But it had been Abbey, not a bear, that hit Kjersem with a piece of wood before stabbing him in the neck with a screwdriver and then taking an axe to the 35-year-old man, according to authorities.
“This appears to be a heinous crime committed by an individual who had no regard for the life of Dustin Kjersem,” Gallatin County Sheriff Dan Springer said at a Thursday news conference.
Local law enforcement and an agent from Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks who is an expert in bear attacks inspected the site in the Moose Creek camping area of Gallatin Canyon, but did not find any signs of bear activity, leading authorities to treat the case as a homicide. An autopsy later confirmed Kjersem had suffered multiple chop wounds, according to authorities.
“This is the behaviour of a guilty subject who thought he’d get away with it,” Springer said.
Investigators say they believe that the two men didn’t know each other and that the alleged homicide was a chance encounter. Abbey had planned to camp in the spot, across the border from Yellowstone National Park, where Kjersem had already put up his tent, Springer said.
Kjersem had planned to spend the first night alone before picking up his girlfriend the next day for a second night together in the wilderness. His girlfriend was worried when he didn’t show the morning of October 12, a Saturday, Springer said, so she drove out to the campsite and found Kjersem dead in the tent.
The sheriff’s office began an intense, three-week investigation.
Kjersem’s sister, Jillian Price, on October 16 asked the public to help them find her brother’s killer.
She said her brother was born in nearby Bozeman and worked throughout the valley pouring foundations, framing houses and installing countertops.
“He was a loving, helpful and adoring father who in no way deserved this,” she said.
But there were few good leads and little usable evidence, Captain Nathan Kamerman, head of investigations for the sheriff’s office, said on Thursday.
The big break came October 25, when the crime lab staff told investigators they had a DNA match on the beer can, Springer said. Abbey had previously been arrested for driving under the influence, according to state corrections records.
Authorities arrested Abbey the next day and interviewed him on October 29, which is when he confessed to the killing, according to authorities.
Abbey is from about 140km away in Basin, Montana, but he was in the area working a construction job, Springer said.
Abbey removed items from the campsite he thought would tie him to the slaying, Springer said. That’s why investigators asked the public on October 24 to keep an eye out for a blue Estwing camp axe, a 12-gauge Remington 11-87 shotgun, a .44-caliber Ruger Blackhawk revolver and an orange YETI cooler.
Cases such as this consume the sheriff’s office, said Springer, who leads the 59-deputy agency.
He thanked his investigators, other agencies who assisted and the lab technicians who broke the case. Springer also had a message for Kjersem’s family.
“I hope this can bring a little bit of peace to all of you,” he said.
Abbey is being held with a US$1.5 million bond on a charge of deliberate homicide and two counts of tampering with evidence, according to Gallatin jail records.
