Final suspect caught
POLSON - Tuesday evening brought to a conclusion a measured process of rounding up four suspected murderers, all of whom were serving prison time on separate charges.
Lake County Sheriff's Office Undersheriff Jay Doyle and Lt. Mike Sargeant returned from California that night with the final suspect, Nigel Ernst, 30, in connection to the murder of Harold Mitchell, Jr., in 2005.
"It's going to be good for the family (of Mitchell) to bring it to a conclusion and I'm glad to see it come to fruition," Doyle said as he rode back from Victorville federal penitentiary in California with the suspect Tuesday morning.
Earlier this week, Kyle Brown, 36, another suspect in the murder, was picked up at a federal prison in Oregon, Doyle said, and was on the docket for arraignment in District Court on charges of deliberate homicide Thursday morning.
First to be arrested in connection with the case was Nathan Aaron Ross, 21, who was transferred to Lake County Jail on March 29 and has been in custody since. Ross pleaded not guilty to deliberate homicide and tampering with evidence at an arraignment on April 14.
Also in custody and charged with deliberate homicide is 24-year-old Clifford Oldhorn, who provided the first major lead for the LCSO. Oldhorn pleaded not guilty to the felony charge on May 5.
A criminal affidavit states that Oldhorn wrote a letter to 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 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, Ernst and 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.
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."