Charges filed in 2005 fire, murder

21-year-old man arrested after five-year investigation

POLSON - A nearly five-year long investigation into an alleged St. Ignatius homicide led to an arrest on Monday afternoon.

Nathan Aaron Ross, 21, of Dixon, was arrested on felony charges of deliberate homicide and tampering or fabricating physical evidence in connection with the ongoing investigation into a July 7, 2005, murder and arson case. Ross appeared in Judge Chuck Wall's Justice court on Tuesday afternoon and was not granted bond.

"This is the first of potentially several arrests in this case," Lake County Sheriff's Office Det. Mike Sargeant said.

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 at 4:20 a.m. on July 7, 2005, 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.

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, but the Sheriff's office isn't releasing that information in an effort to aid the investigation.

"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. "He was dead before the fire started though - there's no doubt about that."