Authorities in Montana are investigating after what they say began as a 911 call for a bear attack ended up turning into a homicide probe.
Dustin Kjersem, 35, was found dead in his tent the morning of Oct. 12 along Moose Creek Road north of Big Sky, Mont.
At a news conference Wednesday, Gallatin County Sheriff Dan Springer said a friend who was supposed to meet up with Kjersem on Friday went looking for him after he failed to show.
The friend eventually found Kjersem’s body at a makeshift campsite, and believed the brutal scene was caused by a bear attack. He called 911 to report the death.
However, when police and agents with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks arrived at the site, they couldn’t find any evidence of bear activity — rather, they believe Kjersem was the victim of a “brutal attack.”
Capt. Nathan Kamerman told reporters an autopsy found that Kjersem sustained “multiple chop wounds,” including to his skull, that led to his death, KBZK Bozeman reports.
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Police said they are unsure of the weapon used to kill Kjersem, but they suspect it was something large and hard enough to do “significant damage.”
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“He was brutally killed at his campsite and we need your help,” Springer said Wednesday, per CBS News, pleading for information from the public about anything suspicious or out of the ordinary in the area, any trail or game camera footage or any sightings of Kjersem’s black 2013 Ford F-150, with a black topper and a silver aluminum ladder rack, in the days leading up to the death.
The sheriff’s office said in a followup post on Facebook, “Even the smallest detail could be crucial to the investigation.
“People have asked me if there’s a threat to this community and the answer is we don’t know. We don’t have enough information to know at this time,” Springer said on Wednesday.
“We do know that someone was out there who killed someone in a very heinous way, so if you’re out in the woods you need to be paying attention, you need to remain vigilant.”
Kjersem’s sister, Jillian Price, issued a plea for help to find her brother’s killer, according to The Washington Post.
“This weekend, we lost our brother, our son, our uncle, our best friend and our dad in the most unimaginable way,” Price said.
“There is someone in our valley that is capable of truly heinous things. Please, if you were in Moose Creek at any time from Thursday to Saturday, please call and talk, even if you think you didn’t see anything.”
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