DNA on beer can helped lead to suspect in brutal campsite killing: Sheriff

November 1, 2024

Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office in Bozeman, Montana. Via Google Maps Street View

(BIG SKY, Mont.) — A Montana man has been charged in the killing of a fellow camper that was so brutal it was initially reported by a 911 caller as a possible bear attack.

Daren Christopher Abbey, 41, of Basin, Montana, has been charged with deliberate homicide in the killing of Dustin Kjersem, authorities announced at a news conference Thursday evening.

Gallatin County Sheriff Dan Springer said Abbey confessed to the killing after investigators zeroed in on him based on DNA collected from a beer can inside the slain man’s tent.

The sheriff said it does not appear the two men knew each other and that they met in a “chance encounter” as Abbey searched for a campsite.

“There does not appear to be any connection between our victim and our suspect,” Springer told reporters Thursday.

Kjersem’s body was found dead in a tent on Oct. 12 in a fairly remote camping area in the Moose Creek area.

The sheriff said Kjersem arrived in the Moose Creek area on Oct. 10 for a camping trip and had set up a wall tent, complete with a wood stove, beds and lamps.

That same night, Abbey was also in the area looking for a place to camp and noticed Kjersem had already taken the campsite, the sheriff said.

Abbey told investigators Kjersem “welcomed him to the campsite” and offered him a beer, the sheriff said.

Then at some point Abbey hit Kjersem with a piece of wood, stabbed him in the neck with a screwdriver and then hit him with an ax, the sheriff said.

The motive for the attack is still unknown, the sheriff said.

“We have a bit of his story, but … we don’t really know what the true story is,” Springer said.

The sheriff said Abbey later returned to the crime scene to remove items from the campsite that he believed might have evidence to tie him to the killing, including a cooler, firearms and the ax.

Kjersem was last heard from on Oct. 10 as he was leaving to go camping for the weekend. He had plans to pick up his girlfriend on the following day and take her out to the campsite, the sheriff said. When he didn’t show, she grew concerned and went with a friend to the campsite and found his body inside his tent.

The initial 911 call reported it as a possible bear attack.

When investigators responded to the scene of the crime, a Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks agent with expertise in bear attacks did not find any signs of bear activity at the scene, prompting investigators to treat the incident as a homicide, according to the sheriff’s office.

An autopsy determined multiple wounds led to his death. Kjersem’s injuries included “significant damage” to his skull, Springer previously said.

Abbey’s DNA was identified on the beer can by analysts with the Montana State Crime Lab on Oct. 25, authorities said. Abbey was located in the Butte area. He was initially arrested on Oct. 26 on a probation violation.

National Guard deployed to help fight raging California fire threatening thousands of homes

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(NEW YORK) — Three major wildfires were raging across Southern California Tuesday, threatening thousands of homes as firefighters and the state National Guard were battling to bring the flames under control amid a triple-digit heatwave, officials said.

The Line Fire in San Bernardino County, the Airport Fire in Orange County and the Bridge Fire in Los Angeles County are all being fueled by extremely dry vegetation and spreading rapidly, officials said.

The Line Fire

As of Tuesday afternoon, the Line Fire was threatening 65,600 structures, including homes and commercial properties, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention (Cal Fire).

Fire crews achieved 5% containment on the blaze on Monday night as Gov. Gavin Newsom deployed the state National Guard to support the ongoing response to extinguish the blaze.

While evacuation orders were issued for 9,200 structures in the area, with another 56,400 structures under evacuation warnings, Cal Fire said no buildings have been destroyed or damaged.

“We’re pouring resources into this incident aggressively by deploying more air and ground support through the California National Guard,” Newsom said in a statement. “This is on top of nearly 2,000 firefighters, nearly 200 engines, and air assets we already have tackling this fire. California stands with these communities and has their backs.”

Newsom said the California National Guard will support the ongoing response to the Line Fire, the cause of which remains under investigation. Eighty troops split into four 20-person teams and one military police company have been sent to the fire scene to assist the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department with traffic control in evacuated areas.

National Guard troops are also helping firefighters battle the flames. Four UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters for water bucket dropping operations and two C-130 aircraft with Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems are among the resources deployed by the National Guard, Newsom said.

The fire, which ignited Sept. 5, is burning in steep and rugged terrain, making access difficult, Cal Fire said. Firefighters are working to build “control lines” to contain the blaze.

“Stronger winds are predicted Tuesday which could help fire spread and contribute to longer range spotting. Mid-week cooling may moderate fire activity and increase fuel moistures,” Cal Fire said.

The Airport Fire

Another major fire in Southern California broke out Monday afternoon in an unincorporated area of Orange County, prompting the evacuations of 1,427 homes, according to Cal Fire. The fast-moving Airport Fire in Trabuco Canyon in the hills southeast of Irvine had burned 9,333 acres by Tuesday afternoon, according to Cal Fire.

The fire was 0% contained Tuesday afternoon, according to Cal Fire.

Two firefighters battling the blaze were hospitalized with heat-related injuries and one civilian suffering from smoke inhalation was also treated at a hospital, Cal Fire said. The Fire was burning in the direction of the Cleveland National Forest.

At least four people, including a couple and their 3-year-old child who were hiking on a trail in the area, had to be airlifted to safety, officials said. A man and his cats were airlifted to safety from their home, officials said.

Several emergency communication towers on Santiago Peak in the fire zone, as well as towers operated by local broadcasting stations, were being threatened by the fire, officials said.

As of Tuesday afternoon, no structures had been destroyed or damaged, according to Cal Fire.

The Airport Fire began around 1 p.m. PT on Tuesday, sparked by county public works crews working on a fire prevention project by trying to move boulders to prevent public access — mostly by motorcyclists — to an area of the canyon with a lot of dry vegetation that could ignite easily, officials told ABC Los Angeles station KABC.

“The fire has been classified as unintentional,” said Orange County Fire Authority Deputy Chief TJ McGovern.

At least 1,000 firefighters were battling the blaze Tuesday.

The Bridge Fire

Elsewhere, the Bridge Fire, which started on Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles Country, had burned 4,178 acres as of Tuesday afternoon. The fire north of Azusa in the Angeles National Forest was 0% contained.

Evacuation orders are in place for a mobile home park, campgrounds and a small river community.

Third house collapses in four days on North Carolina coast

National Park Service

(NEW YORK) — A third house has collapsed in four days on the North Carolina coast as officials closed off the beach due to dangerous debris on the shore and in the water, officials said.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore law enforcement rangers responded to a Dare County dispatch call at approximately 1:08 p.m. on Tuesday to reports of a house collapsing on G A Kohler Court in Rodanthe, North Carolina, according to a statement from the National Park Service.

“Once on scene, rangers confirmed the collapse of the unoccupied house,” officials said. “The owner of the house has hired a debris cleanup contractor and Seashore employees plan on supplementing cleanup efforts.”

Due to dangerous debris on the beach and in the water, Cape Hatteras National Seashore has temporarily closed the beach from G A Kohler Court in Rodanthe to Wimble Shores North Court in Waves, a coastal length of just over two miles.

“Swimmers and surfers are urged to stay out the water in front of the villages of Rodanthe, Waves and Salvo, as there is a large amount of hazardous floating debris being transported by the waves that will cause injuries to those entering the water along the tri-villages area,” the National Park Service said. “Additionally, at the north end of Rodanthe and for miles to the south, the Seashore continues to urge visitors to wear hard-soled shoes when walking on the beach to avoid injuries from nail-ridden wooden debris.”

“The biggest concern is just cleaning everything up, you know?” Paul Troy, the homeowner of the first collapsed house, told ABC News’ Raleigh station WTVD-TV. “We get a lot of slack, all of these homeowners do that they don’t care. These are money machines and that’s not the case. We lose sleep over littering the beach.”

Troy and his family have owned the home since 2008 and hoped to move it before the collapse.

“At the beginning of the summer, we lost 13 vertical feet. We lost the staircase. We lost part of the septic system,” he said. “We chose not to rent it out the rest of the summer because we were going to wait and see what the beach did, see if it came back.”

Homeowners there say the ocean’s threat to their property is a major concern.

“We’ve stayed in many of these houses that are completely underwater now. It’s a shame and I think the town of Rodanthe is going to be suffering,” Nancy Engel, who lives in Rodanthe, told WTVD in August.

Collapsing homes along the ocean can cause a myriad of problems for people as well as the local ecosystem which led to the superintendent of the National Park Service covering Cape Hatteras launching a pilot program to buy up some of the homes to tear them down, according to WTVD.

“We had to have willing sellers’ houses that were essentially in the ocean at high tide every day. We found the money to purchase those properties. We removed the houses completely, demolished them completely and restored the beach. And if we went out to that location today, you wouldn’t have much to see because it would just be a beautiful beach,” David Hullac with the U.S. National Park Service told WTVD.

Tuesday’s house collapse is the third home to collapse in Rodanthe since Friday and the 10th house collapse in the past four years.

No injuries were reported in connection with any of the collapses and the clean up efforts by authorities is ongoing.

Judge delays University of Idaho murder trial, sets August start date

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(MOSCOW, Idaho) — The long-anticipated trial against the man accused of killing four University of Idaho college students nearly two years ago was delayed on Wednesday, court officials said.

Idaho District Judge Steven Hippler originally scheduled Bryan Kohberger’s capital murder trial to begin in June 2025, but will now commence on Aug. 7, 2025, and is expected to last until Nov. 7, 2025.

It wasn’t immediately clear why the delay was set.

Kohberger, a former criminology Ph.D. student at nearby Washington State University, has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary, in connection with the fatal stabbing of four University of Idaho students — Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20 — in an off-campus house in the early hours of Nov. 13, 2022.

Attorneys for Kohberger entered a plea of not guilty on his behalf. He faces the death penalty if convicted.

Kohberger was arrested following a six-week manhunt in December 2022. He waived his right to a speedy trial.

Last month, Idaho’s Supreme Court ruled that the trial would be moved from Latah County to Boise following a request for a change of venue from the defense.

A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 7, for an argument on motions challenging the death penalty, according to court documents.