by Travis Mateer
This is me in Waco posing by the grave of William Cowper Brann. Who? Yeah, I’d never heard of him before either, but that’s what I do when I travel: I learn shit about history, then I apply what I learn to today. What a novel idea.
The title of this post comes from the first faint glimmers of REAL journalism I see emanating from THE PULP, Missoula’s new opportunity to have a marginally informed public. What article has me hoping that something may come of this publication in its infancy? This one about the murder of Delphine Farmer, written by Jule Banville, someone I’ve spoken with before.
Maybe what I told Jule Banville about my suspicions regarding the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office inspired this journalist to be more curious about her own backyard. From the link:
Sixteen months ago—Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022—was the first day of the only homicide investigation led that year by the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office. Little has been said about the murder of Delphine Farmer since.
A press release did go out that week. It let people know a reported assault in Clinton was being investigated as a homicide and that there were no threats to others near where it happened, which was inside Farmer’s house, a little over a mile up Donovan Creek Road. That’s about 20 miles from downtown Missoula, past the signs warning people that only residents should keep going up.
In October 2023, another press release stated there were “no new leads” in the case, more than a year after Farmer’s death.
A death certificate puts her death at around noon on Sept. 25, 2022, and its cause as multiple blunt force injuries. In another box on the form, it states, “decedent bludgeoned multiple times with an elk antler.”
That’s right, an elderly woman was brutally beaten to death with an antler, and 16 months later our local investigators seem incapable of making an arrest. Why? Here’s more from the article:
Search warrants, publicly filed, help fill in the narrative. Two deputies arrived around 12:30 p.m., after a 911 call where the man on the line said his sister had beaten their mother, badly, and she was unconscious. The deputies walked in to find an elderly woman on the floor, blood pooling around her head. They tried to revive her using CPR and a defibrillator and then called for medical backup. She was pronounced dead while the deputies talked to Farmer’s son and located his sister.
Farmer’s son told them his sister had gone to their brother’s house nearby. Google maps show his house sits behind their mom’s place, on the other side of Donovan Creek. When deputies went there, they learned Farmer’s daughter communicates with some American Sign Language and, mostly, in writing. They asked someone else for an overshirt she’d taken off in her brother’s house. It appeared to have blood on it. “It was also reported to deputies that [she] had a small cut on her forehead,” according to law enforcement documents filed in the case.
The Pulp is not naming the two siblings, who are named in the warrants, because they haven’t been charged. The sheriff’s office identified Farmer and gave her age.
Documents say Farmer’s son told deputies his sister “had beaten their mother with an antler.” A deputy “noticed an antler at the residence.” A search warrant for Farmer’s house lists a cribbage board punched into an antler, found in the kitchen sink.
From just this basic information, I can safely make the claim that we aren’t dealing with criminal masterminds here, more likely we’re dealing with behavior resulting from the classic combination of drugs and mental illness. So why hasn’t our Sheriff’s Office made an arrest SIXTEEN MONTHS LATER?
Well, The Pulp tried getting insight from the Sheriff’s Office, but this is how the lead Detective responded (emphasis mine):
The Pulp talked on the phone with and emailed general and specific questions to the lead detective on this case, Kelan Larson. He answered the email more than a week later by directing further questions to Public Information Officer Jeannette Smith.
Smith said there would be a meeting this week with county attorneys to decide what could be released about the Clinton homicide, but did not offer further comments. She wrote, “Please note that we have not stated, ‘no comment.’ Because this is an active and ongoing investigation there are specifics to the case that, if published, could jeopardize the investigation and any possible charges that may be brought in the future. Thus, our meeting on Thursday with the County Attorney’s office [is] to consider the questions you have posed and determine information that may be available to answer those questions.”
Smith also emailed statistics about homicide investigations. The sheriff’s office led one in 2022, confirmed as the death of Delphine Farmer, and one in 2023. The identity of the 2023 victim was not disclosed.
What the hell do STATS have to do with a particular CASE, Jeannette? Throwing out stats feels like a pathetic attempt to “handle”, not “inform”, a member of local media who, I will add, is doing something very unusual for those, and that’s ASKING QUESTIONS about a case long after the first headlines hit.
At the top of the article, Banville writes “little has been said about the murder of Delphine Farmer…” so I’ll point out that some of the “little” that WAS said was said by ME, in this post, and this one, which I wrote two months after the murder, trying to point out HOW LITTLE INFO had been released by the Sheriff’s Office. Oh, and I’ve also written about Jule Banville when her podcast got a bunch of accolades because I know someone she interviewed, but I’ll leave it at that (it’s a touchy topic).
Also at the start of the article, it’s clearly established that this was the ONLY murder investigation handled by the Sheriff’s Office ALL YEAR, so what gives? Maybe someone should ask Sheriff Petersen about this? That is, if he even exists. Since Sheriff Petersen NEVER talks to the media, or makes any public appearances that I’ve noticed (and I pay close attention), I’m really starting to wonder about this guy, but here he is being sworn in, so I guess that’s pretty good proof that he’s real.
Since it’s obvious Jeremiah Petersen is real, the next step is to get this “leader” to use his mouth to form words, words that could illuminate the public about what he’s actually doing as Sheriff of Missoula County. How about it, Jeremiah?
Maybe, when I’m back in Missoula in a few weeks, I’ll find Sheriff Petersen and ask him some questions myself, questions I doubt he’ll answer, especially when the Attorney General of Montana is up for reelection. Besides, I know what this “leader” would say, because it’s the same thing his Detectives say, and it’s this: talk to Jeannette.
Pathetic.