(The following story was compiled in 2015 from public court records, newspaper coverage and interviews with public officials and residents. Thanks to Gary Newlon for his research assistance.)
By Kevin S. Giles
Half an hour past twilight, with only a sliver of a moon rising, Montana Martinz began her fateful walk home.
Cradling a sack of groceries, the 63-year-old woman left the IGA supermarket on the main street of Deer Lodge, Montana. It was October 15, 1966. The wind off the mountains felt cold. She stepped briskly through pools of light under the streetlamps.
Four blocks later, she entered the intersection of Fifth Street and Texas Avenue. She was three minutes from her house at 524 Conley Avenue. Mrs. Martinz lived alone. A year earlier, her husband Peter had died at St. Joseph Hospital of coronary thrombosis. Their only child, a son, was grown and gone.