Forensic findings on frozen burger barn burglary might melt Michel

POLSON – Randall Joe Michel Jr. Jr. crept into a Polson man’s home while he was sleeping and stole three rifles, a large quantity of ammo, computer equipment, cash, pills, liquor, and a variety of backpacks, according to Lake County court records.

When Michel Jr.’s landlord saw what he’d done, she kicked him out of her second home and called the cops.

That was back in 2011.  

Michel Jr. might not have worried much about that burglary, since he likely committed at least one previous burglary for which he was never prosecuted.

Thanks to forensic science and the patience of Montana’s legal system, Michel Jr. might finally face the facts.

Montana Crime Lab Analyst Megan Ashton called the Polson Police Department at the beginning of August to report that through forensic science she’d positively identified Michel Jr. as the suspect in a 2008 burglary of Burger Barn in Polson.

Lake County court records show that during the Aug. 23, 2008 crime, a burglar believed to be Michel Jr., 54 of St. Ignatius, broke into one of Burger Barn’s north-facing windows.

Prosecutors believe that once inside Michel Jr. grabbed several bags of frozen food, moved several items around and fled with his arms full of food.

When a Polson Police detective investigated the burglary he found blood smeared under the broken window and on the kitchen door.

After speaking to the restaurant owner and swabbing blood smears at the scene, the Polson detective interviewed a neighbor, who told him “fresh foot tracks” appeared in their garden over night, as well as two bags of frozen potatoes and a roll of frozen hamburger patties with blood smears on them.

Still, Michel Jr. got away with whatever food he did not drop and the burglary investigation went silent.

Michel Jr.’s eventual undoing came in the form of a previous conviction and a mandatory law enforcement blood sample donation.

In 2011, Michel Jr. accepted a guilty plea for misdemeanor theft from a St. Ignatius business owner who came to work in September 2010 and found a “number of power tools, grinders, saws, drills and other miscellaneous items” missing from a work trailer.

The St. Ignatius burglary went unsolved as well until the business owner, who was visiting a Missoula Pawn Shop found his own tools on the shelves for sale.  

The St. Ignatius business owner reported his findings to law enforcement, who then got a warrant, recovered the property and learned that it was pawned the day after the St. Ignatius burglary by Michel Jr..

For that burglary, Michel Jr. received six months in Lake County Jail with all but 21 days suspended and 21 days credit for time served, plus a $547 fee.

For the home invasion burglary Michel Jr. received five years in the Department of Corrections, with two years suspended and nine days credit for time served.  

On Sept. 25 Michel Jr. pled not guilty to the 2008 Burger Barn burglary. Court records show that Ashton identified Michel Jr. as the person who left blood on the Burger Barn window, and the person who left blood on recovered stolen frozen food in the neighbor’s garden.

Michel Jr.’s omnibus hearing will be Nov. 12.

His jury trial will be Jan. 20.