BUTTE - An emotional day of testimony on the second day of a murder trial in which a man is accused of assisting his son in the killing of a Broadwater County Sheriff’s deputy.
Broadwater County Dispatcher Kylie Howard was on duty May 16, 2017 when she received the call that Deputy Mason Moore was shot.
“The deputy's down and he’s been shot,” a dispatch recording was played at the trial.
“I called Gallatin County to call for medical and in the next few seconds they had called back stating that the trooper called for a coroner,” said Howard on the stand.
Lloyd Barrus faces a charge of deliberate homicide by accountability, accused of aiding his son Marshall Barrus in the shooting and killing of Moore early in the morning on Highway 287 near Three Forks. This led to a 150-mile pursuit that ended in a shootout in Missoula County with officers from several agencies. Marshall died in the shootout and Lloyd surrendered.
Prosecutors said Lloyd and his son were on a suicide mission and they shared anti-government feelings. Marshall’s daughter testified Lloyd expressed violence toward police hours before the deadly encounter.
“We were talking about how we don’t like going to school and he told us that the teachers are just brainwashing us and that all teachers and police should be hung,” Marshall’s 18-year-old daughter testified Friday.
Trooper Benjamin Panas testified that he was the first to find Deputy Moore after he was shot.
“The first call that I made was that I needed backup and medical and that the deputy was down, appeared to have been shot. On the second approach I could tell very clearly that he was not alive,” said Panas.
FBI agent Jeremy Ewan testified that he studied the video from the deputy’s patrol car and determined the suspects returned to the scene and fire more shots into the patrol.
“You kind of hear, I thought what sounded like faint moaning, you see some movement inside the car than I heard another series of rapid-fire gunshots and somebody in the background saying, it sounded to me like, ‘go, go, go,’” said Ewan.
Testimony will resume Monday morning in Butte.
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