Suspect identified as 55-year-old Paul Hutchinson of Dillon, who died by suicide after July interview with law enforcement
By Jen Clancey DIGITAL PRODUCER
In an Aug. 8 press conference, the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office addressed the 1996 case of a murdered 15-year-old girl, Danielle Houchins in Belgrade. The suspect has been identified as 55-year-old Dillon resident Paul Hutchinson, using modern DNA-matching technology of hair found on Houchins’ body.
On Sept. 21, 1996, Houchins was reported missing and found murdered at the Cameron Bridge Fishing Access on the Gallatin River in Belgrade. Houchins was raped, suffocated and left in shallow water.
“This case has haunted her family, me, the sheriff’s office and this community for all those years,” Sheriff Dan Springer said in the conference. He was hired into the sheriff’s office three days before police discovered Houchins’ body at the fishing access site.
Hutchinson had no known connection to Houchins or prior criminal history. He obtained a master’s degree from Montana State University in fisheries biology, worked for 22 years at the Bureau of Land Management in Dillon and was married with two adult children.
On July 24, 2024 Hutchinson died by suicide—one day after being interviewed by investigators with the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office. Days after his death, the GCSO said that they determined Hutchinson as a complete match to the genetic profile of the hair.
The sheriff’s office reopened Houchins’ case in 2019 and Springer brought on a retired Los Angeles Police Department officer, Tom Elfmont, in 2021. Elfmont began by contacting the California’s Newport Beach Police Department and got in touch with Sergeant Court Depweg, who had assisted in recently solved cases through genetic analysis. Over the course of three years, Elfmont and his investigative team worked alongside the Montana State Crime Lab, forensic analysis laboratories and attorneys specializing in Montana privacy laws to prepare search warrants.
GCSO sent four hairs found on Houchins’ body 27 years ago to Astria Forensics in California which created a partial DNA profile from one of four hairs—no matches were found in the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System. However, the DNA profile was later sent to Parabon NanoLabs in Virginia where they ran the analysis through other databases to identify Hutchinson as a suspect.
“On the evening of July 23, 2024, Elfmont and Depweg interviewed Hutchinson at his home in Dillon. During the nearly two-hour interview, Hutchinson, who had lived in Bozeman at the time of Houchins’ death, displayed extreme nervousness,” an Aug. 8 GCSO press release stated. “Investigators noted he sweated profusely, scratched his face, and chewed on his hand.”
Stephanie Mollet, Houchins’s sister, said at the conference that she is grateful for people who did not stop investigating Houchins’ case, including investigator Tom Elfmont.
“Today I celebrate that a violent predator is no longer able to victimize other women and girls,” Mollet said. “I celebrate that the fight for my sister is over.”
She noted that despite finding justice, institutions failed her sister. According to Mollet, when Houchins’ body was discovered in 1996, her cause of death was ruled “unknown” by the sheriff, coroner and medical examiner, despite evidence of rape and violence inflicted on Houchins at the fishing access site.
Mollet also said that the Montana State Crime Lab misfiled her sister’s evidence, which eventually led to finding the suspect decades later. She said that evidence, like a watch on Houchins’ wrist from that day in 1996, can not be located at the Montana State Crime Lab. She urged the public to demand adequate funding for the crime lab so that they are able to support sheriff’s offices across the state.
“Montanans, Danni’s story should anger you,” Mollet said.
She ended with thanking the community and investigators at the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office for their support in finally closing the case.
Tom Elfmont, who led the investigation, was the last to speak and described the in-depth process of traveling to Dillon, obtaining genetic profiling and eventually interviewing Paul Hutchinson.
Details from the case as well as Hutchinson’s information will be filed with federal and state law enforcement agencies to help connect any other possible cases and victims, according to GCSO.
