{"id":34200,"date":"2024-11-02T01:05:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-02T06:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=34200"},"modified":"2024-11-02T03:56:32","modified_gmt":"2024-11-02T08:56:32","slug":"montana-man-charged-with-murder-in-brutal-campground-killing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=34200","title":{"rendered":"Montana man charged with murder in brutal campground killing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">BOZEMAN, Mont. &#8212;&nbsp;A 41-year-old Montana man was charged with murder Friday in a brutal slaying at a remote campsite that had been initially reported as&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/montana-camper-killed-bear-mauling-caa4310777776550fc49c6290755e80f\">a possible bear mauling<\/a>&nbsp;by people who found the victim&#8217;s body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The suspect allegedly told authorities that he arrived at the campsite northeast of Big Sky, Montana, on Oct. 10 intending to stay the night but found it occupied by 35-year-old Dustin Kjersem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Kjersem, who didn&#8217;t know the suspect, welcomed him to the campsite and offered him a beer, according to Gallatin County Sheriff Dan Springer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">But sometime later the suspect driven by an unknown motive hit Kjersem with a piece of wood, stabbed him in the neck with a screwdriver and hit him with an axe, Springer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The victim&#8217;s girlfriend and another friend found his body Oct. 12 and reported it as a possible bear attack. It turned into a homicide investigation after wildlife agents found no sign of a bear in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">After DNA found on a beer can from the camp site was matched with the suspect&#8217;s DNA, he was tracked down this week and arrested in Butte, Montana, Springer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">He was being held on $1.5 million bail, according to sheriff&#8217;s department records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/wireStory\/montana-man-charged-murder-brutal-campground-killing-115416608\">abcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BOZEMAN, Mont. &#8212;&nbsp;A 41-year-old Montana man was charged with murder Friday in a brutal slaying at a remote campsite that had been initially reported as&nbsp;a possible bear mauling&nbsp;by people who found the victim&#8217;s body. The suspect allegedly told authorities that he arrived at the campsite northeast of Big Sky, Montana, on Oct. 10 intending to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":34201,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[2045,1350,4865],"class_list":["post-34200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-charged","tag-man","tag-montana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34202,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34200\/revisions\/34202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}