Camper Was the Victim of a Brutal Homicide, Not a Bear, Sheriff Says

A person who called the police near Bozeman, Mont., last Saturday reported that a man had been found dead in his tent from what appeared to have been a bear attack.

But at a news conference on Wednesday, officials with the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office said they believed that the camper, Dustin Kjersem, 35, a tradesman from Belgrade, Mont., had not been killed by a bear — but rather was the victim of a brutal homicide.

“Someone was out there who killed someone in a very heinous way,” Dan Springer, the sheriff of Gallatin County, said at the news conference. “If you’re out in the woods, I need you to be paying attention.”

Mr. Kjersem was last seen on the afternoon of Oct. 10 when he drove into a forested area about 35 miles south of Bozeman near Big Sky for a weekend of camping. He was supposed to pick up a friend on the afternoon of Oct 11.

But Mr. Kjersem, who lived about 35 miles north of where he was found dead, did not show up. The friend then went looking for him and found Mr. Kjersem’s body on Oct. 12, Sheriff Springer said.

“Autopsy has shown that he sustained ‘multiple chop wounds,’ which led to his death,” Capt. Nathan Kamerman, a detective with the sheriff’s office, said at the news conference. “We’re following up on leads but we have no arrests at this time.”