Snapped: Women Who Murder - Joe Campbell

Episode Date: December 28, 2025

Serenity in the Montana mountains is shattered when a man is shot to death on his neighbor's land.Season 33 Episode 06Originally aired: Dec 3, 2023Watch full episodes of Snapped for FREE on the Oxygen app: https://oxygentv.app.link/WatchSnappedPodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the wilderness of Montana, an outdoorsman is killed on his neighbor's land. There were shots fired. One wound's down. We need somebody up to him now. I noticed what looked like a gunshot wound to his hand and a gunshot wound that hit his best. But was the shooting justified? He reached for a gun, so he drew first and shot him. He said it was in self-defense.

When someone shot in the back, how was it self-defense? The investigation reveals a bitter and escalating feud. He wanted to be king of the mountain. He wanted to run the place. You're just passing. We are. Yeah. For about three-quarters of a fucking mile.

It's a case that proves fences might make good neighbors, but sometimes they can start a war. Both were packing weapons openly and were ready for trouble. It was a constant fight and battle up there. He said the next time you see him it's going to be in a body bag. Nestled in the foothills of Montana's Flathead National Forest, is a remote getaway known as Diamond Bar X. It's a sportsman's paradise.

There's a couple of rivers that run through the area of the Deerborn River and Falls Creek. There's hunting, fishing, backpacking, horseback riding, any kind of outdoor recreation. People are down home. It's a very nice, small, tight-knit community. But on October 18, 20th, 2013, the Serenity is threatened when the local sheriff's department receives a 911 call from homeowner Tanny Converse.

911. What is your emergency? Hi. You need the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff to come up the Upper Deerborn up Falls Creek, having an altercation with a neighbor. And what's going on? And then I can shop. I'm sorry. The neighbor ran us down. with the ATV and he's just ranting and raving at us. Okay, what's the neighbor's name? Tim Newman.

We've had quite a bit of problems with him before. We've had trouble in that area before with these two particular individuals. She was concerned that there was trouble, and she wanted somebody right away. Tanny says her husband, Joe Campbell, is still arguing with Tim. and she's afraid things might get out of hand. Unfortunately, the nearest deputy is over 20 miles away. The response to this area is very difficult. You get to go on a highway, partway,

then the road turns to gravel, and then it turns to dirt. I called in, and I was told that there were two males in a verbal argument, a Table Mountain, Joe Campbell and Tim Newman, And they need me to go out and talk with him. Before Deputy Steiner can get there, a second call comes in. 9-1-1. What is your emergency? Hi, I just called the county converse up by Falls Creek. I'm in the upper Deerborn.

Yes, ma'am. The altercation was a neighbor. There were shots fired, and one of them's down. So we need somebody up there now. That stepped up that response from the deputy who run lights and sirens to get there. It took me about 20, 25 minutes to get out to that area. Once I crested at the top of the hill, I was able to see the two individuals. I saw Joe Campbell standing on the opposite side of a cattle gate.

And then lying on the ground was Tim Newman. On the ground near Tim is a 357 revolver and a pair of bolt cutters. Campbell's gun, a semi-automatic pistol, is resting in his holster. I started to walk up towards the gate and just talking to Joe, telling him to keep his hands up, where I could see his hands and tell him to not make any movements. And then I checked on Tim. Tim was laying on his back with his... hands outstretched. I noticed what looked like a gunshot wound to his hand and a gunshot

wound that hit his vest. I tried for a pulse. I didn't feel any pulse, didn't see any breath movements, and so I knew he had been passed away for a little while. How did this end and how come it ended where we have Tim Newman dead on this road? Born on August 27th, 1960, Timothy Bruce Newman always had a passion for the outdoors. Tim, I believe, was born in California. I spent his early childhood there, and as he was starting out in life and discovering what he wanted to do, I know he came to Montana a few times as a young man. He's got family in eastern Montana, multi-generational ranchers over there.

I think that's how he fell in love with the place, and he was looking for his own piece of paradise. Tim especially loved an area known as the Bob Marshall Wilderness, which locals call The Bob. The Bob is one of the largest wilderness areas. Horseback or foot is the only way in there. It's pristine wilderness the way it was 10,000 years ago. In 2001, Tim fulfilled his dream of moving to Montana

after his first marriage ended in divorce. He had moved to Great Falls and he had become an electrician and he was looking for a cabin to build or to remodel. He had a successful business. I guess I partly based that on the fact that he was able to buy a place up to the Diamond Bar X to have an extra home.

Tim was great friends with my parents. Tim had recently purchased his property and as a cabin owner my dad and Tim had just a ton of interest together and so they just automatically click the love of horses, love of the land, hunting, fishing, they really hit it off. He was avid hunter.

Loved being in the Rocky Mountains and that cabin afforded him the ability to do that. Tim's cabin had fallen in, to disrepair over the years, so he spent most of his free time renovating it. In Diamond Bar X, he found a community full of kindred spirits. Everybody had the same interests and the same mindset to come up on the weekends, enjoy your cabin, enjoy your friends, enjoy your neighbors. It was very friendly. The bottom bar was open and had restaurant there and everything,

everything, and everybody'd stop it and visit and stuff, and then head on up to their cabins for the weekend. Tim was a great guy. He was one of those persons that would do anything. He'd give you the shirt off his back. Tim was just a kind-hearted soul, I believe. In 2003, Tim's neighbors repaid his kindness by setting him up on a date with a divorcee named Jackie. Tim and Jackie were both freshly divorced off of other marriages,

and they fell in love, and they found their soulmate. Jackie's a beautiful lady, and I know that Tim loved and respected her not only for her physical beauty, but she's a very beautiful person on the inside, very caring and giving person. Tim proposed to Jackie after only two weeks. In May 2004, Tim and Jackie got married. They lived and worked in nearby Great Falls, but spent their weekends in Diamond Bar X, transforming the cabin into their dream vacation home.

They were both very hard workers, and they would set a goal and work together to attain those goals. All the work that they did is just incredible. If you could see before and after pictures, it's amazing. You could see they were soulmates. They belonged together. They belonged up there. this was just kind of their heaven on earth but now those dreams have been shattered

Tim is lying dead on the trail to his beloved wilderness shot by one of his neighbors Joe Campbell Joe is standing there with his hands up I had a thing of like how am I going to get him to come through the fence without him putting his hands down because he'd get too close to his gun for me. So I explained to him to keep his hands on his fence

and put the holster next to the gate so I could unholster his gun. When I removed Joe's gun from his holster, the magazine was still in the gun, and there was one in the chamber. Jory laid to me that Tim pulled a gun on him, and Joe said he had defended himself. We know there's history.

We've been there multiple times. This is something that we had hoped for a day that would never come. So we had an index of suspicion that we needed to investigate this very thoroughly. The two sides of the story, we were able to talk to one. Coming up, investigators learn more about a long-standing feud. He right-of-way said, it's private property, and you can't trespass on my property. and grabbed the shotgun and pointed it at us. And one story isn't quite adding up.

I think it was staged after the fact. Montana sheriffs are investigating the death of Tim Newman, who was shot during an altercation in the remote area of Diamond Bar X. Who shot him is no mystery. Tim's neighbor, 67-year-old Joe Campbell, has already admitted to pulling the trigger in self-defense. When I got there, Joe was in the back of Deputy Steiner's vehicle.

He seemed emotional, as you would expect. He's just in a shooting. At that point, I read Joe his Mirandaites, and he agreed to talk to Thineers' vehicle. a lawyer present. Knowing these rights, do you wish to talk to me? And if you say yes now, you can stop at any time answering the questions. It's up to you.

I will. I'm wondering whether I shouldn't, but I will. Yes. He was angry that he'd been handcuffed because he felt that it was self-defense and he shouldn't have been handcuffed. I'd never really talked to Joe before. So I have to use that moment in time and all my years of service to figure out, okay, is this guy telling me the truth or not?

According to Campbell, this isn't the first time he's locked horns with Tim Newman. He says the shooting was the culmination of a longstanding feud. Joe Campbell came into the area in 1998. Tim and Joe used to get along. He did mention that when he first met Joe Campbell, he seemed all right. seemed like he was just going to be another guy up there with horses and outdoors men and a hunter and then he partnered up with someone else

and they bought up all the land up there that was available and that's when things started to change. Joe bought up land and didn't want anybody crossing it. Tim took offense to that and that's where the dispute came about. Tim Newman believed that there were some trails that were public access to get into the Forest Service. where Joe Campbell believed that public access

was not able to go through his land. There was a historical path that was called a pony trail that people probably in the early 1900s had gone on this area. It's a way to get to public land and go through Joe's land. He felt that people were abusing the privilege

of crossing his land and not respecting whatever he had. So he locked the gates. He said, no more. I don't want anybody crossing. Tim Newman felt he couldn't do that, that it was a historical easement. There was no easement.

There was nothing. But I think he would just determine that that's the way he was going to go. Campbell says after purchasing the land in 2000, the feud heated up when Tim cut the locksheed install. and reopened the path. He'd caught Tim before, moving across his land. Go to the West, you just don't go crossing people's private land

without talking to them, acquiring permission. There's laws about trespassing. Joe felt that Tim was not respecting him, and Joe was calling the sheriff's office. Everyone knew that Joe and Tim were fighting all the time. I mean, it was a common occurrence up there. Tim would cut a lock, Joe would put a new one on. Tim would cut a lock, Joe would put a new one on.

It just kept escalating and escalating. Newman, forcing the issue and cutting locks and continuing to trespass, continuing to get tickets. It's been going on for quite a while. He's been driving around, making threats and driving through our meadows, and new deputies have been nothing but super coming up here and responding to responding to trouble calls and threats and that sort of thing. Campbell tells investigators it all came to a head that afternoon

as he and his wife Tanny were taking a walk along the access trail. Tim had been following them on a four-wheeler as they'd been walking. He said as soon as you leave, I'm going to cut the lock, and it seemed like he was getting a little more agitated. So then Joe's wife Tanny went down the hill to make the initial 911 call. A moment later, Campbell says, Tim approached brandishing a pair of bolt cutters and a gun. Joe said I told Tim that I was armed just so he would know that I was armed. But the warning went unheeded.

It just happens really fast. He reached around behind him and they pulled out his gun. I don't know if he fired or not. And his gun was pointing at me and that's when I do my gun. I shot, and he was thrown around. I thought I'd hit him, but I wasn't sure, and he's front around, and he still had the gun in his hand, and he was going down. I shot him again.

I think that was maybe the lower back or something, I don't know. What he described initially was plausible. Was it possible? We didn't know. So we didn't arrest him. We didn't take custody of him at that moment. Following the law, we had to let them go. It was not enough to overcome the law that said we have to prove that it wasn't self-defense.

Our stand-your-ground law is extremely strong. If you are in reasonable fear of bodily injury, you get to use reasonable force to defend yourself, including a weapon. After taking Campbell's statement, detectives inspect the crime scene. We got together with the coroner, and once the death was pronounced,

then we were able to process Tim. I hate to say it that way, but we start taking pictures of Tim, unzipping clothes, rolling over, taking pictures, just seeing where everything is at. Crime scene was consistent, because, you know, Joe talked about where Tim had parked his four-wheeler,

and there was a four-wheeler on scene. Joe talked about Tim walking up to a gate, and Tim was found within a few feet of the gate. Joe said he was on his property, on his side of the gate, and that's where Joe and all the shell casings were. Next to Tim was his revolver. It was a six-shot revolver laying on the ground. I didn't see any evidence of his gun being fired.

Investigators collect the evidence and transport Tim's body to the medical examiner for autopsy. Once the crime scene is secured, officers turn their attention to Joe's wife, Tanny, to corroborate his story. Joe's wife was there to support Joe. Tim Newman was the instigator, and Tim Newman was the aggressor, and Tim Newman was the one who had, had caused all of this and that Joe had to act in self-defense. Less than an hour into the investigation, the case already appears to be closed. But not everyone believes Joe's story.

As we were leaving the area, a female had flagged us down, and it was Tim's wife. Someone had already told her that Tim was dead. She was very sad, frustrating. angry, mad at the situation. She was crying and said, I asked Tim not to do it. Hours after the fatal shooting of Tim Newman,

investigators accompany his grieving widow, Jackie Newman, back to their idyllic cabin in the woods. They find a group of friends and neighbors gathered there in support. Sue called me, my wife, and told me what had happened, and within an hour and 40 minutes, the word had spread. When I talked to Jackie, she clearly was in mourning and distress. Jackie didn't say a lot to me, and I didn't expect her to. He just found out her husband had been killed, crying, angry.

everything that you would expect. Although no one saw the shooting, several mourners think Joe Campbell made up his story of self-defense. It seems many of them have also had problems with Campbell. They got the drift that Joe Campbell had been pretty oppressive to these folks. I'm not sure what prompted the change in Joe,

But when people have an opportunity to behave badly and they get away with it, it emboldens them to continue that behavior. I believe he thought he could get away with murder. There was years of frustrations and years of confrontations leading up to that day. Joe was always rubbing everybody the wrong way and saying things and doing things by actions that weren't part of the community up there that we were all used to. But it didn't start out that way.

At first, Joe and Tanny seemed to get along with everyone. They owned property up the hill from us. It's the little ways, the crow flies. He worked for the foresters for a number of years, and then they had retired up to the Diamond Barrax and Tanny was doing some computer work from home, which back in those days nobody did, but now everybody's doing it. They did a lot of trail running,

and so we'd see them go up higher place, and they'd wave. And we got married at the waterfall that's just below our place, and Joe and Tanny were there, just like all the other neighbors. However, things took a turn once Campbell bought up all of the undeveloped property in the area. There was a little over 600 acres, kind of patchworked all over the mountain, a lot here, a lot there, you know, some bigger chunks. As soon as he got to another land, he just changed 100% and talked to you. I mean, he'd just complain about everything. If you crossed any part of his land, he was having a fit.

Campbell started putting up gates on all the roads that we had accessed, in particular the trails and the trails. the roads we had used to access forest service land and claim that he owned them and everybody who had been using them didn't have access. He can block off all these access points that we had used for years and years and it had been a traditional use in there for a hundred years and all we were doing is passing through his property into the forest service and he was going to do whatever it took to stop people from going through his land. Tim Newman wasn't the only only one who had a problem with the changes. There was some bad blood between Joe Campbell

and anyone else that wanted to exercise their rights to enter the wilderness. Every place you'd go, you run into him, and he was always hollering at you to get back on the road. You've got to have permission to come up here. Neighbors say they tried reasoning with Campbell to no avail. We tried to have a community meeting, To talk about it, he came to that community meeting

and basically said, I own the land, I can do what I want. Some people are greedy. He just wanted it all for himself and didn't want anybody else going anywhere on the land. Several times he had Campbell had stopped people on their horses and actually pointed guns at him, told him to turn around. Casey! Come here.

You're on private property without permission. Casey. You're trespassing. We are. Yeah. For about three quarters of a fucking mile. There isn't any right away through here, and there's any easement, and you don't have any right to hunt up here. Let's try to weapon you're carrying.

Are you threatened? Do a little bird hunting. That ain't a bird gun. Does the job for me. Then he had the incident with Joe Aberley and his daughter, Jocelyn Averly. My dad said, you know, we'll take a ride. It was my last day in country before I had a fly back to Iraq. There was an access for horses to go on the pony trail.

And so we jumped on our horses. And at that point, Joe Campbell had put up a gate and a lock on the pony trail. So we couldn't go any further. And as we approached the gate, he came running up to the gate. And he also had a shotgun that was leaned up against the posts. And he right away said, it's private property and you can't trespass on my property. And he and my dad got into a verbal altercation. And Joe grabbed the shotgun and started wading his hands and waving the shotgun to spook the horses.

And then Joe takes the shotgun and points it at us. I was scared. It was just so surreal. It was just like, you've got to be kidding. I'm coming back from my rack where I've had three tours where we get shot at every day. I said, in here, I'm in my backyard, and this crazy man's waving a shotgun at us. I said, you know, what the blank is going on? My dad's determined.

He says, we have every right to go on these trails. We're going to go up. And I just told my dad, you know what, dad? I'm like, let's stop. We'll go back. make a sheriff's report on this. I'm like, I want this followed up on. I want to press charges.

Crickets. Never heard anything again. By September 2009, the situation had gotten so bad that a group of residents sought legal help. Me and several of the neighbors write a letter to the Lewis and Clark County attorney and the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff to say we've had so many incidences up

here and he's now pulled a weapon, nothing's been done, and someone's going to get shot. We were told, unfortunately, that it was a civil problem, but in my mind, pulling a gun on a guy is a criminal offense. They never charged him with anything. He thought, okay, before violence comes to it, we'll just fight him legally. So we did that. We decided to pull our money, whoever wanted to get involved in it and fight him legally with a lawsuit. So there was 10 families.

Tim did become involved in that. He was one of the original 10. But a costly court battle with a wealthy landowner proved impossible to sustain. After that pool of money was spent, we had to go back to each cabin owner and say, okay, we're out of money,

we need more time. Is everybody still in? We lost two or three, I think. Tim was one of them. He said, I just can't afford to do this see anymore. That's when Tim decided to take the direct approach. He was just frustrated. Tim thought, I'll just get in trouble

so I can get in front of a judge and assert my rights. And he did that by cutting chains and locks and opening gates. That was his civil disobedience. And for all the other cabin owners to gain access, he was doing it for everybody. Because that's the kind of guy Tim was. Neighbors say Tim's plans seemed to work. After several trespassing charges,

he was set to face Campbell in court that October. But it never came to pass. On August 14th, two months before the shooting, the Lewis and Clark County Attorney's Office made a motion to drop the criminal charges, deciding it was a civil matter. That's when things started to really go sour between Joe Campbell and Tim. When Joe Campbell found out that the charges were dropped,

he became very irate and made threats to people like, the next time you see Tim it's going to be in a body bag. And those were his exact words. It didn't take long for Tim to hear about Campbell's threats. A group of us got together and Tim had a gun. It was my understanding that a neighbor asked him, about it and he said, I'm carrying it because I'm afraid of Joe Campbell. I'm afraid he's going to pull a gun on me. Both were packing weapons openly and they were ready for trouble.

Coming up, forensic evidence tells Tim Newman's side of the story. That's where our alarm bells went off. This is wrong. This didn't happen the way he said. But his killer might get away with it. There's a lot of people upset about it. where you didn't know if you're going to be next. After interviewing the other residents of Diamond Bar X, detectives re-examine Joe Campbell's claim that he killed Tim Newman in self-defense. There had been a long-time dispute,

not just with Tim Newman, but with a vast number of the people at the residents of them. But if they're going to charge Campbell with a crime, investigators need more than a rumor of threats. Self-defense in Montana is implied. We need to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, it wasn't self-defense by the forensic evidence.

The day after the shooting, the state medical examiner conducts an autopsy. Police are hoping the results will give them an objective account of how Tim was shot. Mr. Campbell described that the confrontation happened right at the gate. Mr. Newman reached down to pull out his gun, and then Mr. Campbell shot, and he shot him in the hand. And then as he spun, he was firing another one and shot him in the back. The first shot that we looked at was the one that hit him in the spine.

The angle indicated opposite of what he said. That's where our alarm bells went off of, this is wrong. This didn't happen the way he said. Did the stress of the moment cause Campbell to misremember? Or is he covering up a cold-blooded murder? To find out, detectives bring him in for another interview on October 28th. When you interview someone right after something happens, there can be times where there are truly a memory blank.

We did say, Joe, what you're telling us doesn't line up with what we found with the autopsy. Can you tell us again? Tell us about this because what you're saying doesn't add up. Despite the discrepancies, Campbell sticks to his story. I was scared. He knew that he wasn't walking on the property. I'm watching his hands. I'm watching him start to pull a hammer back through the fence. Okay, so you reached down and you pulled your gun out?

I went real slow so he wouldn't see the motion. Okay. I fired, then he spun backward and down and away from me. me. This sounds crazy, but I still don't know if you fire a shot or not. I don't know. It's extremely hard to prove a criminal case unless you've got some super physical fact that countermands everything else. If you can show that physically it had to happen, you're going to have a lot better chance of removing all reasonable doubt. We need to take the forensic evidence

and have someone that can do ballistics and reenact this type of thing where the evidence was found. The district attorney's office hires a forensics team to do the reconstruction in the exact same circumstances. But Mother Nature doesn't cooperate with their plan.

This was a time of year where it was beginning to get into the fall. It snowed. We weren't able to get up there. For several months, the answers lie buried beneath the snow. And Joe Campbell remains a free man. There was a lot of people that were very upset that he didn't get arrested and go to jail. The feeling up there then was there's a guy living up here that's capable of killing somebody, shooting him in the back.

It scared off a lot of the neighbors. They decided to stay away because they were afraid. Consensus was around was just to stay clear of the guy. So you didn't know if you were going to be next or what? Finally, on May 19, 2014, the snow melts enough for police to conduct a reenactment at the scene. Using a mannequin and measurements taken the day of the shooting, a forensic specialist test Joe's version of events. The scientists came back and looked at different plausible scenarios,

what Joe had said it happened, what we felt was happening, what fit with how the body, how Tim's body was shot. Joe claimed to shoot Tim first in the front. This spun him around, and Joe's second shot was to Tim's back. But the body was found laying on his back with the leg spread. If you are shot just standing there, you're going to fall and your legs will be together because there's no momentum. If you're running, chances are one leg is already out in front, and it's going to be spread

away, such as Tim Newman was. It was shown beyond a reasonable doubt that Tim was turning away and running away when he was shot in the back. To forensic specialists, evidence indicates Tim was shot first in the back and spun around to land face up. And the trajectory of Joe's second shot negates his self-defense argument. He was shot when he was land. down. For him to be shot, the way Joe said, they had him doing some type of a matrix move like you would see in a cartoon animation, that he would have had to bend way back, and it just

doesn't seem logical that a person could do that to make their scenario fit. The other important piece was the bolt cutters. Joe Campbell claims Tim was cutting the lock when he apparently. took these bulky bolt cutters and dropped them and was able to grab his gun, pointed at Joe, and then, of course, Joe Campbell out drew him. So the placement of the bolt cutters was very important because they weren't right at the gate.

They appeared to be right where Tim fell over after he was shot in the back. The reenactment reveals another inconsistency. Tim was left-handed, And when he was shot and killed, the gun was laying by his right hand. I don't think that Tim ever drew a gun. I think it was pulled out of the holster and placed by his right hand. I think it was staged after the fact.

Where the bolt cutters were, where the gun was, it's all great evidence. That this wasn't any of the scenarios that Joe Campbell gave as his stories. The forensic showed that Tim was shot in the back when he was running away from the gate. This feud had been going for some time. I mean, it had been heating up. And with the forensic evidence, what we could find, we had enough evidence to go before a judge and say we feel that Joe Campbell murdered Tim Newman. On June 23rd, 2014, nearly nine months after Tim Newman was killed,

Montana police placed Joe Campbell under arrest. We took quite a few officers with us. We had two or three go up to Joe's house, just in case something might happen. And then Joe was arrested peacefully and there was no incident. Word spread like wildfire. We thought, oh boy, they finally got that son of a bitch. Here we go. He's finally going to get what he deserves. At his arraignment, Joe pleads not guilty under Montana's Stand Your Ground laws. The judge sets bail at $1 million, but the wealthy landowner hardly bats an eye. He used his land that this incident happened on as collateral plus cash.

He didn't spend a night in jail or anything. He bonded out right away, and that was the end of that. When he was released on bail, we were all super concerned. It was already bad enough that he'd been up there all those months before he was arrested. The state negotiated that he could not come back on the mountain. He had to be 10 miles from his residence, because so many of us were witnesses. After several delays, Campbell's trial finally begins on February 15th, 2016, more than two years after the shooting. Despite the evidence, prosecutors know they still face an uphill battle.

We had to overcome that Western mentality of this is my land, stay off my land, and I have the right to shoot you if I think. think you're going to pull a gun. When someone shot in the back, how is it self-defense? When you sift through everything, it seemed pretty absurd, but you have to get 12 jurors to agree beyond a reasonable doubt. Residents of Diamond Bar X testify to Campbell's history of aggression and threats against Tim Newman. Prosecutors also walk the jury through the reenactment, proving Tim was shot as he attempted

to run. We brought in an expert to show that our theory on how he was shot was correct. But Campbell's defense produces their own expert to dispute those findings. It was hard to sit and listen to conflicting experts. The state's experts said one thing, and Campbell's hired experts said another. It was hard to heal and move on when we're sitting in the court looking at a murderer. After a three-week trial, the jury is sent to deliberate. They return 13 hours later.

Everybody thought, here we go. Justice is going to be served. Unfortunately, the jury didn't see it that way. The prosecution was required to get 12 votes of guilty from 12 jurors. If one of those jurors said, I feel there's reasonable doubt, that would be a mistrial. And that's what happened. I was disappointed in the mistrial that we had a hung jury.

Realistically, I knew all the law it's hard to convince 12 people beyond a reasonable doubt when you have two people telling a side of a story and one's dead. After the mistrial, the state quickly prepares to go back to court.

But two months later, Campbell enters into a plea deal. Instead of prison, he receives 20 years of probation. Never spent a night in jail for killing a fellow. I don't know, I don't know. It's money, this money. I guess the good thing that came out of it, there were some good things, is he was banned from the mountain for 20 years,

can't own a firearm for 20 years, and he had to sell his properties. And so just not having him, around, gave us a peace of mind that we can go up there and enjoy life again and return to normal. A memorial now marks the spot where Tim Newman was killed, fighting for the land he loved. Tim didn't die completely in vain. There's still access to the National Forest for the general public, for the average guy.

And that's something that I'm grateful to those that may. that happened. There's a tree back up there where we go all the time and go horseback riding and hunting and Tim's got his initials carved in there. We look at that. It's hard not to think about him. I was just at the spot where he was shot just a few days ago and it's very sobering and I always take a few seconds and I just looked around and I know he's there, you know, I know he's there. I'll see you in a few years, buddy. In 2016, Jackie Newman, Tim's widow, settled a wrongful death lawsuit with Joe Campbell. The terms were not disclosed.