're being way too logical they gotta they gotta get some police work done yeah get in there and fucking do something here too much i guess not logical they're putting it's not logical, they're putting too much human emotion into this. They need to fucking start doing some police work.
In a town of 200 people, everything, you know everybody, so everything is like a personal thought, well, I don't want to offend Paul if I knew this. It doesn't fucking matter.
That's why it's hard to do shit in a small town. And everybody knows everybody.
Then September 25th, 1998. This is, what, months after the arrest.
Charges are dropped. What? Pardon? Okay.
Judge John Warner ruled that certain evidence obtained through the use of a bloodhound could not be used. That's the gun case with his fingerprints on it.
According to the press at the time, the prosecution was unable to properly document the dog's work on the case to the judge's satisfaction. So the following month, the prosecutors have to drop the charge.
An assistant with the Montana Attorney General's Office here, Prosecution Service Bureau, said, I didn't feel we had a strong enough case. If I don't believe we can win a case, I'm ethically required to have it dismissed.
It's Montana and you're not going to have an expensive trial. They don't spend a lot on that kind of shit in the rural area.
That's going to be the county's whole court budget for the year. So you better make sure that that motherfucker's guilty.
That's the right one, yeah. So that was 1998.
Years go by. Oh, boy.
16 years to be exact. Oh, my God.
16 fucking years. Now, in the meantime, Thomas has gotten married, had two sons with his wife, and moved to South Dakota.
Oh! Left the state, yeah. Left the state, whole new life.
But in 2014, they rearrest him. Okay.
Because he wasn't acquitted. He just had the charges drop.
He was arrested at his home in South Dakota. His wife probably didn't even know this shit was going on.
Yeah, he's not telling her. They showed up at his house in South Dakota on April 30th, and that was that.

This is one of the communications people for the attorney general's office said, several years ago at the request of law enforcement, our Prosecution Services Bureau here at the Montana Department of Justice took another look at the case. With the assistance of our Division of Criminal Investigation, our prosecutors reworked the case which included additional investigation and felt that sufficient evidence they had to refile charges.
So they do. 2015, it's trial time, baby.
This is 19 years after the crime and not a lot of physical evidence hanging around. No, it's all been either dismissed as not admissible or it's been cleaned up with 409.
So the openings here, the prosecution for the Montana Attorney General's office made the opening statement and said that he was heartbroken following a breakup. We've all been there.
He said, yeah. He said then his girlfriend, Ann, started dating Brian while he was working there.

And she, you know, whatever. They had been living together before the breakup.
And then she's moving in with this guy, painting the picture of the relationship that we just did for two hours. So, you know, the prosecution characterized him as a jealous man who displayed the behavior of a stalker quitting his job in Great Falls, moving back to his family's Geraldine farm and driving by Ann and Brian's residences and calling them both on multiple occasions.
They told the jury that Thomas entered Ann's home in the middle of the night when she wasn't home and read her diary and read that Brian was the man of her dreams. You know what that did? That set him off.
Oh, that'll send you into a fucking tizzy, babe. You bet it.
You bet it will. So the prosecutor also said Thomas told Carl, Ann's brother, that he'd entered the residence that they all shared without them knowing and further stated that if he couldn't be with Anne, he might as well kill himself.
They put that all out there. They also asserted that he called Brian's residence and hung up and did the same to her that night, which we know.
And they said, and now he knows they're not together. She's at her place.
He's at his place. Perfect.
so they said that Brian was speaking on the phone with Ann just before his death

and that he abruptly abruptly ended the conversation which would make sense because he said i gotta go he's there's a person outside and he hung up and they said that was the last anyone ever heard from brian rain the state gives no theory to how exactly he was shot three times in the upper arm and chest,

not in the opening, but the cops thought they figured it out because he had blood outside. Arm, arm.
Now, I don't know. I guess he stole the gun.
Someone must have stole the .357 from him, and that's all he could do. So they give no theory.
They say that this was not a suicide. It was not an accident.
It was a murder where no evidence was left behind. That's very funny.
From the defense, I'm going, no evidence because of the incompetent police force. These people are, you can't trust a word from these people.
This is a great commercial for 409. It's terrific.
It will clean up your crime scene. Yeah.
So the defense now, Jennifer Striano of the Montana Office of Public Defenders, made the opening statement, first explaining that the state will prove that her client was heartbroken. That's true.
It's true. And also that he did some really stupid things.
He did some dumb things, some immature things, something that just a heartbroken person might do in desperation. But they're not going to prove that he killed Brian, tell you that much.
They said there's no evidence. They said the officers expect to testify, will try to explain away and excuse their treatment of the crime scene and even blame the decision to clean the blood on the coroner, who was a mortician and not a trained law enforcement officer or even a doctor, for Christ's sake.
So they said, well, he wanted it cleaned up. Well, who cares? You're not the investigator.
We'll clean it up when we're done investigating. A homicide detective, I realize there's no homicide detective here.
This is like the... This is just deputies.

Yeah, three guys that put their feet up on their desk and put their hat in front of their face when they want to take a nap in their office shit.

Or in the truck.

Or in the truck, that's what they do.

They're not detectives, but a homicide detective, or really every state law, says the investigator in charge owns the scene.

It is their scene.

If they don't want the coroner there, they'll tell them to go fuck off. Get the fuck out of my scene.
We'll call you when we need you. The coroner doesn't get called till the detectives are done processing the scene.
Then the coroner comes in. Otherwise...
We got all evidence. Now you can take the bot.
That's it, man. So they said that towels from Brian's home used to clean up the blood were placed in garbage bags along with the phone and discarded.
Where were they discarded? At the Chateau County undersheriff's home. He took them home with him and threw them in his own garbage.
Holy fuck. This is just Little League shit here, man.
so the defense noted that trace evidence that was salvaged including dna fibers and shoe impressions

didn't even match the client. The shit we have, it's all cop stuff.
It's all their shoe prints and shit like that. There's a big thing about shoe prints.
They also implored the jury to keep an open mind about the time of death, saying her client did not have an alibi for Friday night, but he did have one for Saturday. So maybe Brian was killed on Saturday.
The defense mentioned several other people who had alibis for Friday, but not Saturday who should be considered suspects. You're going to take their word for time of death.
It could have happened later. We don't know.
And they also, the defense said, you will have the urge to want to solve this. That's natural, but this case cannot be resolved.
Prosecution gives their rebuttal, saying the decision to clean the blood at the scene was an unwritten policy of the sheriff's office at the time. It's just fuck it all up, ruin all evidence and throw it in the garbage.
Wow. Unwritten.
Unwritten, especially given that some initially classified his death as a suicide and family members were expected to arrive at any minute. That's why they cleaned it up.
And they said that the town of Geraldine hadn't seen a homicide. This person says 17 years.
I've read 19. Either one.
The state pointed out inconsistencies in Thomas's statement to law enforcement officials and that he continued to pursue. And after Brian's death, he was still trying to get with her uh they mentioned several letters that he sent to ann and that he used a vacuum cleaner salesman to get her new phone number what yes he sent a vacuum cleaner salesman to her house to try to get her sell her a kirby and then uh bring the paperwork to me fucking unbelievable That is wild.
They sent the Dyson guy in. So the state said that Thomas told his new girlfriend that he was still in love with Ann and that a vet took her from him and that he wished that vet was dead.
And they were like, she was like, was he in Vietnam? Yeah. He's like, no, you fucking dummy animals.
Not a vet that way, you stupid ass. A Corvette took your baby? Jesus Christ.
She rode off with a man in a Corvette? Oh, Jesus. A soldier in a Corvette? Okay.
I can see it. You can see it.
I'm wet just thinking about it. A vet and a vet.
That ain't bad. So he said he wished the vet was dead, but he already was.
This was after he was dead and Thomas knew he was dead.

He was telling the girlfriend that.

They bring in the old undersheriff here to testify that he had been in training that day at the Montana Law Enforcement Academy regarding coroner duties and homicide investigations. If only they took that earlier.
That would have been great. they asked why they were

whether they were told cleaning the scene

was appropriate at trainings

that he attended been great. They asked why they were, whether they were told cleaning the scene was not, was appropriate at trainings that he attended in 1988, 1991 and 1993.
Did they tell you that was the appropriate thing to do? And he said, no. Well, why the fuck did you do it? Stupid would be the fucking natural follow up question here.
They went on to ask whether cleaning a crime scene and throwing away evidence went against all the training he's received, like ever. And he said, yes.
Yeah, we never do that. Dude, how do you even deal with this if you're the jury? The defense established through this that the undersheriff should have had control of the scene at all times, given his absence for training.
Also, that Williams also provided more information about the then coroner's training and how in 1996 the coroner was not affiliated with the sheriff's office. Some dude just came in and said, clean all this up, and they went, okay, and cleaned it up.
During this trial, the witnesses, meaning the crime scene people, said that an 11 and one quarter inch hair was found with the root still attached on Brian's left hand. That belongs to Ann Wishman.
Oh. Which, I mean, she spends tons of time there.
So if you've ever been around a woman in the house, you'll get there long. Where the fuck did that come from? Oh, it'll be in your boxers.
How did you get that in my asshole? How did that happen? They said although a vacuum search of the kitchen area where his body was found didn't discover any other hairs of hers. Just one near his hand or on his hand.
Also, the Montana Forensic Science Division said that they recently did a DNA analysis of Brian's underwear. Everybody want that done to you? Have a DNA analysis of your underwear? Thank you.
From the crime scene and found the DNA of an unidentified person who was not Ann Wishman. Atta boy.
Yes. The defense suggested that this could mean Rain was having a relationship with someone and he and Ann may have had a conflict over this that day.
That's how this happened. Ann killed him.
Okay. It's all Ann.
They blame Ann. They do.
Based on one hair, yeah. Based on one hair that there's tons of her hair in the house, I'm sure.
Then there's Larry Hagenbush, or Book, or Buck. Larry Hagenbuck.
They were friends in Kansas, he and Brian. And he had moved to Montana to work on his wife's partner's ranch.
And when he was later visiting with Brian, he suggested that he moved to Montana, too, because there was an opening for a veterinarian in Fort Benton. And Brian ended up moving to Fort Benton and then to Geraldine.
He took us his vice. So they put Larry on the witness stand and asked him about his activities in 1996 prior to Brian's death.
And he generally gave short answers to the questions, they said. The defense also called two women who worked in a counseling office in Great Falls where Larry Hagenbach and his estranged wife went for a counseling session on Monday, July 15th, the day after Brian's body was found.
The office manager there, Kathleen Foster, testified that Larry Hagenbach arrived at the office before his wife and acted like he was having a, quote, rough day. She said, quote, he said the prior day he had come upon his friend who had been murdered.
He wasn't at the crime scene. She then asked him questions and she said that Larry said that Rain had been shot Saturday night with his own gun.
This is while everyone said it was suicide. So this is very interesting.
So Ann testifies. She's got to testify.
Now her name is Ann Stone now, though. She has a, yeah, she got rid of the Wishman.
She said she didn't leave Thomas for Brian, but she thought, but he thought she did and called her a tramp. She answered questions about the frequent phone calls at a time when, a time when he pressured her into going for a drive and attempted to keep her in his truck when she wanted to leave and all that kind of shit, as well as all the stalking.
She testifies to everything. She said that Thomas admitted to reading her journal and told her mother and sister that he was concerned about what he read.
I've been reading her private thoughts, and I'm concerned. I know what's going on in her personal life and between her ears, and I'm very concerned about it.
I'm concerned. She talked about her final phone call with Brian and that she was devastated by his death.
Now, cross-examination, though, the defense says, did you know your hair was found on his palm? And she said, no. And they said, did you kill him? And she said, no.
Okay. Now, there's also a shoe print.
There's a shoe print that I'll read right from this. The testimony almost given to the jury Wednesday, almost given regarding a shoe print resurfaced in Chateau County as the defense in the in this case, deliberate homicide or deliberate homicide trial moved for the charge to be dismissed due to the misconduct on the state's part.
The former Division of Criminal Investigation agent, Joseph Uribe, mentioned a pattern he noticed in shoe prints left near Brian's trailer more than a week after he was found shot. This guy said that he drew the pattern in his notes and then matched the pattern on a later search.
He drew the pattern in his notes. That's not how you do that.
He drew it. I'm a real good drawer, though.
And then said it matches his shoes. The defense objected, and the issue was discussed outside the presence of the jury, and the judge, Greg Pinsky, read instructions to the jury, which stated stated that based on evidence and expert testing not footwear impressions uh based on the evidence based on evidence and expert testing not footwear impressions were found at the scene or near the trailer matching any souls belonging to thomas he said that does all those drawn drawn shit that doesn't count it's no good yeah um outside of the jury as well the defense counsel requested to address the issue further.
He said, despite the instruction, the jury now has an impression that cannot be reversed and will adversely impact their trial strategy. The defense attorney says, he just lied, your honor, to try and make a physical connection in this case between the footprint and my client.
So the prosecutor said that they just attributed this to this guy providing a longer answer than she anticipated regarding the shoe print, saying something she didn't expect him to say. Like, I didn't tell him to say that.
Wow. The defense said that the state's intention with the line of questioning about the shoe print, she said the defense had no information about the ruined plaster casts of the prints mentioned on the stand or drawing he made in his notes of the pattern so like we didn't even get anything on that apparently they made past plaster casts and fucked them all up so then he just drew them which from the picture he just drew them that looks about right water in the in the mix you ever try to make paper mache it ain't easy Yeah.
Ever make one of them volcanoes in the fifth grade? Shit's hard.

We, it's a two cup one so i messed it all up i got four when it should have See what we. See, it was like you ever made rice and it's just crispy still.
It's weird, right? We just kept putting water and it ended up too much. So we just drew it.
Oh, that's so fucking funny. So, yeah, they said that the defense proposed that the state intended to show the shoes to the jury along with this testimony.
And, yeah, they concluded that after a 19-year span between the crime and the trial, there's no reason the defense shouldn't be privy to all of the case information at this point. And the judge said, quote, if the shoe, no pun intended, were on the other foot, you'd be outraged.
Son of a bitch. Son of a that one intended as fuck stop it super intended a pun fucking on your nose man just right pow the tip of it so police uh interview uh they played the police interview and uh in this they got to choice lines like thomas saying quote I guess it was stupid for me to be doing this

talking about several times

when he was like I drove by I stalked

I did that kind of shit here

which is really fucking funny

here he told

the cops during

this that they're played about driving to Brian's

trailer to pick up Ann and bring her home

after the street dance in June after

reading her diary

Thomas said right then I knew she wasn't being straight with me. He said, I knew Brian was the reason she dumped me.
And then that's what they're hearing. And then he told the investigators he confronted Brian about Ann when he drove over there in the middle of the night after reading the diary, which makes him sound just crazy as can be.
Makes him sound guilty is what it makes. Yeah.
He explained all of the phone calls he made to multiple people about her family and friends and all of that. And he said he told Ann's mother that Ann drank alcohol and was promiscuous before they started dating when she was 17.
She was a teenage strumpet also. Did you know that? Because that's what he's trying to say now.
He went on to say that Ann confronted him about that one July 2nd when he rode a four-wheeler to the farm and was caught hiding there. He said that Ann told him she didn't trust him anymore and that he knew they'd never get back together.
And he said that he never saw her after that.

That was it.

So the state introduced the letters and cards that he sent to Ann after

Brian's death.

That has evidence to the contrary.

He was still trying to get with her.

They play the second interview in court and he admitted to,

admitted to tasking a door to door vacuum salesman to use his company

customer contact cards to get Ann's unlisted phone number after she moved following the death. Wow, that's scummy.
Wow. He also told the cops that about 9.45 p.m.
the night the state says that Brian was killed, he said he called to apologize for his behavior. That's why he called, not to check on anybody.
He said, but he chickened out and didn't say anything when Brian answered the phone. Now the cops told him in the interview, they don't buy that as a reason there.
They express sympathy for his feelings about the breakup, but then they say that they knew he wasn't telling them the whole story. And yeah, so also they share with him, this is on the tape, a theory about how the shooting might have occurred with a confrontation a scuffle the gun in the truck and was stolen and um the cop had told him i don't believe you went over there to hurt anyone tom you're the one who else would it be right there's 200 fucking people here and you're the only one stalking these people uh so they said that Thomas then shared the rumors around town of his potential enemies and that he knew people would suspect him as soon as he learned of the death.
And they went on to tell him he'd be the cops went on to tell Thomas that he would be better off telling them up front that he didn't shoot Brian on purpose. It's an accident.
Tell us. OK, they said it would look worse.
Yeah. Yeah Yeah, give him the little window.
They said it would look worse when the evidence was collected on top of stalking. You've admitted to stalking.
It's going to look bad. And he said, I have nothing to hide.
That's what they heard. So the interview also included a discussion of whether Thomas had ever been inside the trailer and all of that shit.
So they continue to play all of the interviews. The investigators mentioned having some concerns about his previous statements, and they specifically hone in on his lack of alibi, all of that shit.
They said, do you have any idea how important that is to you? Because they said the defendant admitted to pretending to have car trouble in the middle of the night and that Brian let him use the phone for assistance. And they said, do you have any idea how important that is for you that you were in the house? So your fingerprints might have been in there.
And he said, I do now. Now I get it.
I get it now. And they said that, look, we're not here to judge you, but we're here to help you.
That's always what people that's what they're here to do. Cops love to help.
And that confessing would actually help him down down the road they said they told him prosecutors were chomping at the bit at that moment they said if you're so he said if you're trying to get me to confess i won't because i didn't do it that's that um then they told him this is what your trial is going to be like a parade of witnesses we're all going to say you're a scumbag and a stalker and a crazy person and you know all of that kind of shit and then thomas said ken i've told you once i've told you twice i didn't do this okay he said later he wished he wouldn't have behaved the way he did after the breakup but can't take that back now time of death is a big deal the defense attorneys are talking to people and that say j Arthur and Bill Meeks said they saw Brian eating a steak in the Square Butte bar around 630 to 7 p.m. And then they brought in Dr.
Carl Weigren, a forensic pathologist from Seattle who reexamined the evidence and offer his opinions. And he said that studies have shown that it takes an average of around nine hours to fully digest a steak dinner.
The autopsy showed at the time of his death, his stomach did not have steak in it, but contained partially digested eggs and peppers. Oh.
Interesting. The defense said that's important.
That's medical evidence. And also, those people could be mistaken that they saw him eating a steak is the other thing.
Right have just saw it could have mixed up if you ask someone a month later what was that guy eating in a who the fuck do i know i don't care got a life of my own he's got eggs and peppers in him so that's what he was eating yeah uh so they they said though the defense said that's important that's medical evidence there's no way brian was shot friday night because there's stake in his stomach. They also said that the photos taken of him when his body was found looked he looked pretty normal without signs of decomposition or discoloration.
But in the photos taken at the autopsy Monday morning, significant decomposition had been taken place. And they said the decomposition may have been rapid because of the shot through his stomach.
OK, now closing arguments. Prosecutors said, I think it's very clear there's something unique about this case.
It happened in 1996. It's 19 years old.
We know when something like this happens. We never forget.
We never forget the people that were taken from us. They said it's also unique because it happened in one of the least populated areas in the entire United States.
They said a trailer house 10 miles outside of Geraldine, which is a tiny town. They said, when you think about who took Brian from you, think about where this happened.
This happened against a person who did not have enemies. He was a beloved vet who came to this community from Kansas and was well received.
He didn't seem to have enemies except one person. Nobody else had any motive or grudge against him.
They said they spent a long time reviewing Thomas's behavior there,

and they said this was not normal breakup behavior.

He would not allow her to simply break up and say no.

They talked about his encounters with them, all the summation here,

his hang-up calls and all that kind of shit.

They said that Thomas called Rain's house at 945 that night,

hung up and all that kind of shit, then called Ann at 948 and hang up. They said, so he knows where they are.
And then, you know, 1038 is the hang up of the phone when he's talking to Anne and then no one ever hears from him again. He said, there's no eyewitnesses, no direct evidence such as hair or fingerprints at the crime scene.
Still, there's enough circumstantial evidence to convict him. He said, quote, the defendant would like you to believe that there's only one way to prove a homicide.
If an individual goes to a scene, takes minimal precautions, which seem rather easy to take, doesn't leave physical evidence at the scene and make sure that there are no eyewitnesses, you can kill anybody you want and get away with it. That circumstantial evidence is not good evidence and that you cannot look at the whole picture, that jurors throughout this state cannot look at all the facts collectively and make inferences of what happened.
It can't be said, ladies and gentlemen, that you can simply wear gloves, wear a hat, destroy your clothes, and make sure no one's around and kill someone so you get away with it. All the evidence points to there's no doubt that Mr.
Jureski killed Brian Rain. All there is to it.
They said, so we don't want officers to throw away phones, but what does it mean in this case? Like, that still isn't me saying the evidence, the crime scene stuff, who cares the shit? Doesn't matter. They also said the time of death thing.
They said Thomas Jureski is the only person with the opportunity, only person with the motive, and the only person with the opportunity to take him out of this world. They said, and he did it.
He committed this crime masterfully. Not really.
You guys are just bumbling idiots. It's a master.
Fuck. The defense attorney said that she played a tape of Thomas talking to investigators years ago saying, I did not go over there.
You won't find anything. I guarantee it.
and she said, everything we heard the last weeks, after all of that and everything we've done,

this case will be done. ago saying, I did not go over there.
You won't find anything. I guarantee it.
And she said,

everything we heard the last weeks, after all of that and everything we've done, this case will

remain unsolved. It's been 19 years and there's a reason it's been 19 years.
After all this,

the only thing we have are more questions. The more we look, the more questions arise.

The reason we're here 19 years later is because of what happened on day one.

She questioned law enforcement statements that they thought it was a suicide and all that kind of shit here. They said, you tell me why they asked for a bag of bloody towels and a phone and it was never retrieved and it was thrown in the garbage.
And it was ridiculous. They said, you heard these officers trying to justify what they did to the crime scene.
And yet they've really given no explanation. Yes, they can't even admit, yes, we cleaned up the whole area.
We owe this county an explanation. They owe Tom an explanation and they owe you an explanation.
And they refused to give it. A guy got on the stand and said, I only cleaned up a little bit.
And they were like, no, the pictures show you cleaned up a fucking lot of it. A lot of it.
Yeah. Not cool.

They also said, yes, he did things that don't make sense.

He did things that were incredibly stupid, but that doesn't make him a murderer.

Jesus said, not at all.

He was just a kid who was an idiot, basically.

They said that investigators talked to him and found he did not have an alibi.

Well, he did have an alibi for Saturday morning and all that.

The defense attorney went on to say, all of this is just a story. It makes no sense.
They use the word infer, but you still need to infer based on rational quality evidence. They said that during the trial, the defense suggested that there are other people who might be considered suspects, including primarily Larry Hagen Butch and Ann Wishman.
The defense said, I can't tell you who did this. I have no obligation to no legal duty to and I simply can't.
It's been too long. She said the prosecutors have to prove to you that it's unreasonable, unreasonable to think that someone else may have done this.
She said, quote, Larry Hagen Butch was the only person who knew Brian was shot with his own gun the day after he was found. The only way he could have known that is if he was the one using the gun or if he was friends with a cop or one of the medical people or it's a count of 200 people.
I assume shit gets out. So they said we don't convict people because we need closure.
We convict people because the lead investigator. We don't convict people because the lead investigator is retiring and needs this case resolved.
We don't convict people so that we can close the book. Now, the defense attorney, after all of this, makes a motion to dismiss the case due to lack of evidence.
So the judge dismisses those motions. He said, but they asked for it on Friday.
He took till Monday to think about it.

He said he deliberated it over the weekend.

And he said, I struggled with this decision.

The judge says, when the testimony and the evidence is viewed in isolation, it is mostly weak and conflicting and insufficient to convict Mr. Jarecki of deliberate homicide.

On the other hand, when the totality of circumstantial evidence is brought into more specific light, it supports the state's charge. So, yeah, he listed 12 areas of evidence, multiple calls, last person to speak with, with Rain, interior and exterior of the crime scene.
He was at in the days and weeks leading up to the murder, told others he wanted the guy dead. You know all the circumstantial evidence.
The firearms said he could have touched the cartridges, ATVs. The judge said, I present these facts as the Montana Supreme Court requires me to in a light most favorable to the prosecution.
They said, this evidence is very close call on whether to dismiss this case for insufficient evidence. I must be mindful of the Montana Supreme Court stringent standard in view of the totality of evidence in the light most favorable to prosecution.
I can't conclude that there is no evidence upon which a jury could base his verdict. Okay.
Jury goes out for deliberation. Oh, boy.
Eight hours of deliberation. It's not a lot.
On this one. No, eight hours is kind of, you know, it's a murder case, so whatever.
But that means it's not open and shut for them by any stretch here. They come out here.
He's at the table. They find him not guilty.
God damn it. Not guilty.
They said he laid his head on the table following the verdict. And, yeah, afterwards, as soon as they did it, and the judge said, you know, he's to be released, and thanks for your jury, and thanks for your service, and all that, the pretrial supervising officer came right over with a pair of fucking wire clippers and cut the monitoring device off his leg.
Oh, my God. As he is on home monitoring, and his family and friends were in the whole half the courthouse cheered as they took it off.
This was like a yeah. The defense attorney looked to all the people and said you can all sleep now.
I did this. I'm good.
They all took turns hugging him and all that kind of thing and then the co-counsel said all's that ends well, as the whole group hugged. Literally had a group hug afterwards.
A literal group hug. So 2016 Dateline comes in here.
And the preview montage that led into the show started out with a quote that this was a classic whodunit. No, it wasn't.
At all a classic whodunit. Not even close.
One of the comments on the Dateline Facebook page after the show aired was, for such a small town, there sure are enough suspects. No, there aren't.
No, it's just you couldn't, because of what they did, they couldn't fucking use the fingerprint evidence at all. Otherwise, he would have been dead to rights.
Him saying, I might have touched it in the dark is a ridiculous thing to say. Then Keith Morrison says, the plains of Montana are no stranger to sudden violent death.
History is littered with it. He said, a half hour down the highway from Little Geraldine is a living remnant of America's Old West, Fort Benton, Montana, still holding out against wind and weather and occasional outbursts of the worst humans can do to each other.
So people have been talking about this, obviously. Dateline didn't dwell on a lot of the shit here.
They really wanted to present it as a mystery. A big whodunit.
They didn't dwell on the cleaning of the crime scene. They pointed it out quickly, but they didn't go like, holy shit, let's dive into that.
When they asked Ken Thompson of the Montana Department of Criminal Investigation how the sheriff's department and the coroner could have thought that the murder was a suicide, the guy said, I think you have to understand that the county had not had a homicide, and I think it was 19 years. I don't care if you've not had a homicide in 100 years.
He's got fucking gunshot wounds to his arm. What are you talking about? Just because we haven't had a murder in clock reset doesn't mean...
What the fuck, man? He then said Montana is a remote state. Someone's somewhere you'll drive eight hours to someone drives eight hours to a crime scene to get to a crime scene so it's not like a big city where you can roll in and everything's pristine.
And then Morrison's voiceover said, no, not even close. In fact, the deputies and local coroner spent just a few hours tromping around Brian's kitchen and had taken about a dozen photos and in the process had done things that couldn't be undone without swabbing for DNA or dusting for fingerprints.
Episode aftermath, shitloads of people who comment on the episode on Facebook when Dateline puts it up expressed their incredulity, frustration, and anger at the way law enforcement handled the murder scene. Comments included, I can't comprehend how this even, who trained these people.
Barneyney fife couldn't figure it out how the police really bungled this very sloppy i would sue the police department for botching the crime scene nobody said anything about keith morrison's face huh never never they keep it i think old episodes it's up i'm sure not not one thing about maybe get him a drink of water? No, no, parched. Parched.
Looking at the Facebook comments on the episode suggests that the majority of the people who watched the show agreed with the not guilty verdict. Out of the first hundred of the hundreds of comments on the show, only eight people said they felt that he was guilty.
I think he's obviously guilty, but they fucked up the evidence to the point where it was really hard to convict him. But when someone's stalking like that, it's I don't know.
Based on the evidence, I guess you got to say not guilty. But yeah, the guy's certainly a piece of shit, right? For sure.
Stalker, at least some of the people who agreed with the not guilty verdict were convinced that he wasn't guilty, while others said he guilty but there's not enough evidence that's kind of where i'm in i think out of the uh first 100 people who commented 23 people said they thought larry hagenbook was guilty or might be guilty because he because he knew before anybody that it was with his own gun but he had a solid alibi up till saturday maybe he heard that he was shot twice in the fucking arm and was like, I mean, he clearly didn't do it by on his own at 10 38. When he, when Brian hung up the phone and that's when the confrontation happens, we think.
And that's when the guy said he heard three gunshots to the neighbor at that time. Larry has a fucking rock solid alibi, whereas Thomas does not.

So there's that.

And Anne has a good one, too.

So it's not her either.

They have to say it's fucking Saturday.

So also nine people suggested that Anne was guilty.

Oh, yeah.

The Dateline episode did not suggest that Wishman was even a possible suspect.

But that's what people inferred, although the suggestion did come up during the trial as the defense attorneys brought it up. Wow.
The judge says to Morrison here, this was an incredibly tough case to prove. It was a tough case to prove in 1998.
It became an incredibly tough case to prove in 2015. And the episode ends just like we're going to end our episode here,

with a quote from the judge.

Quote, I meant it when I told the jurors

when they wanted to find out who did this,

when they wanted to solve this crime,

that literally, if they believe

there's another world they can go to someday,

look up Brian Rain when you get there

and ask him who killed him.

Look him up.

Heaven has phone books. Ask the dead guy? Ask when you die.
Yeah. Look him up in the afterlife in the old white pages and ask him because that's the only way we're ever going to know who killed Brian Rain.
And that is Geraldine Montana and a fucking mess of a story. Boy oh oh boy.
We all think he did this, right? Yeah. But, I mean, without a doubt, we know two facts.
Keith Morrison needs to drink some more water. Yes.
His skin is fucked. Hydrate.
Hydrate, sir. You look like a prehistoric riverbed.
And then 409 is amazing. That's all we know.
It's the best. That's the only facts we know.
That's it. Wow.
This shit is wild. So there you go, everybody.
If you like that show, please, please get on whatever app you're listening on. Give us five stars.
It helps so fucking much. Make sure you say something.
It drives us up the charts, and it's very good shit here. Also, follow on social media, at Small Town Murder on Instagram, at Small Town Pod on Facebook.
You definitely, definitely want to go to shutupandgivememurder.com. Get your tickets for all the live shows here, except for the couple that are already sold out.
Some of them are selling out. It's crazy.
Madison, I think it's sold out now, Madison. Just about, yeah.
I think I saw 100% now. It's sold out.
Madison, Grand Rapids, see you later. Portland sold out.
San Diego, like 898%. That's half the shows almost.
So there's Seattle, D.C., Philly, St. Louis, which is really close to selling out as well, and Chicago.
Get your tickets right now. Oh, San Diego and Irvine, too.
Irvine, California. Get in there.
So get in there right now if you want to see the show. We want everybody who wants to come to come, so don't get left out, please.
It's a fun time. It's a comedy show.
You will leave hurting. So shutupandgivememurder.com.
Here's some extra stuff for you. Patreon.com slash crimeinsports is where you get all of the bonus material.
Anybody $5 a month or above, you get access to everything we have to offer on there. Hundreds of, as soon as you subscribe, hundreds of episodes you'll get that you've never seen or heard before.
And then you get new ones every other week. One crime and sports, one small town murder, and God damn it, you get all of it.
You get it all. This week, what we're going to do for you here is for crime and sports, it is going to be disasters of all kinds.
Industrial disasters, crazy shit going on here. Just crazy disasters with nutty stuff.
Then for small town murder, we're going to talk about psychics that actually worked. They did it.
That actually, by coincidence or psychic or whatever, we'll talk about it. I figure we're always debunking things and saying that things are bullshit.
So let's dive into this and people who actually did a good job. There you go.
Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get that. And a shitload more, like we said.
And also what you're going to get right now is a goddamn shout-out. Jimmy, hit me with the names of the best fucking people in the world who would never, ever, ever stalk us and hang out in our wind belt shelters.
Hit me with them right now. This is Executive Fruitser, Gary Howardemel, and Tyskiba.
Thank you all so much for what you're doing. You don't have to do it, and you do, and we appreciate it.
Other producers this week are Peyton Meadows, Happy Hour in Pecos, Texas, Janice Hill, Scarlett Horbees III, Nicholas Palmieri, Melissa Coffin, Coffin maybe, Churchmeat, Jessica with no last name, Steve Dermaine, Juliana Morgenthaler, Rob Renner, Blackheart 2000, Angela Tatry, GKKK, Santina Galvin, Marcy Smith, Michelle Kiggins, Christina Jinks, Michael Maglio, Maglio, Jesse Carlson, Carlson, The Dude, no, just The Dude, Lisa McChrystal, there he is, Matty, Matty Petoski, Josh Piper, Amanda Matthews, Darren Scott, Charlotte Dolan, Nicole Gray, Tanner Brusco, Susan Fisher, Natalie Contra, Bill 2344, Aspen P, Amber with no last name, Holly Arnold, Katie with no last name, Ashley Dawn, John Donahue, John O'Donohue, Kate Pat, K-Pat, I don't know, Jenny Crosby, Amanda Haas, Haas. Giving people first names.

Jennifer Track, Stacey Guy, T-Ray Bergeron, Bergeron, Michelle Harris,

Michael with no last name, Angela Schmeiser, Gail with no last name,

Olivia with no last name, Alex Herkamp, Robert Scaffoni, Lizzie with no last name,

Bethany Stevens, Joseph Nicholson, Kate and Chris from New Jersey,

Ollie Oxenfree, Clinton Salisbury, Salisbury, Haley Locke, Luke. Salisbury twice? Salisbury the first time.
Thomas Waite, Sarah with no last name. Is that Waltie or Waite? It's Waite.
Benjamin Madison, Mathe-sen, Peter Goiz, Goiz, Goiz, Goiz in. Oh, it goes in you, James, the Peter.
The Peter, it goes in you, James The Peter As you were trying to figure it out My eyes were getting wider Jimmy, you're going to keep trying to pronounce this? Anem Moose Alva Thompson Michael It's a Dutch name D Cernajewski. D-Stack.
Alexandria. Alexandria Kruketiewicz.
Kruketiewicz. All right.
Taylor Carson. This is as close as I'm going to get.
Michael Finkel. William Vorgias.
Vorgas. Angie Weaselink.
Jessica Anderson. Maybe Jan.
Rick Calhoun. Colin Forsex.
Emily Bond. Daniel.
Colin Forsex. Colin Forsex.
That's what he's doing. Yep.
Danielle Crum. It does.
Berto Callez. Berto Callez.
Mukulele. Roy with no last name.
That's funny. Kiana, Kiana, Kiana Price with Kat Proctor.
Rian with no last name. Ryan, Rian.
Rian. Erica Brimhall.
Kelly Wrights. Lauren Stites.
Cher with no last name. Cheryl with no last name.
Joy with no last name. Midnight with no last name.
Thelma Borgonzor. Arlen.
Thelma, you've got a fucked up last name. Arlen.
Also, Grukonaz. Grukonaz.
Grukunaz. I don't know.
Julian would know last name. Laura Hyatt.
Lillian would know. Oh, Leon.
Yana. Yana.
Carol Shook. Did you get Yana out of Lillian? You started out all.
I did. That was a journey to get there.
I got Lillian out of Yana. That was a journey.
Lolo Smirnoff. Lauren Loham.
Tiasha. Tiasha Deakins.
Court would know last name. Stephanie Bean.
Kepler would know last name. Colt Kibbe.
Christine liked the car that killed people. Haley with no last name.
Austin Bath. Peyton Rabideau.
Hinn Hintime. Shane Shipley.
Tree with no last name. Craig with no last name.
Also Craig King. Probably the same person with two of them now.
Tasserath. Tasserath.
Shazafuchi Shozathel Shozatheli

That's not right

That's probably not even somebody's name

Mike would know last name

I don't believe him

Nicole would know last name

Megan Johnston

Alan's mom

Carolyn would know last name

DrewDog34

JustMyLuck

Lori would know last name

Rhonda Moreland

Dem0

DemO

Andrew Knopf

Knopf

Maybe it is Knopf

Knopf?

Knopfel?

It's possible. Jacob, Jacob Walker, Antonia, Antonia Vallese, Randy with no last name, The System, Melanie Lillis, Jordan Valrath, Edith Cerna.
These are the most fucked up names ever this week. This is like all of Eastern Europe has fucking decided to.
Anthony Festa. Cindy Archibald.
Freda White. Michelle Coppola.
Jenny Shillman. Stephanie Sina Conorath.
Oh. Sina Conorath.
That feels dirty.

I don't know what it is.

I was going to say, is that Dick Kazenia?

I don't know.

John Randall Armza with no last name.

Amanda Walsh.

Edgar Edward Galligan.

Galligan.

Galligan.

Veronica B.

Kayla Lanyard.

Cody Richardson.

Emily Stewart.

Aislinn Burgess. Jass B.
Joss maybe, Heather Nelson, Kira with no last name, Christopher Banville, Tila Taylor, Talia Christ, Joe Gladhill, it's probably Chris, Elise Bridges, Becky with no last name, JBW89, also J&J. JJ, j the letters j and j thank you all so much for everything

you're doing thank you so much everybody from the bottom of our hearts you people are goddamn

fantastic thank you for all that you do for us all the goddamn time we're going to keep it coming

week after week if you want to follow us on social media head over to shutupandgivememurder.com

drop down menu we'll tell you everywhere you need to go and want to go. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure.

Bye.

If you like small town murder, you can listen early and ad free now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon Music.
Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery dot com slash survey. Lamont Jones's world is shattered when his cousin dies in custody just weeks after entering prison.
The official report says natural causes, but bruises and missing teeth tell a different story. From Wondery comes Death County PA, a chilling true story of corruption and cover-ups that begins as one man's search for answers, but soon reveals a disturbing pattern.
Lamont's cousin's death is just one of many, and powerful forces are working to keep the truth buried. With never-before-heard interviews and shocking revelations, Death County PA pulls back the curtain on one of America's darkest institutional secrets.
This isn't just another true crime story. It's happening right now.
Follow Death County PA on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Death County PA early and ad-free right now by

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