Triple Homicide Shocks Small Montana Town — Neighbors ID Victims As Elderly Relatives
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In a small town like Belfry, Montana — population about 200 — everyone knows everyone. It’s also the kind of place where gruesome crimes, like a triple homicide, are far from the norm.
So when three adults were found dead in their home Thursday, and their deaths ruled a homicide, neighbors were shocked. They also knew who the dead were, even though the police haven’t told anyone yet.
“You hear of it in bigger cities, but not little Belfry,” Cynammon Mitzel, a resident of this tiny town in southern Montana told KTVQ. “Up until now, have we ever locked our doors. I will now.”
Like many people here, she knew one of the victims of the triple homicide.
Police have already identified a person of interest, but they’ve declined to identify him as well for fear of compromising the investigation, according to the Associated Press.
The deaths were discovered Thursday. Someone called the police at 6:30 a.m. that morning requesting a welfare check on the residents of the house in Belfry, 60 miles south of Billings, the Billings Gazette added.
In Belfry where Carbon County Law enforcement is investigating a triple homicide DETAILS: https://t.co/rw2uecHkk8 pic.twitter.com/gpWAbqkEfD
— Samantha Harrelson (@SamiHarrelson) April 7, 2016
The person who requested the check hadn’t heard from the people who lived at the house, located at the corner of Iron Rail Alley and State Street, since Tuesday.
Carbon County Sheriff Josh McQuillan entered the home with deputies and found three adults inside, dead.
Few details about the deceased have been released, except that the deaths have been ruled a triple homicide. Pending family notification, the police haven’t provided a more specific address of the home, the victims’ genders, or their relationships to each other.
The manner of their deaths have also not been released.
A “person of interest” has been identified, but Sheriff McQuillian only said that the suspect wasn’t among the dead and isn’t in custody. Police believe the person has left the area and isn’t a danger to the people in this small Montana town.
The victims of the triple homicide were last seen alive on Tuesday. One of those to see the unidentified victims was Bob Cichosz. He runs Belfry Country Store and when he spoke to the Gazette Thursday, he already knew who the victims were. He didn’t name them, however.
But he did reveal that all were family members who trickled into the Montana town four years ago.
An older married couple in their 70s moved in first. Then a year ago, the husband fell ill and the wife’s sister and her husband joined them to help care for the man. They moved to Montana from Washington.
Someone from the family came into the store Tuesday looking for their missing dog. He described them as “pretty nice people when we talked to them. Nobody would expect this.”
Cichosz said the husband and wife and the sister are the victims of the triple homicide.
Mitzel also knew “one of the gals” because she worked across the street from her; Mitzel is a nurse at a health clinic. She described the Montana town as a place where “everyone knows everyone,” and the triple homicide is hard for her to believe.
The sheriff said much the same, describing Belfry as a “quite place.”
“We have the normal small town stuff we deal with but never anything like this.”
Investigators were looking at some security footage taken at a market. The school nearby was placed on “soft lockdown” in response to the triple homicide as a precaution, and let students “come and go” with their parents.
The school kept the doors locked, like many of the residents in Belfry, Montana, are likely to do in the next few days in the wake of this shocking, unusual crime.
[Photo By GongTo/Shutterstock]
