Infamous America - MANHUNT Ep. 6 | Don Nichols: “The Trials and the Aftermath”

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

The prosecution of Don and Dan Nichols should be simple and easy, but it turns into a circus. The spectacle is heightened by the unstoppable media coverage and the rush to turn the story into a bestselling book or a hit movie. All the while, Kari Swenson makes an incredible recovery with the goal of returning to international biathlon competitions. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. This show is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please visit AirwaveMedia.com to check out other great podcasts like Ben Franklin’s World, Once Upon A Crime, and many more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the five months that Don Nichols and his son Dan were on the loose in the Big Sky Wilderness area, the description of their appearance was consistent. They had messy, shaggy hair. They wore green army fatigues, or at least something that looked like, green army fatigues. It was hard to tell because the clothes were covered with dirt and grease. They were thin, and when they were finally arrested by Sheriff Johnny France, their hands were black with soot. Basically, they were dirty and ragged, which didn't surprise anyone since they'd been living in the woods and running and hiding from the police for months.

But when it came time for the trial, the defense attorneys made sure that the smelly, crazy mountain man look was erased. So it must have been a shock for the audience when Dan Nichols walked into the courtroom. The soot and dirt and grease were gone. His long blonde hair had been cut and neatly combed. He looked almost boyish, much closer to the high school yearbook photo that Carrie Swenson used to identify him than the scraggly kidnapper who shot her in the chest. And the change in appearance wasn't the only trick the defense attorneys had up their sleeves. Before the trial even started, it became a circus. From Black Barrel Media, this is Infamous America.

I'm your host, Chris Wimmer. In this season, we're telling two stories of American man hunts across six episodes. This is story number two, episode three, the trials and the aftermath. In December 1984, Sheriff Johnny France of Madison County, Montana, single-handedly arrested Don and Dan Nichols. They were wanted for the murder of Alan Goldstein and the kidnapping and attempted murder of American bi-athlete Kerry Swenson. The father and son duo were armed and extremely dangerous.

They'd been camping illegally on a rancher's land, and the rancher had alerted the sheriff. A larger operation had been planned, but Sheriff France didn't want to wait for the rest of the troops to assemble. He jumped on a snowmobile and sped out to the Nichols campsite by himself. He caught the pair off guard

and held them at gunpoint. He bluffed them and said he had backup just out of sight. He basically used the old trick of saying, we've got you surrounded, throw down your guns, and come out with your hands up. and they believed him. Don and Dan surrendered without issue.

Authorities took them to Virginia City and then Bozeman, and the legal battles began almost immediately. Don and Dan were going to be tried separately. Don was charged with kidnapping, aggravated assault, and murder. Dan was charged with kidnapping and aggravated assault for shooting carry in the chest. But Dan was looking at a potential homicide charge too. Montana state law held that if a death occurs in the commission of a felony, all parties who were involved in the felony could be charged with homicide as well.

So if a jury convicted Dan of felony kidnapping, he could also be convicted of the murder of Alan Goldstein, since the murder happened during the kidnapping. But other issues quickly arose. In addition to the criminal cases filed by the state of Montana, the Swenson's filed a civil case against the nymphsons. Nichols pair. Like Kerry's rescue five months earlier, the capture of the fugitives was immediately front-page news. As soon as the duo were in jail, publishers and movie producers flooded

Sheriff France's mailbox with offers to buy the rights to the story of Don and Dan Nichols. The Swenson's argued that it would be a violation of Carrie's rights as a victim for either Don or Dan to benefit financially or reputational from the publication of the crime. crimes they committed. And Sheriff France was the man of the hour for his heroic capture of the notorious suspects. He received offers as well, and he didn't shy away from the sudden notoriety. His lawyer and personal friend, a man named Lauren Tucker, claimed that France wanted to be played by Clint Eastwood. Reporters wrote that France could be a stand-in for any scenes filmed on horseback, and that he would have preferred that any potential film made about the incident

be filmed on location in Montana. Tucker assured the public that factual accuracy would be important, as well as financial considerations, of course. None of the talk sat well with the Swenson's, but there was a much bigger problem than a discussion about movie rights. Tucker was the prosecuting attorney for the state of Montana against Don and Dan Nichols. The Swincons argued that it was an incredible conflict of interest.

Tucker couldn't represent, Sheriff France in his attempt to make money off the story and be the lead prosecutor in the case. And the Montana Attorney General agreed. Tucker was replaced by a special prosecutor. And incidentally, as a footnote, a TV movie was made in 1987, three years after the kidnapping. It was creatively titled The Abduction of Carrie Swenson, and it did not star Clint Eastwood as Sheriff Johnny France, or anyone else for that matter. In fact, the movie made the other sheriff, the sheriff of Gallatin County, John Onstad, the primary law enforcement official.

And as a second footnote, the movie was directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal, the father of popular actors Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal. As the real-life trial played out, it revealed some things that might have been the reasons why Sheriff France's character was relegated to the background. The pre-trial hearings were damning to Sheriff France, and damaging to the prosecution. Stephen Unger, the attorney for Dan Nichols, tore into Sheriff France for nearly every aspect of the search for Carrie Swenson.

Unger urged that multiple aspects of the collection of evidence and maintenance of the crime scene were sloppy or flat out wrong. He said the clearing where Carrie had been chained to the tree and shot was not properly secured. He said the crime scene photos, which were taken by Sheriff France, were poorly developed. In addition, they were shot in black and white. This was the mid-1980s, which might seem like ancient history to some, but it wasn't that long ago. Color photography had been around for decades, and it was standard procedure to take crime scene photos in color.

Sheriff France admitted that he used a camera that was not the department's camera, despite the fact that the department's camera was available. And all this was relatively little stuff. The big stuff was yet to come. France's model of the crime scene was put together without the use of proper measuring equipment, which meant it wasn't accurate and it was thrown out of court. And then there was a really big one. The spent cartridges at the crime scene were lost. The cartridges of the bullets that were fired by Don and Dan,

the one that nearly killed Kerry Swenson and the one that did kill Alan Goldstein, disappeared from evidence. They were initially stored in an envelope after they were collected in the clearing, but then, somehow, they vanished. And those weren't the only problems with evidence. The lawyer for Dan Nichols said Sheriff France seized property from the suspects without a warrant. During the arrest, France confiscated identification and journals and drawings that were made by Dan. France made copies of all the documents.

He answered Unger's accusation of illegal seizure with a bit of a sidestep. He said he made copies solely for the purpose of inventory. He did not intend to use them as evidence. And after the problems with the evidence, there were problems with questioning the suspects. The defense noted that France questioned the fugitives while transferring them from one facility to another. Don and Dan Nichols didn't have their lawyers present. So the defense attorneys argued that the questions violated their client's constitutional rights. They wrote a letter demanding the return of the documents and filed a motion saying that any statement made to Sheriff France during the transfer was inadmissible.

The judge signed the letter and granted the motion. So a prosecution that should have been pretty straightforward suddenly had some uphill battles. Now that certainly doesn't mean it was a lost cause or anything. like that, but there were just some unnecessary issues in the early stages. Dan Nichols' trial was the first on the schedule, and the last big thing to do before it began was a psychological evaluation. It was a common procedure that was ordered by the court. The court-appointed psychologist provided a lot of insight into Dan's state of mind and his relationship with his father. Dan's lawyer liked the results. He believed it helped the defense of his client, so he asked the court to provide funding for another evaluation.

The judge agreed, and Dan went through an evaluation with a different psychologist. Apparently the results of the second evaluation were encouraging as well, and the defense attorney believed he was prepared for trial. The proceedings began in May of 1985, in Virginia City, Montana, and the defense hit a setback with the psychological evaluation. right away. The first psychologist testified in court, and then the court learned that the person was not licensed in the state of Montana. All the testimony was stricken from the record. But the strategy of Dan's lawyer paid off. He'd convinced the court to order two evaluations, and the second one stayed on the record. The defense was about to paint a sympathetic picture of Dan Nichols, but they couldn't overlook a couple glaring problems with that picture.

The evaluation revealed that Dan had a difficult childhood that was at least partially due to a domineering father. The defense argued that Dan was, at most, an accomplice who was extremely susceptible to the power of suggestion. He also did as instructed without question. The defense said that Don Nichols loomed so large in Dan's mind that Dan could not have thought for himself on the day of the kidnapping or otherwise. In essence, Dan's lawyers placed a blame for all the events of July 15th and 16th, and the manhunt that followed on dawn. As violent and as ill-advised as the kidnapping was, it was yet another facet of Dan's life, which was totally controlled by his father.

Dan's testimony was meant to support the story. His lawyer allowed him to take the stand, an act that we've all seen debated in countless movies and TV shows. almost universally, the defense lawyers tell their clients not to testify, and this is probably why. Dan admitted to tying Carrie's wrists with nylon. He admitted to chaining her to a tree, and he admitted to shooting her. None of that was surprising. It was commonly accepted. So his lawyer asked if Dan had ever considered letting Carrie go on any of the several occasions when Don's attention was elsewhere. Dan said, yes, he had. And then he played.

into the psychological evaluation. He added that he felt that letting Carrie go wasn't his decision to make. He thought his father was the only one who could make that choice. On cross-examination, the prosecution started blasting holes in Dan's story and the defense's theory. The prosecutor said that even if Dan was under his father's influence, he, Dan, wasn't totally ignorant. The prosecutor pushed Dan to admit that he knew, right from wrong, despite his domineering father. Dan knew that taking a woman against her will was illegal. Tying her wrists and chaining her to a tree was illegal. Every act along the way was

illegal. Dan agreed to all of it, and then they made it to the shooting. Dan used a simple explanation for the shooting. It was an accident. He hadn't meant to shoot Carrie, and he wasn't really aiming at her. The prosecution had an equally simple response. That was garbage. Dan was a hunter. He knew how to operate a firearm. He hit what he aimed at. And then the prosecutor went straight at the core of the defense, the psychology, Dan's state of mind. The second psychologist testified that Dan's obedience to his father was the result of a traumatic childhood and that Dan was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Dan was not acting independently,

and therefore was not criminally responsible for the kidnapping or the shooting. The prosecution disagreed. Not only did Dan's childhood not meet the medical criteria for trauma, but it was Dan who had first seen Carrie on the trail. Dan chose to tell his father about her. He didn't have to,

and when he did, he knowingly participated in everything that followed. Don and Dan voluntarily lived in the woods and avoided society in its rules. On the surface, that was fine. But just because they didn't care about the law, that didn't mean they could break it. They shot livestock and stole supplies when they felt like it. Those would have been hanging offenses in these parts less than a hundred years ago. And kidnapping a young woman, kidnapping anyone for that matter,

was just as illegal as if they had lived in a little house on a quiet street in Bozeman rather than in the wilderness. And the jury agreed, with two of the three charges anyway. Dan Nichols was found guilty of kidnapping and aggravated assault. But despite Montana's felony rule, the jury found him not guilty of murder. The judge reluctantly accepted the ruling and sentenced Dan to ten years in prison. And then came the trial of Don Nichols. It illuminated more of the mindset, philosophy,

an outlook on society he'd imposed on his son. And it basically had the same effect on the jury. Don Nichols' warped set of values went like this. He admitted he and his son used force to restrain carry. But he called kidnapping a sinister term and denied that his actions on July 15th amounted to kidnapping. Instead, it came from a desire, in his own words, to have a tribe. Later, Don furlily.

explained his rationale. The plan was for he and his son to keep Carrie for a few days. If she discovered that she didn't like living outdoors with the family Nichols, they would have shown her how to get back home. It almost read like a Scooby-Doo cartoon. His plan would have worked if it hadn't been foiled by those pesky kids. Alas, the search party found Carrie after just 18 hours, and then it all went horribly wrong. During the trial, Don tried to to explain the murder of Alan Goldstein. From Don's point of view, he saw two men rush into his camp, and one of them, Alan Goldstein, had a rifle.

Don said that Alan was holding the rifle with both hands in a manner that Don felt was threatening. Don thought Alan was about to shoot, so Don fired first. The prosecutor illustrated that Don was probably lying. When lawmen arrived at the clearing a few hours after the shooting, they found Alan's body. His rifle laid next to one hand and his radio lay next to the other.

It was almost a certainty that Alan was not holding his rifle with both hands in a threatening manner. And maybe the strangest piece of logic from Don's trial was his assumption that Carrie might like living in the woods with he and his son.

He said she looked like someone who was nice enough, but who didn't have a lot of roots in society. He couldn't have misjudged her more if he had tried. The jury might have believed that Don believed the things he said, but it didn't help him. The jury found him guilty on all charges, kidnapping, aggravated assault, and murder. The judge sentenced him to 85 years in prison. The entire saga was well publicized. Events like the rescue, the arrest, and the trial made national news. And in the

intervening weeks, any mention of Kerry Swenson or the kidnappers made the front pages of Montana newspapers for two or three days at a time. That was understandable enough, given Carrie's international athletic status. But the Swenson soon arrived at the conclusion that the coverage was sensationalized and therefore liable to do more harm than good. In the Swenson's view, one of the problems was the use of the term mountain men to describe the father and son. Like the reporting on Claude Dallas, mountain men conjured images of rugged individuals who lived off the land. Strictly speaking, that was true, but Claude Dallas and Don and Dan Nichols weren't the same breed as the men who went west in the early 1800s. The Swenson's thought that some of the reporting obscured

the actions that landed Don and Dan in the papers. They'd commanding. They'd commanding. They'd committed kidnapping, assault, and murder. That should be the focus, not their lifestyle as so-called mountain men. The mountain man characterization proved so persistent that, as recently as 2012, Carrie Swenson wrote a guest column in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. She said the Nichols boys were not mountain men at all, and that Don had only surrendered in December of 1984 because he and his son were exhausted from hiding in the wilderness for five months. And at that time in 1984, the Swenson's issued a statement urging the media and the public to focus on the heroism of Alan Goldstein, not on the kidnappers.

But the statement went unheeded. When it was announced that the trials would take place in Virginia City, the papers wrote about local business owners who saw it as an opportunity to bring some money back into town. Some sold buttons and shirts that featured pictures of Don and Dan Nichols. A bar owner sponsored a Dan Nichols lookalike contest, though the contest was, thankfully, shut down by prosecutors ahead of the trial. And then there were the upcoming books and movies. And through all of it, Carrie Swenson tried to recover from her near-death experience to get

back on the international stage once again. In the pages of the Missoulean, the newspaper in Missoula, Montana, readers found excerpts of a proposed novel and screenplay about the rescue of Carrie Swenson. The excerpts seemed to highlight the role of Sheriff Johnny France in particular. In 1986, two years after the rescue, a book called Incident at Big Sky was released. It was written in part by Sheriff France. But in addition to the controversy around the sheriff's actions that came out at the trials, there was controversy at the time of the arrest as well. Sheriff John Onstad, of neighboring Gallatin County called the single-handed arrest grandstanding.

But others suggested Onstad's response was simply bitterness for not having made the arrest himself. And the TV movie The Abduction of Carrie Swenson premiered in living rooms across the country. It featured Sheriff Onstad a little more prominently than Sheriff France. But the person who stole the show that year was Carrie Swenson. Throughout the second half of 1984, while the second half of 184, the sheriffs looked for Don and Dan Nichols, Carrie recovered at an incredible pace. After surgeries to repair her collapsed lung and the gunshot wounds to her chest and back, she had to see a series of specialized doctors from cities as far away as Seattle.

As Carrie's strength returned, she pushed herself to get back to the world of competitive biathlons. She started by walking short distances. Then she moved up to jogging and running on outdoor trails like the one where she'd been kidnapped just a couple months earlier. She began ice skating on ponds near Bozeman. Before long, she could handle horseback riding, and then shooting. Between medical treatments and physical therapy, she was returning to her old form. By the end of 1984, she was fit enough to participate in local biathlon competitions. One emotional event was the memorial race for Alan Goldstein,

at the Lone Mountain Ranch. And then, in January 1985, she made her triumphant return to top-flight competition. She won the gold medal in the U.S. biathlon national championships. A few weeks later, she put on the U.S. jersey once again and competed for the American team in the 1985 world championships in Italy and Austria. In 1986, in her final competition,

there was a poignant moment. She competed in Oslo, Norway, the home of the biathlon, and she finished fourth in the event. During the race, the crowd chanted her name and shouted encouragement. And during the medal ceremony, the Canadian who finished third brought Carrie up onto the podium as a special honor. After that send-off, Carrie retired from competition. Three years later, in 1989,

another book about her story arrived on shelves. It was called Victims, the Carrie Swenson story, and it was written by her mother Janet. It drew from court transcripts, interviews with law enforcement, newspaper reports, and obviously Carrie's memories. It was intended to provide insight into Carrie's experience and to focus on the roles of the searchers who worked so hard to find her, the friends, family members, coworkers, and deputies,

who were somewhat overlooked in previous books and those who helped in her recovery. Shortly after the book was published, Carrie entered the next phase of her life. She graduated from Colorado State University with a degree in veterinary medicine. She is currently Dr. Carrie Swenson at a clinic in Bozeman, Montana. She coaches and mentors young athletes who dream of competing in biathlons, but she rarely talks publicly about her experience in 1984. She broke her silence in 2012 when she wrote a piece for the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. That was in response to the recent arrest of Dan Nichols.

Dan served five years of his 10-year sentence and was released on parole in 1991. He was arrested in 2011 in a federal drug case and was sentenced to four more years in prison. He was released in 2015 and reportedly still lives in Montana. Kerry broke her silence again in 2019 for an interview with ESPN, possibly as a result of the release of Don Nichols. Don served 32 years of his 85-year sentence, and he was released in 2017 at the age of 86. The parole board grilled him before granting his release, and he said simply, it was wrong and I don't know what else to say, and I feel bad about it. He lives quietly in Montana, and his movements are monitored by a GPS tracker,

and he can never again go into Madison or Gallatin counties. Thanks for listening to Manhunt here on Infamous America. We'll do more of these shorter stories down the road, but up next, we'll return in the new year with a story I'd planned to do way back in season two. The Ballad of 1930s Bank robber, Pretty Boy Floyd. That's next time on Infamous America. And members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week. They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials.

Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships began at just $5 per month. This season was co-executive produced by Steve Walters and Associates, with ritual productions. Research and writing by Dante Flores. Original music by Rob Belia. Audio editing and sound design by Dave Harrison. I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer.

Find us at our website, blackbarrelmedia.com or on our social media channels. We're Black Barrel Media on Facebook and Instagram and B-Barrel Media on Twitter. And you can stream all our episodes on YouTube. Just search for Infamous America Podcast. This show is part of the Airwave Media Podcast Network. Please visit airwavemedia.com to check out other great podcasts like Ben Franklin's World, Once Upon a Crime, and many more.

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