Murderer extradited back to Montana

LAKE COUNTY — Convicted Lake County murderer Paul David Gorder appeared in district court last Wednesday, admitting to some of the alleged parole violations that were the cause of his extradition from Alaska back to Montana last month.

Gorder, 38, violated his felony parole for a charge of mitigated deliberate homicide in 1991, for which he received a 40-year Montana State Prison sentence with 12 years suspended. Due to the admitted violations, it is now within the judge’s power to revoke his parole and make Gorder serve the 28-year balance of his sentence.

Gorder now sits in Lake County Jail awaiting his sentencing date before Judge C.B. McNeil, That trial is set for 9 a.m. on March 25.

The killer was one of four suspects involved in the abduction, brutal gang-beating and murder of 51-year-old Luis Mena. Mena had lived in the area for many years, but was a native of El Salvador.

According to Flathead County detective’s case reports, four men abducted Mena on Dec. 5, 1991 from his Flathead County home, and took him into the woods over the county line into Lake County to kill him and ditch the body.

When one suspect took a chainsaw out of the back of the truck, Mena began to run and was pursued by another suspect with a hatchet who struck the man in the back of the head — splitting the skull. Another suspect joined in on the assault striking Mena with a club before the other joined in on stomping his head — further fracturing the man’s skull and killing him.

The four suspects then drug Mena’s body back into the woods and left it until the body was found near the north end of Swan Lake on Feb. 29, 1992. The other three men involved were Justin Jennings, Jason Barkee and Corey Richardson. They were 19, 20 and 18 years old at the time of the slaying, as Gorder was 20.

All four men were charged with deliberate homicide and aggravated kidnapping and were facing the possibility of the death penalty during the 1992 court proceedings. All four men ended up convicted of “mitigated” deliberate homicide — which Montana Code says takes into consideration the persons being under the influence of “extreme mental or emotional stress” for which there is reasonable explanation or excuse.

All four were prosecuted in Lake County by the fall of 1992 — Judge McNeil presided over three of the four cases. Gorder received a partially suspended 12-year prison sentence and was released on parole whereas Richardson and Jennings received partially suspended 25-year sentences and Barkee a partially suspended 30-year sentence.