Trial of man accused in deadly Martin City shooting underway
Jul. 23—Doug Crosswhite unwittingly learned of his wife's death while aboard an A.L.E.R.T. helicopter following a deadly Aug. 27, 2022 shooting outside the South Fork Saloon in Martin City.
"I remember the pilot or the copilot dispatching on the radio to cancel the other life flight," Crosswhite said in a raspy voice from the witness stand in Flathead County District Court on Monday. "I didn't really have time to process who the other life flight was for."
Crosswhite, whose wife Whisper Sellars died in the gunfire, served as the prosecution's first witness in the murder trial of Del Orrin Crawford, 42, of Kila. Crawford is accused of pulling out a gun during an argument over a golf cart outside the bar and opening fire, killing Sellars and gravely wounding Crosswhite. Judge Dan Wilson is presiding over the case.
Under questioning from Special Deputy County Attorney Thorin Geist, who is prosecuting the case alongside Special Deputy County Attorney Selene Koepke, Crosswhite recalled regaining consciousness in a hospital room.
"When I came to in the hospital, I looked and my arm was held together by all these bars and I looked up and I seen my dad and I asked him, 'Where is Whisper?" Crosswhite said before his voice cracked. "She didn't make it."
In Crosswhite's retelling, he and his wife had joined his two siblings for a night of fun. With his 32nd birthday just a few days prior and Sellars' birthday upcoming, the two had left their five children with Crosswhite's mother and gone out for a joint celebration. Stopping first at a casino in Coram, the party headed to the South Fork Saloon, arriving about 9:30 p.m.
About 1 a.m., he joined Sellars and his sister in stepping outside for a smoke. By then, Crosswhite estimated he had about 10 drinks, five beers and several shots or mixed drinks. Everyone with him, he later said, was intoxicated.
Outside, they found a golf cart parked near the group's GMC Yukon. Sellars was amused, Crosswhite said, and hopped in to take a selfie. As she got off, it began rolling into a nearby rock, Crosswhite recalled.
Crawford arrived soon after with a friend and Crosswhite's group began explaining what had happened. Crawford initially thought the situation funny, Crosswhite said. But in the moments that followed he heard both Crawford's and Sellars' voices grow louder.
"I remember [Crawford] saying something along the lines of 'Why would you think that you could hop in someone else's golf cart?'" Crosswhite said.
Crawford shoved Sellars' shoulder, he recalled.
"And it wasn't terrible aggressive or anything but I was not OK with it," Crosswhite said. "So I briskly walked over and gave him a shove to the ground. And I took a step back and I point a finger at him and I said, 'Don't you ever touch my wife again.'"
He testified to remembering little of what came next. There was yelling and screaming. Someone said they would call the cops. Someone said the cops were too far away, they wouldn't get there in time.
Then he felt a "massive pain" in his arm, Crosswhite said.
PROSECUTORS CHARGED Crawford with deliberate homicide, attempted deliberate homicide, tampering with evidence and two counts of assault with a weapon in the days following the deadly shooting.
"On Aug. 27, 2022 a man's angry choices had deadly consequences," said Koepke in the prosecution's opening statement on July 22. "By the end of this trial the evidence will show that on that date the defendant ... was driven to act not by his fear but by his anger."
But Crawford's defense attorneys — led by Kris McLean, a former assistant U.S. attorney based in Missoula — argued he acted in self-defense.
"He did what he had to do in those few fateful seconds," said attorney Peter Lacny.
Crawford was a member of a second group of celebrants — a wedding party — at the South Fork Saloon that night. The group opted to continue the party at the bar, traveling from the nearby venue in a truck and golf cart.
Until the confrontation over the golf cart, the two groups had reveled peacefully inside the saloon.
Crawford, Koepke said, shoved Sellars first. Then Crosswhite shoved him, putting him on the ground between several rocks and a fence.
"You'll hear [Crawford] say that he was attacked, that people were standing over top of him and that he had no choice but to draw his firearm and shoot deliberately at [Sellars] and at [Crosswhite]," Koepke said.
But Crawford acted with intent, she said. Despite more immediate targets, he fired at Sellars and Crosswhite before fleeing, according to Koepke.
"The defendant made a conscious choice to shoot [Crosswhite], the one that pushed him to the ground, and he made a choice to shoot [Sellars], who he'll say was aggressive and in his face," said Koepke, who noted that no one else was armed during the encounter.
He also chose to give investigators differing accounts of what happened to his gun after the shooting, Koepke said. Authorities found it hidden in the wheel well of a vehicle, she said.
Lacny, though, disputed the prosecution's portrayal of events, noting that the state's account rested on the recollection of people intoxicated that night.
He argued that Sellars grew immediately angry when the confrontation over the golf cart began. Crawford, he said, never shoved her.
Thrown to the ground, Crawford was either dazed or temporarily unconscious, Lacny said. Regaining his senses, he fired and fled. Later, he called 911 and surrendered to the authorities without incident, according to Lacny.
Lacny acknowledged that video of Crawford's subsequent interview with detectives will show him displaying "strange and bizarre" behavior, like not telling them where he put the gun. Jurors should remember that Crawford had been up nearly 24 hours by then, was speaking to detectives without an attorney and had undergone a traumatic experience, Lacny said.
"Mr. Crawford was up the canyon at night ... He was outnumbered. He was, by the other group's own words, knocked to the ground," Lacny told the jury. "He defended himself. This was a case of self-defense."
