Going West: True Crime - Bryan Rein // 213

Episode Date: June 29, 2022

In July of 1996, a 31-year-old veterinarian was found dead in his Montana home. Although he was loved deeply by his family and friends, and had a passion for helping animals, he did had some enemies, one man in particular who claimed Bryan stole his girlfriend. But was he behind the killing, or was it someone else in their tiny rural town? This is the story of Bryan Rein. BONUS EPISODE patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES 1. Great Falls Tribune: https://www.newspapers.com/image/242269434/?terms=bryan%20rein&match=1 2. Great Falls Tribune: https://www.newspapers.com/image/242270876/?terms=bryan%20rein&match=1 3. Dateline: https://www.peacocktv.com/watch/asset/tv/dateline-nbc/9060582955933764112 4. Argus Leader: https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/crime/2014/05/01/brandon-man-arrested-connection-mid-s-mont-murder/8574551/ 5. Great Falls Tribune: https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/local/2016/01/07/geraldine-murder-subject-dateline-mystery/78429942/ 6. Cinemaholic: https://thecinemaholic.com/thomas-jaraczeski-now/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans, I'm your host Teeeth and I'm your host Daphne and you're listening to Going West. Thank you so much everybody for tuning in to yet another episode of Going West. Today's case is one of these ones that we've been wanting to cover for so long, it has been in our list for a while, and it's one of those cases as well that just seems to be very much under the radar. Like I feel like not enough people know about this case. Yeah, I definitely agree, and it's a very rural case, and there's there's seemingly a lot of information about this case, but for some reason it doesn't seem like it's being discussed all that much in the community

Yeah, I agree so please listen up and don't forget to share We really appreciate when you guys like post on socials and share with a friend it means a lot to us Also, we just came out with a brand new bonus episode for you guys. It's on the disappearance of Maddie Scott Yes, that case takes place in 2011 in British Columbia on a lake where a 20-year-old goes missing. It makes no sense. I would love to hear you guys think about it. And you can listen to that episode and almost 70 others on patreon.com or click the link in the description of this episode. All right, guys. This is episode 213 of Going West, so let's get into it. In July of 1992, a 31-year-old veterinarian was found dead in his Montana home. Although he was loved deeply by his family and friends and had a passion for helping

animals, he did have some enemies, one man in particular who claimed Brian stole his girlfriend. But was he behind the killing or was it someone else in their tiny rural town? This is the story of Brian Ryan. Brian Rein was born on February 14th of Valentine's Baby of 1965 to Shirley and Robert Rein, and he had two sisters named Teresa and Charlene. The three kids were born in the small town of Rocky Ford Colorado in the southeast of the state about a two and a half hour drive from Denver. But when the kids were young, the family relocated to Sugar City, Colorado, just about 20 minutes away from Rocky Ford, and that wasn't even

smaller town, with only about 300 people at the time. Growing up, Brian was very interested in farm life. He competed in livestock shows and was also a member of 4H, which is a youth development program similar to Girl in Boy Scouts, as well as the FFA or the future farmers of America. He was even pictured in the local newspaper for his participation in Western Wear competitions, showing off a belt that he made himself under the flashy title of Best Dressed Boy. In 1975, the family relocated yet again, so when Brian was about 10 years old, and this time across the state line to Scott City, Kansas, which was just a two and a half hour drive east of Sugar City, Kansas, which was just a two and a half hour drive east of

Sugar City, Colorado. So Kansas is where Brian would spend his teenage years and he graduated from high school there in 1983 and then attended Colby Community College in nearby Colby, Kansas for two years before transferring to Kansas State University. And that's where he continued to like nurture his passion for livestock, farm life, and animals by studying to become a veterinarian. After completing his doctorate degree there, he moved back to Scott City, Kansas

to start work at Sork, which was a veterinary clinic. And he was very active in his local church there as well, which was called the Holy Cross Lutheran Church. And he kept busy as a member of a livestock judging team for Western shows and competitions. He also belonged to the American Veterinary Medical Association, the Academy of Veterinary Consultants, and the Montana Stock Growers Association.

And he was known around his hometown as a good-looking guy with a heart of gold. As his career progressed, Brian decided that he wanted to go into private practice, but wasn't sure where to start. A friend of Brian's named Larry Hagginbush encouraged him to relocate to Geraldine Montana, where Larry was from, a town apparently in need of a vet clinic. Perfect opportunity, exactly.

So Geraldine was just another small town, this time with just under 300 people. But it was a place that he could live cheaply while he built his business. So although Brian had never lived this far away from home, multiple states away, he took a chance, and in 1995, he moved into a single-wide trailer just east of Geraldine that was nicknamed the Bunk House by locals. On the property of Marlene and Richard Protsman, and Marlene eventually also became the Secretary at Brian's veterinary practice. Once Brian settled into Montana life, his sister

Charlene asked Bryan if he'd been seeing anyone in town, and he told her that he'd been out with a few ladies, but no one was the one quite yet. In a town of less than 300 people, the arrival of a handsome 31-year-old doctor was a pretty big deal, so he caught the eye of many women. But then, he told his sister that he had started seeing one young woman in particular, 21 year old Ann Wishman, although he said that it wasn't very serious quite yet. He said that Ann took good care of him, even coming over sometimes to clean his house, but as soon as he started dating Ann, unsettling things started to happen to him. He was receiving phone calls with no one on the other end. He found footprints behind his house and even found a rock thrown through a window at his

clinic. So this is a lot of weird things to start happening at once and I couldn't find much on crime rates or crime rates in the town of Geraldine at this time, and it's currently the crime rates are currently less than the national average, so it's not like you move to this like crime-ridden town. It's an area surrounded by mountains and nature, and these things just happen to start occurring after dating this young woman, which is pretty worrisome. So on Wednesday, July 10th, 1996, so within a year of Brian moving to Geraldine, Brian drove three and a half hours south to Bozeman, Montana to attend a veterinary conference, and he

returned to his home in Geraldine late on the evening of Friday, July 12th, 1996. So this was just a quick two-day turnaround trip. No one saw any sign of him the following day, Saturday, July 13, but on Sunday morning, Richard Protsman, the man who lived on the property with him, ran to his wife in tears, claiming that Brian had killed himself and that they needed to call the police. So Marlene, his wife, called and reported the tragedy, telling them that it was a suicide and that her husband found him after he went to ask Brian to, like, go out to the pasture with him.

So Brian was found on his back, face up on his kitchen floor with blood pooled under his head, wearing a single water shoe on his left foot, and his own 357 magnum was lying on the floor near his left hand. Marlene repeated Richard's story to police until she saw Brian's body herself and knew before the deputies themselves even realized it that this was not a suicide. Brian's sister Teresa, who lived in Kansas, was the first to get the news of Brian's death, and she had to report it to the rest of the family. And they were all just in shock and disbelief with Brian's grandma saying that there was

no way in hell that he killed himself. And obviously it can be very hard to speculate on suicide because you can say someone wouldn't do it, but no one really knows what's going on inside someone's head except themselves, you know? Though I do think that this is a valid opinion from his family just on its face, knowing that Brian was happy and trying to start a life for himself in this new town, and knowing that weird stuff

had been happening at his home. But let's talk about why Marlene knew this was not a suicide just by looking at the scene. So another water shoe, the twin of the other one on his foot, was found on the doorstep, left in front of the house, after what looked like a struggle, so it looked like there was a struggle that happened right outside the house. Blood drops were also found there, leading back into the house, and two bullets were lodged

in the kitchen cabinet. The shots were fired at close range. The handset of Brian's landline phone was found beneath him on the floor, and a cut on his nose and a rip in his shirt indicated clear signs of a struggle. So it didn't appear all these things were not leading other people to say this was a suicide. So an autopsy revealed abrasions and contusions on Brian's head, a swollen right eye and three gunshot wounds, two to his lower right forearm, and then a fatal

shot to his chest. So clearly this is a very concerning scene where it appears without a doubt that Brian was attacked by someone else. Yeah, he's not going to beat the shit out of it, out of himself, and then shoot himself. Right, he's not gonna beat the shit out of himself and then shoot himself. Right, and also like two shots in the cabinet, like as if somebody missed and, you know, I mean, not to speculate too much on suicide itself, but like he was shot in the forearm and in the chest.

Yeah, pretty random. Yes, and of course the struggle outside, like I'm glad this wasn't one of those situations where it's like, oh, suicide, whatever. Like, they, even the police were like, no, this is not a suicide. Right. So, Shoto County hadn't seen a homicide in over 15 years.

So, unfortunately, they were ill prepared for this investigation. Montana is so big and some parts are extremely remote. And areas like this means that it's hard to get officers out there. And we actually saw this with one of our recent cases in Alaska with Spreakiller-Michael Silka, aka the Manly Hot Springs murders. Then underserved areas are just tough to get answers from. State Department of Criminal Investigation Agent Kent Thompson was brought in on Monday, July 15th, but by that time,

the crime scene had been left alone for over 24 hours. He arrived to find the crime scene mishandled and the evidence corrupted because of it. Blood swabs and fingerprints at the scene were not taken until the second day of the investigation, and the responding officers took only a dozen pictures and then cleaned up and disposed of the blood, not wanting his family to have to see the gruesome remnants of the crime. This seems like a very small town thing to do, and in a nice way, in a sense, like, oh, we're going to clean it up for the family, but it's like, but it's also like, you're not supposed to do that, you know, like, that's a nice thought, I guess, but it's also like,

do the job properly. That all, yeah, it just unfortunately corrupted the entire investigation. And once that happens, you can't go back and that's what's so frustrating about this case in particular. Right. So as far as the phone handset found underneath Brian, it was not swabbed for fingerprints or DNA, but in total 89 items were collected from the crime scene and submitted to the state crime lab for analysis. The sheriff stated

that they had their suspects in their version of what happened, but that they were still searching for a crucial piece of hard evidence that would be substantial enough to convict someone. So from the looks of the crime scene, they were able to piece together what they think happened. So, in front of the house, a fight broke out and a struggle ensued, two shots were fired into Brian's arm, and then the fatal shot into his chest. Brian then struggled into the house, losing a shoe, and grasping at the phone, attempting to call for help, but falling backwards onto the kitchen floor.

The police believed that the perpetrator watched him die, and then wiped off the gun, and placed it near Brian's left hand to indicate suicide. Which to me is such a shitty thing to do in and of itself, but like also, how do you think this was gonna pass as one? Sure, but also, he was not dumb enough to leave the gun without wiping off the fingerprints. Right. So it seems like Brian probably came home from his trip, or he had been back in Geraldine and came back to his actual house from something else within that first day, and someone was potentially waiting for him and attacked him as he was entering his house.

Yeah, that seems like the most likely scenario. But let's actually get into timing right now. So the pathologist who performed the autopsy was unsure of the exact time of death, reporting that it could have occurred essentially any time between Friday night when Brian returned home from Bozeman and a few hours before he was found on Sunday morning. So this makes things even more tough because they're saying it could have happened any time between Friday night and Sunday morning. Yeah, and nobody was there to check on him between that time frame.

Right. But as we'll get into with alibi's later on, this makes it so much harder because there's all this, there's this very big window that we're working with. Yeah. So a neighbor about a mile or 1.6 kilometers away who was a farmer, said he saw an ATV go by on Friday night and later heard two loud noises. Remember, this is a very remote area.

And this farmer and neighbor believe that those loud noises could have potentially been gunshots. Again, this is Friday night. Brian's last phone call was received at 10.15 PM on Friday night. So this could indicate that he was killed on Friday evening, right?

But alongside this, police found it strange that if he had been alive the next day, he would have gone over 24 hours with no contact in or out, so Friday seemed like a plausible day of death. Now, police gathered their list of prime suspects, including the friend of Brian's who had first encouraged him to relocate Larry Hagenbush. He had reportedly been acting erratically lately, and was also in the process of divorcing his wife, which he apparently did not ask for or want. There were also reports that he had been bad melting Brian at a local bar just before

the murder, which I just wonder what happened here because he was the one who wanted Brian to move to his town. Yeah, I'm wondering if they just had some sort of odd falling out or if maybe Larry was somewhat jealous of Brian because he's like you said, he's this new guy to town who's good looking, he's like you said, he's this new guy to town who's good looking, he's 31, you know. Yeah, I definitely see that. I wish we knew a little bit more about this TIFF

if there even was one, but yeah, it seemed like he was talking shit about Brian to other people. Yeah, and we don't know exactly how much shit he was talking, but did he just tell one person at a bar or was he telling multiple people around the town? Yeah, like how aggressive was this? Was it like, oh, I Brian pissed me off the other day? Or was it like much more than that? Right.

So meanwhile in Kansas, the Ryan family was distraught with Shirley Brian's mother barely able to function under the grief. Theresa made arrangements for the funeral which took place in Scott Valley, but many people from Geraldine came down to celebrate Brian's life, including his new girlfriend Anne. Brian's sister Teresa remembers being irritated at her presence and wondering why she was even there. But Brian had been dating Anne for about two months at the time of his murder. They met on a night out at Rusty's bar in Grille in downtown Geraldine, it's hard to imagine that there's actually a downtown of Geraldine.

It's probably very small. Yeah, with 300 people in the town. But anyway, Anne recalls that they spent the whole night talking, staying out after the bar had closed. She said she couldn't believe that she had found someone like him in her small hometown, and that she couldn't believe that he was interested in her. Now this is where things get kind of complicated, because Anne had a live-in boyfriend, a 23-year-old man named Tom Jarrisesky.

Her high school sweetheart that she had been with for four and a half years. But Brian told her that he thought that she was too young to be settling down and she agreed. She told Brian that unbeknownst to Tom and was getting up the courage to leave and told Brian that things with Tom hadn't been good for a while. But when Brian called her and left a message on their shared machine, it became harder for Anne to hide her feelings. When he confronted her about it angrily, she broke things off and moved back in with her parents on their family farm. So yeah, this is very complicated because Anne was seeing Brian while she was still dating Tom, and it hadn't been for too long before she left him for Brian,

but obviously Tom knew about this because of the voicemail. Yeah, and you have to imagine this scenario. These two people are dating, Tom's like, Anne's the love of my life. I've been dating her for four and a half years. We met in high school, and our tiny town, good-looking Brian rolls into town. Yeah.

Like, start hanging out with your high school sweetheart and the love of your life. Like, you know what I mean? It's not a good situation. It's not a good situation. And Tom is not happy. So Tom was not ready to let Ango and despite her request for space, he called her non-stop begging her to give him another chance. her non-stop, begging her to give him another chance. She finally agreed to talk with him, and he picked her up for a drive one day. But Anne immediately regretted this, just feeling like she was being held hostage in his car. Creepy.

Yeah, and they were supposed to be driving around Geraldine, but instead, without warning, Tom aggressively booked it out of town according to her. So while this was happening, and even thought about jumping out of the car and into the ditch alongside the highway just to get away from him, that's how erratic he was allegedly being. When Tom finally brought her back that evening, she was so scared that she didn't want to stay at her family's house, so she went to spend the night at Brian's.

But Tom broke in and demanded to know what was going on between the two of them, so he caught them at Brian's house, meaning he absolutely knew about Brian and where he lived, and again, he was not happy. After Brian kicked Tom out of his own house, and asked Brian if she should file a restraining order against Tom, but he said that Tom was just being a stupid kid. Because remember, Tom is 23, and is 21, and Brian is 31 at this point. And said she felt safe with Brian and that every infraction of Tom's pushed her farther away from him and closer to Brian. But Tom wasn't

done there. One night at the Wishman's Family Farm, so Anne's family, Tom broke in when no one was home, this guy loves to break into homes, and went into Anne's room to read her journal. Okay. Uh, so like it's just, yeah, getting even more weird. So she had written about how she had finally met the man of her dreams, aka Brian, but that she was terrified that someone was going to take him away from her, which turned out to be tragically prophetic. Now Tom was furious at this journal entry

and quoted her journal back at her, like in person, quoted what she had written back to her. And she was like, how the fuck did you know that? Yeah, like this pushed him away so much more, because how creepy is that? So one night when Brian was home alone, Tom actually stopped by Brian's house, claiming that his car had broken down nearby and that he needed to use the phone.

Now, Brian, the nice man he was, allowed him to do so, but thought that it was clearly aroused to see if Anne was there. Anne also remembered Tom saying, before Brian even came into the picture that if she We left off with a very scary threat from Tom, and all this happened in the weeks leading up to Brian's veterinary conference in Bozeman. Tom showing up to Brian's saying that his car had broken down, the scary car ride with Ann and Tom, and Tom breaking into Ann's house and reading her journal on top of, you know, other things.

And that 1015 PM call on the Friday night that Brian arrived back home in Geraldine was Ann. She was out of town in Great Falls, Montana for the night, just an hour's drive from Geraldine, and the two were catching up before Brian ended the conversation abruptly, which she found to be strange and very out of character for him. Ann now believes that this was his last phone call call and that he hung up when he saw that Tom had come over. Or the phone had hung up in the struggle that ensued between the two of them. While there was not yet any evidence connecting him to the crime, Ken Thompson believed that

it was enough to at least bring him in for questioning on suspicion of murder. Tom's reaction was, quote, everyone's going to suspect me, the ex-boyfriend. Uh, it's not the only reason why, dude. But Tom protested that he was innocent. He said that he remembered feeling heard at Brian's initial phone call and voicemail to the home that he shared with Ann calling her a tramp.

He also admitted to calling Ann's family and friends for updates on She and Brian's relationship, and even contacting some of Brian's old girlfriends to compile dirt on him. That's just going above and beyond. Yeah, I mean, this guy pretty much just does not stop. So Tom also admitted to calling Brian on the night that he was potentially murdered, July 12th at about 9.45 pm, 30 minutes before Brian's call with Anne, telling police that he had called to apologize and clear the air. But that when he heard Brian's voice, he chickened out and couldn't do it.

Now the medical examiner was never able to determine beyond a doubt when exactly Brian died, but based on Ann's phone call, this seemed likely to be the time that he was killed at about 10-15 pm on Friday night after they had hung up. So Tom also didn't have an alibi for Friday night after the supposed phone call, claiming he had been home alone. Which is fair, I mean, sometimes we're home alone, that's normal, but it's clear that Tom had enough aggression towards Brian to potentially carry out a violent attack against him to maybe get rid of him so he could have Anne all to himself, not that she wanted

him anyway. And you're telling me that in a rural town of 300 people, someone else had this much animosity towards a newcomer that they murdered him, like that just doesn't click to me. Also because it was never determined exactly what time or what day Brian was murdered, I mean, we can speculate of course, again, that leaves a time gap where you could have an alibi of two or three days. Right. Well, and that's why, like I said, this is tough. And we're going to talk about this throughout that episode.

But here's the thing is that so on Saturday, the day after Brian has believed to have been killed, Tom was treated at a local hospital for injuries. So he claimed that he heard his back on Friday night after falling out of his pickup truck and he was treated for back pain. Like that's just the timing. Yeah. I don't know.

So he still denied faking the car breakdown 10 days prior to the incident and claimed to police that it was a real situation but police don't believe that. So Tom remained their prime suspect, but there was not enough evidence to detain him. Because the medical examiner could not determine the exact date and time of Brian's death, and because he was last seen and heard from Friday night and not discovered until Sunday morning, it is of course possible that

Brian was killed on Saturday and not Friday. And again, Tom did not have an alibi for Friday night, but he actually did have one for Saturday. And the reverse is true for Larry Hagginbush. Larry had an alibi for Friday, but did not have one for Saturday. So again, this is so complicated. And as we mentioned at the time of Brian's death, Larry's life was in shambles, you know, his wife had left him and he was drinking excessively. He had also actually tried to kill himself

using medications that he had stolen from Brian's veterinary practice. In Larry's questioning, Kent painted a picture of a misunderstanding between the two, or even an attempted suicide by Larry that Brian had tried to stop. But Larry denied everything that was alleged. And what do you think of this heath? Because I understand why they're saying, okay, Larry could have had a motive because he was angry with his own misfortunes, but I don't know, like we said, it's actually kind of hard to speculate on this because

we don't know how much he was saying about Brian at the bars. We don't know how much he, quote, unquote, disliked Brian. Well, because we don't have a lot of physical evidence because some ding-dongs hefted up, and most of the evidence is circumstantial. I have to lean more towards Tom because there just seems to be a stronger motive. Yeah just a stronger motive in general. I mean murder

is so serious and that's why it's hard for me to believe it was Larry just based on what we know because like you're gonna kill him because of what? But again maybe there's a reason why Larry really didn't like him and would want him dead. But again, to me, murder is just like very extreme. But we're also talking about the fact that Larry tried to end his own life. Right.

You know what I mean? So it doesn't seem like if anything, it doesn't seem like he was gonna kill anybody else, but more so do something harmful to himself. That makes sense. Or one could argue that maybe he wasn't in the best mental state, and he could have done something to Brian just out of his own anger. But again, in my head I'm like, why Brian? Feels a little far-fetched, in my opinion.

Yes. So it was at this time in the investigation that a small clue came along in the form of Brian's monogrammed leather gun holster. Now Brian always kept his gun in the holster, but the magnum had been found without its holster loose next to him on the kitchen floor. With further searching, they were able to find the holster about 80 feet from his front door, where his right water shoe

in the blood droplets had been found. Police now assumed that someone had gone into the property when he wasn't home, stolen his gun, and then came back when he returned home from the conference, shot him and then discarded the holster outside. After this discovery, investigators brought a cadaver dog named Calamity Jane, which is, oh my god, a dog named Calamity Jane, that just seems so fitting for a rural town in Montana. And this dog had actually sniffed out exactly where Brian's body was found inside the home, where the holster had been found in the grass outside of the home, and then alerted to some nearby caragona bushes where it appeared that someone had been hiding out and waiting and observing

Brian because they found footprints in the dirt. Meaning, this person had gone there specifically to kill Brian. Yes, and they were hiding in these bushes watching Brian prior to the murder. So, please took many personal items from Tom, shoes, binoculars, a sleeping bag, the lining of his winter coat, but found nothing that linked him to Brian's murder. So this small community reeled from this whole ordeal. Sheriff Doug Williams said the police force received intense scrutiny from locals, and that several interviews of potential suspects early on really just became fodder for the rumor mill,

stating, quote, we notice that we would be working on something and talking to someone and the next morning, the gossip mill had them arrested and convicted. Everyone who knew and loved Brian agonized over the lack of answers. According to Brian's sisters, their mother essentially crawled into a hole for the next five years and didn't come out, while Anne felt overwhelming guilt and responsibility,

meaning she must have believed in Tom's guilt as well. 18 months after the murder, so year and a half, Tom called investigators and claimed to want to own up to something. He finally admitted to stopping by Brian's house on July 2nd, 10 days before the supposed day of the murder, to check and see if Anne was there. And police believed the admission of his lie was enough to pin the crime on him, and they arrested and charged Tom with the murder of Brian Rein. And this is so bizarre to me that he came forward with this little piece of information

that they already suspected a whole year and a half later, you know, like something weighing on you, buddy. And almost feels like in a way he's trying to cover his tracks, but maybe there's some guilt or some remorse that's inside of him that wants to, you know, maybe give a little detail, but not give it all. Right. I mean, if he is innocent, I would understand maybe originally that he didn't want police to know this because they would think he was guilty even more, but it does seem weird

like why come forward with this at all. Yeah. I don't know. even more, but it does seem weird like why come forward with this at all. But the really shitty part about this is that this case never actually went to trial. So as prosecution compiled evidence for the case, they came upon something disheartening. A key piece of evidence in their case against Tom had been a lie. It turned out that calamity Jane and her handler were not properly certified. The owner claimed that the certification documentation proving their training had been set on the roof of his car as he was leaving wherever he obtained them from, and that they blew

off the roof of his car in the wind. When questioned why he didn't simply obtain another copy, Clamity Jane's owner did not have an answer for this. So the judge threw out the evidence and freed Tom. And for Brian's family, it felt like they had lost him all over again. Something interesting about Clamity Jane though is that she had indicated to exactly the spot where Brian's body was found.

She indicated to the gun holster. Like it seemed like maybe she was good at her little job. But apparently that wasn't enough without this documentation. Which I do get like in a court of law. You want to make sure that this dog is certified and they know what they're doing, especially when somebody's life is on the line, but poor calamity, Jane. Yeah, and I guess Tom felt like he had been run out of his small town, so he actually relocated to Sioux Falls, South Dakota for a fresh start, and eventually married and

had two sons. And Wishman also left traumatized by the guilt of her possible involvement in Brian's death, and she moved to Arkansas to be closer to her sister. She's also now married and she has three kids. There was no movement in the case for almost two decades, and the tiny town of Geraldine held on to its secrets. But 18 years after Brian's murder, Agent Kent Thompson traveled without warning to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and again,

arrested Tom while he was at work. He was escorted out in the middle of the day and into the back of a police car, and at this time, Tom is in his early 40s. Tom was floored by this, thinking that he had put the allegations behind him many years ago. The lawyer that Tom had back in 1998, Bob Peterson, took Tom's case back on again, and after getting him released on bail, he poured over the documents old and new, and was shocked to find that they were exactly the same.

They had arrested him a second time for the same crime with no new evidence. So, an investigation began again, but with 18 years between police and the murder, suspects and witnesses scattered and the bunkhouse burned to the ground, they had their work cut out for them. In September of 2015, everyone suspected of involvement gathered again to try Tom in the murder of Brian Ryan. His family was so tired, Brian's family that is, of reliving the tragedy that his sister Theresa even said quote, can we not just let this go?

Ann testified that after Brian's murder, Tom continued to pursue her and tried to win her back sending her love letters. Brad Flag. Yeah. An ex-girlfriend of Tom's whom he dated after the murder also testified that Tom had told her that Anne was, quote, the love of his life. She also testified, Tom told her that before Bryan's murder, Tom had wished for him to be dead so that he and Anne could end up together. This is quite the thing to tell your current girlfriend. Yeah, why would you say that to your girlfriend?

Yeah, my ex was actually the love of my life. And I wanted this guy dead and then he was murdered. And your second best, so kind of messed up. So prosecutors claimed that Tom broke into the trailer when Brian was at the conference in Bozeman and then placed a hang up call at 9.45pm that Friday evening to ensure that he was actually home. So that he could go over and potentially kill him? Yes.

And they alleged that Tom also placed a hang up call to Anne in great falls to ensure that she was neither home nor with Brian. The neighbor who claimed to hear something that Friday evening testified that he saw a green and black Kawasaki ATV which Tom owned. In those 19 years, no one else in town had come forward saying that that had been them on the ATV that night, and that they also owned an ATV of that color, so Tom was the only one known to have this particular

ATV. They alleged that he hid in the bushes where they had found the footprints, and also where Clamity Jane indicated a person had been, then attacked Brian outside his front door. a person had been, then attacked Brian outside his front door. They struggled outside before Brian stumbled into the kitchen and reached for the phone, attempting to call for help. Tom then shot him three times, killed him, and then fled on his ATV. And this was a probable story, but there was still no evidence linking Tom to this crime because remember the crime scene was botched And the defense had few arguments that Brian's dog Cody had been found alive with Brian in the home And as far as anyone investigating could tell Cody had not gone to the bathroom inside or at least there was no evidence Found that he had so they claim that this meant that Brian could not have been killed on Friday because

it would have been impossible for him to hold it that long. Prosecution argued that he could have found a way out or hidden it somewhere or held it and that this was not a strong enough argument to point to a Saturday killing. But the defense wasn't done yet. A witness stepped forward and said that he had eaten dinner with Brian on the night of Friday, July 12. The Square-Bute Country Club is a cowboy bar in restaurant in Geraldine, and where Brian

apparently stopped for dinner on his way back into town. A man who had sat and chatted with him that night remembers him having a steak dinner, but in the autopsy performed on Brian back in 1996, no steak was found. Instead, they found scrambled eggs, green peppers, and tomatoes. There were also egg shells found in the trash, so while it's possible that this could have been like a late night snack, it seems like it could have instead been his Saturday morning breakfast. So this makes you think a lot as well.

Because yeah, he could have had a steak dinner and come home, but then he would have had to have eaten eggs before he was ambushed. So is it possible that all of this could have happened in the middle of the night or early, early morning? Or what I'm thinking is if it was Tom, maybe that was Tom on his ATV like scoping out the situation with Brian. On Friday night.

Yeah, he was, he was there, but he didn't do it Friday night and instead did it on the day of Saturday, not the night of Saturday, after Brian had breakfast. That makes a lot more sense to me. Because this would also explain why Brian didn't make any phone calls that day and why nobody saw him that entire day because maybe it happened in the morning. Very well could have been. And that would make sense that maybe he let his dog out that morning and then it would only be another like 24 hours or so until he was found.

I don't know, it's very plausible. Sure. So then Larry Haginbush took the stand. 24 hours or so until he was found. I don't know, it's very plausible. Sure. So then Larry Hagginbush took the stand. Tom's defense team painted a picture for the jury that he had gone over to Brian's to obtain more pills. Larry admitted that he had gone by Brian's house at some point that weekend, but couldn't specify when. And he also failed to come up with an alibi for Saturday. So this is kind of weird, because Larry's saying,

hey, I did go over to Brian's house sometime that weekend. But I don't remember. But we know that Brian was killed sometime that weekend. Right, but also it's just weird that did this not come out before? Did he not admit to this previously? Because I would understand why 18 years or 19 years later, you're like, oh, I don't really know, but it's like, didn't you know at the time when you found out

Brian was murdered? Yeah, this kind of throws things off for me as well. So it was reported to police that on Sunday, July 14, Larry had broken down, crying in the lobby of his counselor's office. Now, a local woman also reported that he had told her certain details of the crime scene on the Monday following his murder that had yet to have been made public, such as that Brian had been shot with his own gun, and that he had been found lying face up in a pool

of his own blood. The thing is since he was close to Brian, it's possible that he could have gotten this information from somebody else because he's like, I, this is someone I am, I know. Also, it's a very, very small town and I'm sure word travels very quickly. Right.

So maybe that's not too weird, but it's, it's the whole breaking down in the counselor's office. To me is not really as suspicious as I went to the hospital to get treated for wounds just like with Tom because remember that happened at Tom on Saturday So again if Tom had killed Brian even on Saturday morning the timing could still work out for that But with Larry we know he was in this the middle of this divorce and he was really distraught in his life So he could break down crying about like a ten other things. True, yeah, or he could have been crying about his friends being found murdered.

Very true. So, but the thing is, is that defense used this to their advantage and asked him if he remembered telling the woman any of this, and he said that he did not. Then came the most shocking revelation of the trial that for 19 years had not been made public. There was DNA found in Brian's underwear that didn't match his own. No one had an explanation for this, but defense speculated that perhaps he was seeing someone else

in addition to Ian, and that a different jealous or vengeful ex came after him. Now, the perpetrator could have been someone else entirely, someone not even on the investigators radar. All of this speculation proved to be too much for the jury, and in September of 2015, the jury found Tom not guilty. Since then, there have been no answers in Brian's case at all. The judge concluded after the trial, quote, out who did this when they wanted to solve this crime, that literally, if they believe

there's another world that they go to someday, look up Brian Ryan when you get there and ask him who killed him. Because that's the only way that we're ever going to know who killed Brian Ryan, which is crazy and so devastating that they are so sure like the judge is like, we just, there's not enough. We just have no answers. Unless somebody confesses. Anyone with information about the murder of Brian Ryan is encouraged to call the

Showto County Police Department at 406 622 5451. 5-1. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode, and on Friday we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. I still think the fact that Tom had a lot of motive, cold brine that night, and again went to the hospital on Saturday. Makes him a pretty likely suspect in my eyes, but I would love to know what you guys think. Absolutely, I couldn't agree more.

I think with all the circumstantial evidence that we have, and that we know of, it just feels like there's no other solution. But would they even be able to arrest him again? I mean, they have officially arrested him twice for the same crime. I don't even think you could do that twice. I'm really not sure and I wish if somebody has that information about double jeopardies and things like that Please let us know because It's different in every state, so I don't know what it's like for Montana.

True, true. Yeah, and I'm just not positive like maybe He can't be tried for this again because he's already been tried Which would be so unfortunate because it seems like if they do ever have enough evidence that, you know, now that's lost, that chance is lost, but I don't even know if they will. It's just so devastating. His poor family, but I did read that, you know, they're all doing very well and have tried to put his murder behind them and just remember him for the wonderful person he was. But it's just so sad that this amazing young man

did not get to continue his life and just live his life as a vet. So again, thank you guys so much for listening. We are on social media. Check us out on Instagram at GoingWestPodcast, Twitter at GoingWestPod, and we're on Facebook. All right, guys, so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. Thank you. you