Second gun/shooter
Published by John Willems in Crime, True Crime,Lincoln County · Tuesday 12 Aug 2025 · 3 minutes
Tags: Crime, True, Crime, Lincoln, County, montana, law, enforcement, history, historical, cold, cases, montana, mid, century, police, investigations , montana, highway, patrol, history
Tags: Crime, True, Crime, Lincoln, County, montana, law, enforcement, history, historical, cold, cases, montana, mid, century, police, investigations , montana, highway, patrol, history
Second Gun
During the course of
the investigation, evidence emerged suggesting the possibility of a second
shooter. Although the question has never been definitively answered, it
continues to linger to this day.
The facts pointing
to a second shooter are relatively straightforward. The first involves the
analysis of Ren’s Highway Patrol vehicle, which had been moved to Libby and
stored in a locked garage. Due to its size, the vehicle could not be sent to
the forensic laboratory for examination. Given the strained relationship with
the FBI at the time, it was decided to request assistance from experts at the
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) laboratory. The ATF’s reputation was such
that its experts were considered every bit the equal of those working for the
FBI.
ATF personnel
traveled to Libby and examined the vehicle. Unfortunately, their official
report cannot be located. According to ATF record retention policies, documents
are destroyed 20 years after an event. Attempts to locate copies elsewhere were
unsuccessful.
However, based on
information leaked to the news media and my personal recollection, the ATF
established two key findings:
A total of seven
shots had been fired—two directed at Ren and the remaining five at Deputy
Sturmak.
The shots came from
different trajectories, indicating multiple angles of origin.
This leads to the
next piece of evidence: Rector’s rifle, when fully loaded, could fire a maximum
of five rounds—two fewer than the ATF’s count.
Within weeks, the
Sheriff’s Department learned that a second weapon had been found in a vehicle
near the crime scene. The individual who discovered it turned it over to the FBI,
believing it might have been used in the shooting. The weapon was a Ruger
Security Six .357 Magnum revolver. The FBI did not notify the Sheriff’s
Department about the revolver. Upon learning of its existence later, the
department recovered it.
It is troubling that
the FBI had custody of a weapon potentially connected to the Ren murder and
failed to inform the investigating agency. Moreover, once the Sheriff’s
Department became aware of the revolver, there appeared to be efforts to
obscure or eliminate records related to its role in the case.
If we accept the
possibility of a second shooter, it raises the critical question: Who was this
person?