A hunter from Helena went into the woods and didn’t come home. David Miller, 42, was supposed to be home for dinner. His wife waited for him until midnight, then called the police. His pickup truck was found on a forest road the next day. The car was locked, the keys were missing, and his phone was on the seat.
They searched for a week with dogs and a helicopter. They combed through the entire forest in the area. No traces. David had vanished into thin air. He knew these places well, having hunted there for more than 20 years. He couldn’t have gotten lost. For 3 years, no one knew what had happened to the hunter. His family hoped he was alive.
The police checked every report of unidentified bodies. All the leads turned out to be false. On the morning of November 23rd, 2005, David Miller got up at 4 as usual before a hunt. The house on the outskirts of Helena was quiet. His wife and daughter were still asleep. The 42-year-old mechanic from a local auto repair shop gathered his equipment methodically without rushing.
A 22 caliber rifle, a box of ammunition, a thermos of coffee, two sandwiches wrapped in foil. It was -7° outside and snow had been lying in a thick layer for the third week. David had been hunting in these parts for more than 20 years and knew every trail within a 50 km radius of the city. He planned to spend the day in the woods north of Highway 12, where he had seen deer tracks a week ago.
He told his wife he would be back for dinner. At 6:00 in the morning, he started his blue 1997 Ford pickup truck and drove along his familiar route. David was last seen at 6:30 a.m. at the Shell gas station at the entrance to town. Cashier Mary Connors knew him by sight. He often filled up here before going hunting. David bought a pack of gum and a bottle of water and paid in cash.
He behaved as usual, and the cashier didn’t notice anything unusual. A surveillance camera recorded him getting into his pickup truck and driving north on the highway. The weather was clear that day with good visibility. The snow had stopped the night before and there was almost no wind. Perfect conditions for deer hunting.

David knew several good spots 20 km from the city where the animals came out to the glades early in the morning. He usually returned home before dark and never stayed in the woods overnight. When David didn’t show up at home by 9:00, his wife Susan began to worry. He always called if he was going to be late. His cell phone was not answering.
At 9, she called his best friend, Tommy Wilson, with whom David sometimes went hunting. Tommy said he hadn’t spoken to David in the last few days and didn’t know his plans for today. At 11 p.m., Susan contacted the police. Sergeant Michael Harris, who was on duty, took her statement, but explained that a person could only be reported missing 24 hours after their disappearance.
He advised her to call his friends and relatives again. Susan spent a sleepless night calling all the hunters she knew. No one had seen David or knew where he might be. On the morning of November 24th, Susan returned to the police station. This time she was seen by detective Rick Palmer, who specialized in missing person’s cases.
The 45-year-old officer with 20 years of experience took the report seriously. Hunters had gone missing in the area before, usually due to injuries or disorientation in the woods. Detective Palmer organized a search operation for noon that same day. The local volunteer rescue service, led by veteran Jack Stone, was called in to help with the search.
The team consisted of 12 people with experience in searching for people in forested areas. They took two tracking dogs capable of following a trail even a day after a person had passed through. The first thing they did was look for David’s pickup truck. They combed through all the parking lots and side roads within a 30 km radius of the city in the direction he had driven that morning.
After 3 hours of searching, volunteer Carl Jenkins found a blue Ford on a dirt road 18 km north of Helena. The car was parked on the side of the road, locked with no keys inside. The pickup truck was near a forest road that led to several hunting grounds. The place was familiar to local hunters who often left their cars there before going into the woods.
No signs of a struggle or coercion were found near the car. David had clearly parked there voluntarily and walked into the woods. Detective Palmer called in forensic experts to examine the vehicle. They found the usual items in the cabin. Maps of the area, a spare jacket, an empty thermos, and sandwich wrappers.

The rifle and hunting backpack were not in the pickup truck, which meant that David had taken them with him. A cell phone was lying on the driver’s seat. The last incoming call was from his wife yesterday at 8:30 p.m. The search team launched an operation in the forest near the place where the pickup truck was found. The dogs picked up the trail from the car and led them deep into the forest along an old hunting trail.
The trail was clear for the first kilometer and a half, then began to fade. David moved slowly, stopping several times, apparently looking for game. 2 kilometers from the road, the trail branched off in three directions. The dogs lost the trail on the hard, rocky ground where the snow had melted and frozen again over the past day.
The search party was divided into three teams, each going in its own direction. They combed the forest until dark, but found no trace of David. The next day, a helicopter from the district administration joined the search. Pilot Tom Anderson flew over the entire area within a 10 km radius of where the car had been abandoned.
All the clearings and open areas were clearly visible from the air. No signs of a person or his camp were found. The helicopter also checked all the nearby ponds and streams in case David had fallen through the ice. The search continued for a week. Volunteers searched every trail, every cave, and every abandoned hut in the area.
They interviewed all the hunters who had been in the forest that day. Two had seen an unfamiliar man in a camouflage jacket near the old bridge over the stream that morning, but they couldn’t say for sure if it was David. No other witnesses were found. By early December, the search operation was called off. Detective Palmer reclassified the case as missing, but continued the investigation.
He checked all hospitals within a 200 km radius and contacted police in neighboring states. He studied David’s financial transactions over the past few months and reviewed surveillance camera footage from all gas stations and stores on major roads. He found no suspicious transactions or movements. David’s family hired private investigator Bob Craig, a former police officer from Billings.
Craig conducted his own investigation, interviewed David’s neighbors and colleagues, and checked his computer and phone records. He found no enemies or debts that could have motivated the crime. David led a quiet life, had worked at the same workshop for 15 years, and had no problems with the law. That year, the winter was particularly harsh.
Temperatures dropped to minus30, and snow lay on the ground until midappril. All winter long, David’s relatives and friends hoped that he would find shelter and wait out the cold somewhere in the woods. But when spring came and the snow melted, no new traces appeared. David Miller seemed to have vanished into thin air on that November morning in 2005.
His wife filed a petition to have her husband declared dead only 2 years later. The insurance company paid compensation, but Susan never stopped believing that David was alive. Every year on the anniversary of his disappearance, she organized memorial searches with volunteers. They combed through the same places, posted flyers with his photo, but to no avail.
Detective Palmer hadn’t forgotten the case either. From time to time, he reread the materials, looking for clues he might have missed. He contacted colleagues from other states and checked information about unidentified bodies. There were many unsolved cases in his career, but the disappearance of David Miller particularly bothered him.

It was too strange for an experienced hunter to disappear without a trace in a familiar forest. 3 years passed without a single clue. The David Miller case lay in the archives, occasionally resurfacing when Detective Palmer received reports of remains found in the forest. Each time it turned out to be animal bones or fragments of skeletons that were decades old.
The family had come to terms with their loss, although Susan still wore her wedding ring and brought flowers every month to the symbolic grave in the city cemetery. On August 14th, 2008, a man calling himself Randy Clark called the police station. His voice was nervous and broken. The caller said he wanted to give a statement about the old case of the missing hunter.
Detective Palmer, who was on duty that day, listened carefully to the rambling story. Clark claimed he knew where to find David Miller’s body. Randy Clark turned out to be a 36-year-old unemployed man from the suburbs of Helena. The police knew him for petty theft and a bar fight two years ago. For the past 6 months, he had been working as a farmand for George McBride, 25 km from the city.
Clark looked exhausted, his hands were shaking, he spoke hurriedly, and he kept looking back at the door. According to Clark, a week ago, he overheard a conversation between his employer, McBride, and a stranger near an old barn on the farm. The men were talking about the need to remove something before the land inspection began.
One of them mentioned the name David and said that he had been hanging there for 3 years. Clark realized that they might be talking about the missing hunter. Detective Palmer was skeptical about the testimony. Clark could have been making up a story to avoid punishment for some other offense or he could have been hoping to get a reward for the information.
Nevertheless, in 3 years, he was the first person to claim to know anything specific about the fate of David Miller. Palmer decided to check the information. George McBride’s farm was located in a hilly area half an hour’s drive from where David’s pickup truck had been found. McBride owned 200 acres of land and kept several dozen cows and horses.
The 53-year-old farmer lived alone after his divorce and had a reputation for being withdrawn and unfriendly. His neighbors hardly ever communicated with him and knew only that he rarely appeared in town and had almost no relationships with anyone. Detective Palmer studied McBride’s file in the police database. The farmer had no serious offenses on his record, only a speeding ticket 5 years ago, and a complaint from neighbors about loud music.
However, a more detailed check revealed that McBride was friends with Carl Johnson, who had a criminal record for assault and theft in the 1990s. Carl Johnson was known to the police as the organizer of underground dog fights in the area. The 44year-old man had been prosecuted several times for animal cruelty, but no serious evidence could be gathered against him.
Johnson kept a kennel on the outskirts of town and was officially involved in breeding pitbulls for security purposes. Unofficially, the police suspected that he was training dogs for fighting and organizing illegal competitions. The connection between McBride and Johnson could explain why something suspicious was going on at the farm.

Detective Palmer decided not to rush the search, but to first set up surveillance of the farm for a week. Plain clothes officers watched the property from a camouflaged post on a nearby hill. There was almost no activity except for Johnson visiting McBride twice in a black SUV. On August 21st, Detective Palmer obtained a search warrant for McBride’s farm.
The operation was planned for early in the morning when the farmer was usually home alone. Forensic experts and dogs trained to search for human remains were brought in to assist. A team of eight people left for the farm at 5:30 a.m. McBride greeted the police wearily, but did not resist. He demanded to see the warrant, carefully studied the documents, but did not raise any objections.
He answered all questions in monosyllables, claiming that he knew nothing about the hunter’s disappearance 3 years ago. He said he knew Carl Johnson superficially, that he sometimes bought hay for his dogs. The search began in the house, but nothing suspicious was found there. It was the typical bachelor pad, simple furniture, a few personal items, a refrigerator with beer, and convenience foods.
In the garage were McBride’s tractor and pickup truck, several barrels of diesel fuel, and standard farming tools. No signs of a crime were found in the residential buildings. The old barn was located 200 meters from the house in a small hollow between the hills. The wooden structure looked abandoned.
The paint was peeling and the roof was rotten in places. The door was locked with a massive lock. McBride claimed that he had not used the barn for several years, storing only old hay and broken equipment there. He searched for the key to the lock for a long time and found it in a drawer in the house. When the barn door was opened, the first thing they noticed was the smell.
It was not pungent, but a distinct Swedish aroma of decay mixed with stale air and the smell of animal urine. It was dark inside the barn, the only window boarded up. Detective Palmer turned on his flashlight and illuminated the room. The shed was divided into several compartments by wooden partitions.
In the center was a large open area surrounded by homemade benches. Dark spots which could have been dried blood were visible on the dirt floor. In the corner lay scraps of rope, metal chains, and water bowls. Everything indicated that dog fights had indeed taken place here. A search dog named Rex immediately began sniffing around the barn, sniffing at the corners and partitions.
After a few minutes, the dog stopped in the far corner of the room and began whining, looking up. Detective Palmer shown his flashlight on the ceiling. Something was hanging between the rafters wrapped in tarpollen and rope. The firefighters brought a ladder from the truck. Sergeant Thomas Craig carefully climbed up and examined the bundle.
The tarpollen was dirty and torn in several places. Fragments of clothing and what looked like human bones were visible through the holes. Craig did not touch the body, but photographed it as it was found. The forensic team arrived half an hour later. Senior expert Dan Morris, with 20 years of experience, supervised the procedure of removing the body from the ceiling.
They worked with extreme caution so as not to damage any possible evidence. Every movement was photographed and documented. When the bundle was lowered to the floor of the shed, it became clear that it contained human remains. The tarp was unfolded in the presence of Detective Palmer and two forensic experts. Inside lay the skeleton of an adult male in the remains of camouflage clothing.
The bones of his hands were tied behind his back with wire, and there were marks on his neck from a rough rope. The skull had cracks in the temporal region, and several ribs were broken. Fragments of patches and labels remained on the clothing. A wallet with a driver’s license in the name of David Miller was found in the jacket pocket.
The documents were damaged by moisture, but the photo and basic information were clearly legible. A hunting knife in a leather sheath and an engraved metal flask were found near the body. Susan Miller later identified these items as belonging to her husband. The examination of the scene continued until evening.

Forensic experts collected blood samples from the floor of the shed, photographed every square meter of the room, and seized ropes and chains for examination. In one of the partitions, they found a metal plate with a burned mark in the shape of a dog’s head. Such marks were used by participants in underground dog fights to indicate their affiliation with a particular group.
George McBride was arrested the same day. The farmer remained silent and refused to answer questions without a lawyer. He was placed in the city police station’s isolation cell. Carl Johnson was arrested the next morning at his home. The organizer of the dog fights did not resist, but immediately stated that he wanted to make a deal with the investigation.
A forensic examination confirmed that the remains found belong to David Miller. The age and physical characteristics matched those of the missing hunter. Dental analysis finally confirmed the identity of the deceased. Expert Robert Hughes determined that death was caused by suffocation, but that the man had suffered multiple injuries beforehand.
The skull and rib fractures were caused by a blunt object, presumably a baseball bat or metal pipe. The injuries were sustained shortly before death and there was significant bleeding from the wounds. Traces of compression were found on the bones of the hands indicating the use of handcuffs or wire for binding. The expert determined the time of death to be November 2005, which coincided with the date of the hunter’s disappearance.
On September 3rd, Carl Johnson’s lawyer contacted the prosecutor’s office. His client was willing to testify in exchange for a reduced sentence. Johnson claimed that he had not planned the murder, that it had happened by accident when the hunter stumbled upon dog fights taking place in the barn. Prosecutor Elizabeth Hartman agreed to hear the testimony, but did not promise any leniency until she had a complete picture of the events.
Johnson said that on November 23rd, 2005, another dog fight was taking place in McBride’s barn. About 20 people were present betting on the outcome of the fights between pit bulls. Such events were organized once a month with participants coming from different cities across the state. The bets reached several thousand dollars per fight. Around 10:30 a.m.
when the fights were in full swing, an unfamiliar man in a camouflage jacket with a carbine in his hands suddenly entered the barn. It was David Miller who had gotten lost in the woods and accidentally stumbled upon the farm. Seeing what was happening, the hunter was confused and tried to leave, but two participants in the fight stopped him.
Johnson and his assistants realized that the witness could go to the police and expose their activities. The organizer of the underground fights already had a criminal record and knew that a new case could mean a long prison term for him. The participants began to discuss what to do with the uninvited guest.
David tried to convince them that he would not tell anyone, but they did not believe him. At first, the hunter was simply tied up and locked in one of the barn compartments while his fate was being decided. The fight stopped and most of the spectators left. Only Johnson, McBride, and two of the organizers regular assistants, Mike Sullivan and Danny Roach, remained.
The four men argued for several hours about what to do with the prisoner. By evening, it became clear that David could not be released. The risk of him going to the police was too great. Johnson decided to kill the witness. First, they beat him with bats, trying to make him swear to keep quiet. David took the oath, but Johnson did not believe him.
Around midnight, the fight organizers strangled the hunter with a rope. They decided not to bury the body so as not to leave any traces on the farm. McBride suggested hanging the corpse from the ceiling of the barn wrapped in a tarpollen. No one would find it there. And over time, the remains would completely decompose. David’s pickup truck was driven into the forest and abandoned on the road he had taken to get there.
They left his cell phone in the car to make it look like the hunter had gone into the woods on foot. The plan worked. The police searched for David in the woods, and no one suspected that his body was in the barn on McBride’s farm. The dog fights were moved to another location and the old barn was no longer used for 3 years. No one looked into the abandoned building until Randy Clark overheard a conversation about the need to clean something up before an inspection.
Johnson’s testimony was verified with a lie detector test. The results showed that the man was telling the truth. Additional evidence was found during a search of Johnson’s home. A baseball bat with dried blood stains was found in the garage. Forensic tests confirmed that the blood belonged to David Miller.

Addresses and phone numbers of dogf fight participants were found in Johnson’s notebook. Mike Sullivan and Danny Roach were arrested a week later. Both men initially denied involvement in the murder, but when shown Johnson’s testimony and the results of the examination, they confessed. Sullivan claimed that he only helped tie up the hunter, but did not participate in the beating.
Roach admitted that he struck David several times with a bat, but did not know that Johnson was going to kill him. The trial began in March 2009. Prosecutor Hartman demanded the maximum punishment for all four defendants. The defense attorneys tried to prove that the murder was committed in the heat of passion and that their clients had not planned the crime.
However, the fact that they hid the body and destroyed evidence suggested that their actions were deliberate. David’s wife and daughter attended all the court hearings. Susan testified about her husband’s character, saying that he wished no harm to anyone and did not deserve such a death. 17-year-old daughter Emily struggled to hold back tears as she listened to the details of her father’s murder.
It was important for them not only to see the guilty punished, but also to understand what had happened to David on that November day. The jury reached a verdict after 2 days of deliberation. Carl Johnson was found guilty of first-degree murder with aggravating circumstances. Judge William Stone sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
George McBride was found guilty of being an accomplice to the murder and was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years. Mike Sullivan and Danny Roach received 25 years in prison for their involvement in the murder. The court took into account their confessions and remorse, but emphasized that they did not prevent the crime, even though they could have done so.
Randy Clark, whose testimony helped locate the body, received a suspended sentence for aiding and abetting in the concealment of the crime. McBride’s farm was sold at auction, and the money was given to David Miller’s family as compensation. The old barn was demolished by a bulldozer a week after the trial ended.
Susan asked for all the boards and beams to be burned so that no reminders of the place where her husband died would remain. Detective Palmer received thanks from the police leadership for solving the difficult case. A year later, he was promoted to lieutenant. Before retiring, he solved several more high-profile crimes, but the David Miller case remained special to him.
It was a reminder that even the most incredible theories sometimes turn out to be true. David Miller was buried in Helena City Cemetery next to his parents. The simple words, “Loving husband and father, lost in the woods and found dead,” were engraved on his tombstone. Every year on the anniversary of his death, family and friends gather at his grave to honor the memory of a man who fell victim to the cruelty and greed of strangers.
The story of David Miller’s disappearance and murder served as a warning to hunters in the county. Now they try not to go into the woods alone and always tell their relatives their exact route. And underground dog fighting in Montana has virtually disappeared. After a high-profile trial, the police stepped up their control over such activities.