Details emerge after Ross' arrest

LAKE COUNTY - More than a week after the arrest of Nathan Aaron Ross on felony charges of deliberate homicide and tampering with physical evidence, both the Lake County Sheriff's Office and the Lake County Attorney's Office are mum on the details. But the criminal affidavit filed by the attorney's office paints a picture of four men allegedly trying to make some easy cash in a robbery that quickly turned into a homicide.

The mid-summer night in July of 2005 when Harold Mitchell, 73, would lose his life, allegedly began as a planned robbery of the St. Ignatius man who it was rumored, according to one of the suspects, to have had large amounts of cash in his home.

Three years after the night that would change numerous lives, that same suspect seemed to have had a moment of a guilty conscious.

The affidavit states that Clifford Oldhorn, 23, wrote a letter to LCSO Undersheriff Jay Doyle in April 2008 saying that he was a witness to the homicide of Mitchell, and that he was willing to give a statement about the incident. Both Doyle and Det. Mike Sargeant, who was undersheriff at the time of the crime, traveled to Great Falls, where Oldhorn was incarcerated on an unrelated conviction.

During the subsequent interview, Oldhorn said that he, Ross, Nigel Ernst and Kyle Brown traveled to St. Ignatius with the intent of robbing Mitchell. Once there, Oldhorn said Brown started beating Mitchell at his home to force him to reveal the location of the money they thought he had on hand. The scene apparently became too much for Oldhorn, who claimed he couldn't bear to watch the beating, and exited the house. He said he stayed close to the residence and could hear Mitchell yelling inside.

As he waited outside, Oldhorn said Ross came out and grabbed a gas can from one of their vehicles and took it inside the house with him. A while later, the affidavit states, Ross and Ernst exited the residence and the two men and Oldhorn returned to Dixon in Ernst's vehicle.

After the interview with Oldhorn, the two detectives interviewed Ross a few weeks later. Ross confirmed what Oldhorn had said, and added new details about the night from the perspective of someone inside the residence. The affidavit states that Ross said that after Mitchell was dead, Ernst told Ross to "clean up the scene." Ross then said he went outside to retrieve the can of gas and brought it back inside the house, where a blood-covered Mitchell lay on the floor. Ross doused the body in gasoline before leaving for Dixon in Ernst's vehicle.

A week later, the detectives interviewed Ernst, who was incarcerated at the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge. During his interview, Ernst admitted being in his vehicle near the crime scene the night of the incident, and his description of his vehicle confirmed area law enforcement's description of his vehicle.

All four men are currently in jail or prison, including Ross, who has been detained at the Lake County Jail since March 29. According to the Montana Department of Corrections Web site, Oldhorn is currently an inmate at the MSP on charges of burglary, theft, and deceptive practices after a conviction on an unrelated crime in Lake County. Brown, 35, is in prison in relation to a conviction of criminal possession with intent to distribute. Ernst, 29, has been convicted on counts of criminal endangerment and criminal possession with the intent to distribute in both Lake and Missoula County. Only Ross has been arrested in connection with the Mitchell case. The investigation is ongoing.

An article in the Lake County Leader immediately after the incident reported that members of the St. Ignatius fire department responded to 1380 Mission Dam Homesites on July 7 at 4:20 a.m. where they discovered a trailer on fire and the body of Harold Mitchell, Jr., 73, inside.

Mitchell's body was sent to the state crime lab in Missoula, accompanied by then Lake County Undersheriff and coroner Mike Sargeant and lead investigator Jay Doyle, and an autopsy revealed no soot in Mitchell's throat or lungs, indicating he had stopped breathing before the fire started, according to the Sheriff's office. Investigators originally thought the fire was started accidentally, but the autopsy showed otherwise. The autopsy revealed Mitchell's cause of death, which the affidavit said was due to a stab wound to the neck that severed the carotid artery.

"We went through the crime scene on Thursday and Friday, and we've had briefings on what has been done and what needs to be done, but there's still a lot of legwork left," Sargeant said in 2005. "He was dead before the fire started though - there's no doubt about that."