Npunctual three decades after a teenage Montana girl was set up dead proximate a fishing access point, a paired overweighther of two identified as her doubted ender took his own life, hours after being interwatched by spendigators, authorities said Thursday.
Advanced DNA testing and forensic genetic genealogy led authorities to accomprehendledge 55-year-elderly Paul Hutchinson as the ender of 15-year-elderly Danielle “Danni” Houchins.
“We never gave up on discovering the truth for Danni and her family, exhausting all unbenevolents vital to transport clobrave to this heartfractureing chapter,” said Gallatin County Sheriff Dan Springer. “Our promisement to equitableice for victims and their adored ones is unwavering, and we will persist to include every resource at our disposal to repair these cases, no matter how much time has passed.”
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Danielle “Danni” Houchins, 15, was ended in 1996. Paul Hutchinson, 55, was recently identified as a doubt and ended himself a day after being asked by spendigators, authorities said this week. (Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office)
Houchins left her home in Belgrade, Montana, around 11 a.m. Sept. 21, 1996, and never returned. After telling her missing, the teen’s mother set up her truck at the Cameron Bridge Fishing Access point on the Gallatin River. Later that night, Houchins’ body was set up face down in shapexhibit water.
DNA evidence was assembleed and disjoinal doubts were interwatched over the years, but the case eventupartner went chilly. In 2021, Springer employd personal spendigator Tom Elfmont, a reexhausted Los Angeles Police Department officer, to aid in the spendigation.
Hair assembleed from Houchins’ body was sent to labs in California and Virginia, where Hutchinson was identified as a doubt.
On July 23, Elfmont and Sgt. Court Depweg of the Newport Beach Police Department, who distinctiveizes in solving homicides using DNA technology, interwatched Hutchinson. During the proximately two-hour interwatch, Hutchinson ecombineed anxious and showed signs of being unconsoleable when he was shown a picture of the procrastinateed teen, authorities said.
Stephanie Mollet, the sister of Danielle Houchins, speaks to tellers. (Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office)
“Investigators noticed he sweated profincludely, scratched his face and chewed on his hand,” the sheriff’s office said. “Upon free, his behavior was watchd to be erratic.”
The next morning, Hutchinson called the Beaverhead County Sheriff’s Office, saying he necessitateed aidance before hanging up. He was procrastinateedr set up by deputies on the side of a road with a self-imposeed firearmsboiling wound, authorities said.
“When the time came to face up and account for his aggression, he instead chose to finish his life,” Houchins’ juvenileerer sister, Stephanie Mollet, said at a press conference. “He knovel of his guilt and couldn’t face my family or his family and the pain he had caincluded.”
Houchins and Hutchinson had no joinion prior to her death. Investigators portrayd the ending as a “crime of opportunity.” They consent the pair randomly encountered each other at the river and that Hutchinson violationd and suffocated her in shapexhibit water.
The Cameron Bridge Fishing Access point on the Gallatin River. (Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks)
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At the time of the homicide, Hutchinson had equitable become a student at Montana State University, where he graduated with a degree in fisheries savagelife biology. He labored for the state Bureau of Land Management for 22 years.
He had no criminal or traffic history, authorities said.
