Episode 266
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What do you remember seeing? No, no, no. Don't, don't, don't, don't. Please don't. We understand why you're upset. Because of what you saw? We found some of that yesterday. We've seen it too. And it's horrible. Oh boy, it's time for some more murder stories, you sick fuck. This is Sword and Scale, episode 266, season 11. Here we go. ♪♪

So I'm sure you've heard by now about Sword and Scale television, and now we have something new coming up this month. It's season two of Sword and Scale Nightmares. If you have not had a chance to listen to Sword and Scale Nightmares yet, listen to it. You might enjoy it. It's true crime for bedtime. Basically what we do here, the stories that you all have come to know and love, you weirdos, but...

without the clips, without the 911 jarring call that will wake you out of your slumber. So you can actually put this on with a pair of earbuds and what do they call the earbuds? Whatever. And go to bed. A lot of people listen to true crime before going to sleep. Yeah. Like I said, sick fucks.

My watch says we've gone three miles. This app is like having a personal trainer. Yeah, but those apps collect a lot of your personal data. Aren't you worried? Really? That's creepy. How do I stop that? You should go to privacy.ca.gov to learn about your privacy rights and get on the best path to protect your privacy. You think they could help us get up this next hill? One step at a time. Californians have the strongest privacy protections in the country. Go the extra mile to protect your information. Learn more at privacy.ca.gov.

About 100 miles north of Casper, Wyoming is a moderate-sized city known for being, quote, the energy capital of the nation. The city's actual name is much less interesting. It's Gillette. Gillette, Wyoming produces and distributes more coal than any other city in the United States and is also a significant contributor of crude oil and methane gas. As a developer of these things, Gillette...

is an attractive place for people looking to make a lucrative and honest living. If you're willing and able to work a strenuous blue-collar job, there's good money to be made in Gillette. For many years, thousands of men and women have taken advantage of the employment opportunities that Gillette offers. And as is often the case, when a city attracts a lot of people, it also attracts a lot of crime. To combat that crime, this city depends on the Gillette Police Department and

the Campbell County Sheriff's Office. Back in mid-October of 2016, two deputy investigators at the Campbell County Sheriff's Office were hard at work questioning a young woman named Kylie Collins. What don't you get? Well, you told me, well, you saw that someone reported that at my house or whatever. So I feel like you guys know stuff and you're withholding stuff from me.

Well, I mean, that's true. We do know things that we're not going to tell you. We're concerned about these guys who are missing and trying to locate them and find out exactly what happened there. The reason that Kylie was being questioned was because about five weeks before this interview took place, two young men who were last seen in Gillette had been reported missing by their respective family members.

One of those two men was 33-year-old Phillip Brewer. Phillip was a Wyoming native who lived and worked in Gillette. He was a father of two young sons who made a hard-earned living by working on an oil field. Phillip liked to fish and ride snowmobiles. He was an avid outdoorsman who was considered by his family to be a kind and caring guy. Sadly, in September of 2016, Phillip

seemingly dropped off the face of the earth and nobody could reach him. Eventually, Philip was reported missing and this led police to question his girlfriend, Shelby Warren. When did you guys start dating? Right around the beginning of last year. When me and Philip started dating, we went up and stayed with Jodi in Helena, Montana in February. Philip had lots of friends, but he was closest to his childhood friend, Jodi Fortuna.

who happened to be the other young man that police were searching for. Like Philip, 38-year-old Jody loved to fish. He was a rare rock collector and he enjoyed the outdoors. Jody was a self-employed general contractor and his work, along with the advice of his family, led him to settle down in Helena, Montana. This move from Wyoming to Montana put about 500 miles between him and Philip.

But that didn't stop two friends from seeing each other. They'd often make week-long trips to hang out and visit each other. Philip and Jody were close. They were like brothers. Philip considered Jody to be his best friend, but so did someone else. Jody also remained close friends with his other childhood friend, Mike Montano. I mean, I know that Mike loved Jody. I can't... How do you know that? Um, because they've been best friends forever.

Jodi was Mike's best friend and Jodi was Philip's best friend. I realize I probably just threw a bunch of names at you and your brain is buzzing, so it might be a little bit difficult to follow. So let's just recap for one moment. Two guys go missing. Their names are Philip Brewer and Jodi Fortuna. Philip was dating a woman named Shelby Warren, the woman you just heard being interviewed. And Jodi had a friend named Mike Montano.

Got it? Probably not, but let's keep going. About a day or so before Philip and Jody went missing, Philip and his girlfriend Shelby were driving around Gillette when they ran into Mike Montano. According to Shelby, Mike told them Jody was coming to visit all of them. We went for a drive and he said, hey, Jody's on his way down here. He'll be here in an hour.

I got a job I need. He called Jody to help him with it, like a three-day job, he said it was. Okay. When the police questioned Mike Montana, he confirmed much of what Shelby had told him. Mike explained that Jody was his closest friend and that Jody had come to Gillette within days of his disappearance. Mike also explained that he wasn't a big fan of Phillip and didn't particularly like being around him. So Jody, you been around Gillette for a while then?

He was coming back and forth all the time, even before he went back to his mom. Me and Jody had always been close, and I didn't like Philip after I got a few times off the ramp. Again, the friendship dynamics that Mike explained to police were consistent with what Shelby had already told him. Jody was Mike's best friend, and Jody was Philip's best friend. Everybody liked Jody. Jody had lots of best friends. But Mike and Philip...

They didn't like each other at all. Putting things mildly, the relationship between Mike, Phillip, and Jody was unusual.

There was a lot of built-in tension between Mike and Phillip. But that wasn't the only thing that made things volatile. You see, these three guys had a habit of sleeping with each other's girlfriends. For lack of a better phrase, Jody, Mike, and Phillip swapped women.

And none of them actually ever really checked in with each other to make sure this was okay. Even Shelby admitted that in addition to dating Phillip, she'd also hooked up with Mike. Despite this weird behind-the-back woman swapping thing, whatever you want to call it,

Jodi and Mike maintained their friendship. They grew up together and considered themselves brothers. It's that weird thing young men do, boys really, as they're trying to figure out who they are. They form these relationships where it's not real, but they have a sort of camaraderie of sorts. A bond that can't be broken, or so they thought.

In 2015, Mike met and began dating a young woman named Kylie Collins. And before long, Mike introduced Kylie to Jody. In December of that year, Mike and Kylie took a trip to Montana and spent a few days at Jody's house. He tricked me into coming up there. Oh, where? Up to Montana. Jody did? Yeah. How long were you up there? Only a week. Okay. But Jody was still fucking, he was being fake. He was just getting me up there.

According to Mike, when Jody invited him and Kylie to come visit, Jody fully intended to sleep with Kylie. And he eventually did.

Did just that. He made me a drink, and that's the last thing I remember. He made me, because we all drink Crown and Coke, but now we changed to Crown and 7-Up. He gave me a drink, and I drank it, and for like fucking a whole day, I was out. When I woke up from that, I fucking... Kylie was...

Mike claimed that Jody spiked his drink. And while Mike was passed out, Jody and Kylie slept together. When Mike came to, he suspected that they had sex and he was pretty pissed off about it. But he didn't say anything.

or make any accusations. Why rock the boat, I guess. From there, Jody only made things worse by taunting Mike. Jody supposedly wore a t-shirt that read, relax, it's just sex. When I woke up, he's like, I just wore that shirt and he wore it. And it said, relax, it's just sex. Needless to say, Mike wasn't having the best time at Jody's. So he and Kylie packed up their belongings and headed back home.

Despite what happened in Montana, the relationship between Jody and Mike seemed to weather the storm. After a short period of no contact, Jody and Mike reconnected and their bond seemingly remained intact.

I suppose this is the first ignored red flag, or at least one of them. If a friend sleeps with your girlfriend and you say nothing about it and just pretend like nothing happened, yeah, I'm sure everything's gonna be fine. Just fine. But for Mike, he just couldn't discount the friendship they'd built as children. I mean, you make a lot of poor decisions as children, but I guess he just didn't want to come to terms with that. Again, Mike claimed

that they were like brothers. In September of the following year, it was Jody's turn to do the traveling. And Mike invited Jody to Wyoming.

Mike told Jody that in addition to visiting, Mike also had a three-day contracting job for Jody that would pay well. So Jody packed up his work gear and made the seven-hour drive from Helena, Montana to Gillette, Wyoming. When Jody arrived, he and Mike quickly linked up with Phillip and Shelby. Jody showed up, we started drinking. So all of us went out, we started drinking there, and then we went out to the bar.

So you say all of us is you? Me, Philip, Jody, Mike. That night, Philip, Jody, Mike, and Shelby went to their local casino, the Sundance Lounge, where they continued to drink and party. We went down to the Sundance. We shot a couple games of pool. We had a few drinks. We were drinking, and like, we were having a good night at the bar and everything. After we leave the bar, we went back to Shelby's house. We just got so I could get fucked up together whenever we're out.

After a few games of pool and a lot more drinks, this foursome went to Shelby's house where they continued to drink even more. Things got pretty rowdy among the guys as the testosterone started to flare.

Along with the drama. According to Mike, the interactions between him and Jody became awkward as the topic of Mike's girlfriend came up. Meanwhile, Shelby and Phillip started arguing about all the money they just spent at the casino. So he picked a fight with me like he has before. And, um...

Mike, Phillip, and Jody left Shelby's house and headed towards Mike's mobile home.

At least that's what Shelby assumed and tried to confirm when she drove to Mike's trailer park later that night. Shelby claimed that she saw Jody's car parked near Mike's mobile home. So she knew that Philip and Jody must be there and decided to just go home. For detectives that seemed kind of weird. I mean, why go there just to turn around and go home? The cops couldn't just take Shelby's word for it because

This was the last night that anyone saw Jody and Philip. In fact, both men had been missing for over a month. And in all likelihood, this was probably the last night that Jody and Philip were alive. Despite the efforts by police and the interviews they conducted, the question of what happened to Philip and Jody remained unanswered for quite a while. But in mid-October of 2016, something happened that revealed their fate.

The Gillette Police Department received a report of a strange black pickup truck that was parked on the road on the northern edge of their city. When an officer arrived on scene to investigate, he noticed an overwhelming smell coming from the truck. The smell was unmistakable. It was rotting flesh. The officer hoped that this truck belonged to a hunter and he was only going to find a rotting deer carcass in the bed of the pickup. But the officer

wasn't so lucky. Instead, he found Philip Brewer and Jody Fortuna. But he didn't find all of them. He only found a few chopped up pieces.

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My watch says we've gone three miles. This app is like having a personal trainer. Yeah, but those apps collect a lot of your personal data. Aren't you worried? Really? That's creepy. How do I stop that? You should go to privacy.ca.gov to learn about your privacy rights and get on the best path to protect your privacy. You think they could help us get up this next hill? One step at a time. Californians have the strongest privacy protections in the country. Go the extra mile to protect your information. Learn more at privacy.ca.gov.

In early September 2016, 38-year-old Jodi Fortuna and his childhood friend, 33-year-old Phillip Brewer, were reported missing by their respective family members. According to Phillip's girlfriend, Shelby Warren, she last saw Phillip and Jodi at her home in Gillette, Wyoming. When questioned by police, Shelby explained that she'd been drinking pretty heavily with Phillip, Jodi, and their mutual friend, Mike Montano.

That night, the collective intoxication led to Philip and Shelby getting into an argument, and Philip ended up leaving Shelby's house as did Jody and Mike. Shelby assumed that they all went to Mike's mobile home, and her assumption was pretty much confirmed when she decided to drive to Mike's trailer park later that night. As she did this, she saw Jody's car parked nearby and went home, or so she claimed.

When police questioned Mike about this, he confirmed that Philip and Jody had gone back to his home that night. But from there, he couldn't recall much of what had happened. Everyone was really drunk. And Mike claimed that when he got home, he just passed out. So what happens at your house? You guys get into a big fight? No, no, we didn't fight at all. Straight up black the fuck out. Mike also claimed that when he woke up the next morning, Philip and Jody were both gone.

and he didn't know where they went. Woke up, Jody's stuff was gone, they were gone, and then just from there it's been fucked up weird. As for Shelby, she told police that the last time she spoke to Philip was at her house. But this wasn't the last known contact that Philip had with someone. In the early morning hours of the next day, Philip apparently called a friend and explained to them that he and Shelby were fighting.

The main reason for the call was that Philip was looking for a place to stay. My girlfriend Crystal has told me since then that Philip called her at 5:30 and asked her if she lives in Casper, if she could come stay with her. Told him that me and her were fighting and that was the last she heard of him. As far as everyone knew, this was the last time that anyone heard from Philip. But it may not have been the last sighting of him or Jody.

A few days later, Shelby drove to Mike's trailer park with a friend and they supposedly saw two men on or near Mike's porch. Though neither Shelby nor his friend could be sure that these men were Philip and Jody. But when we drive by there, we can see from the road and we've seen two at a time.

Why did you think that? So they... No, Benny doesn't know for sure either.

And I'm like, well, I don't want to talk about it with Phillip, so I'm not going there. So we just kept driving. Up to this point, Shelby's story was mostly consistent with Mike's. But after Phillip and Jody disappeared, their respective versions of events started to conflict. Mike told police that after he woke up from their night of drinking, Phillip and Jody were just gone. And he had no idea where they went. But according to Shelby, Mike knew a lot more than he was telling.

I don't know how many days it had been until Mike came to talk to me again. And I believe he came to the house, my house, to talk to me because I wanted to know what was going on. First, Philip can't get a hold of me. I think so, yeah, something like that. He tells me that Philip and Jody took some guns of his to go sell them. So he gave him some guns. They went to go sell them, and he hasn't heard from them since.

Shelby accepted the explanation that Mike gave her, but after a few more days went by, Mike flipped the script on Shelby and started accusing her of knowing where Philip and Jodi were. Mike keeps coming around, thinking that making me, he accuses me of knowing, talking to him, knowing where they are. You know, I'm like, Mike, I seriously haven't talked to him. I don't know what's going on. Um,

He thinks that he's making me think that they burned him and are off doing something. All right. How do you see? Like Mike, nothing abnormal. After Jodi and Phillip went missing, I started getting scared because Shelby and this video dude started fucking saying like, I don't like you knew what happened and shit like that. You know what I mean? Like video? Yeah. On September 17th, 2016, Phillip and Jodi had been missing for just over a week.

And it was around this time that Shelby started to become very concerned, mainly because the 17th was her birthday. And she knew that despite any arguments she and Phillip were having, Phillip would never let this day pass without at least giving her a call. So my birthday was September 17th. So that day came and went and I know Phillip again. And then I kind of knew, that's when it kind of starts to really hit me too, that

There's something else wrong. There's something. And then Jodi's mom gets a hold of me. She's worried about it. She contacts me and I don't have no information for her. And it gets quiet again. You know, I don't really hear from Mike for a while. More days passed and no sign or contact with Phillip or Jodi. Their respective family members started to worry and eventually missing persons reports were filed for both men.

Though Jodi's mom wasn't satisfied with leaving the investigation solely in the hands of police, so she decided to drive from Montana to Gillette. Her plan was to question both Shelby and Mike. Jodi's mom comes down here because I told her too that I think Mike knows more than what he's telling us and that she needed to look at Mike.

She spends a day here, goes out to Mike's. He won't answer the door for her. So I meet up with her and take her to Old Chicago, and we corner Kylie. Then all of a sudden, Mike answers the phone, and he says he'll meet with Jodi's mom. In an attempt to reach Mike, Shelby and Jodi's mom found and briefly questioned Mike's girlfriend, Kylie Collins. As they were doing this, Mike suddenly became available to meet with Jodi's mom.

Though, when Jody's mom finally met with him, Mike convinced her that he knew nothing about her son's whereabouts and that she should be directing her questions and accusations at Shelby. She calls me to tell me that she's leaving. She's talked to Mike. He doesn't know anything. She's like, you were the last one to see them, you know, kind of made me feel like I was suspect. But I knew that Mike has that kind of effect on people.

Especially he was like a son to her. What do you think happened? I think that Philip was already drinking and on one when they got out to Mike's because we were fighting. I think that, I know Mike's always had a gun. What kind of gun? A handgun. I think that Philip was probably drunk and on one and they either got into an altercation that way.

By October 5th, Jodi and Philip had been missing for over a month, and Shelby had supposedly assumed the worst. She suspected that Mike had killed both of them and that he...

may have been plotting this double murder for some time. Shelby claimed to have suspicions about Mike and in turn, Mike had plenty of suspicions about Shelby.

Bear with me here because this is where the story starts to get a little outlandish. Yes, I said starts. Mike believed that Shelby was a drug dealer and that Philip and Jody were working with her. He suspected that all three of them were involved in some sort of elaborate smuggling operation. And whatever business they were doing together, they weren't letting Mike in on it. And that's when I figured I learned that Jody, Shelby, and...

And I can't say that Shelby's a drug dealer. She will not talk about that.

By October 9th, 2016, Jodi and Phillip had been missing for almost 40 days, but

It was on this day that they were finally found. At least, some pieces of them were. The local police in Gillette received a report of a pickup truck that was parked on the northern edge of the city. The truck reportedly smelled like rotting flesh and when officers arrived on the scene, they confirmed that the information they received was accurate. There was indeed a very stinky pickup truck

parked on the side of the road. When officers opened the bed of the pickup truck, they found two plastic totes. And inside those totes, well, what do you think? Yeah, several dismembered body parts. This was the moment that the fate of Philip Brewer and Jody Fortuna was revealed. Both men were dead and had been chopped into pieces.

Tragically, this information did not stay within the walls of the Gillette Police Department for long. The news of the gruesome discovery quickly leaked to the families of Philip and Jody, and they learned about their loved one's death and the state of their bodies through social media and various news outlets. What followed was years of hardship for the families as they struggled

with the reality that their loved ones' bodies had been mutilated. Many of you have read and heard about a double homicide in Gillette, Wyoming, which was first reported in early October 2016. My younger brother Phillip Brewer and his childhood friend Jody Fortuna were brutally murdered. The victims' bodies were not recovered until October 8th and 9th. These bodies of these two men were mutilated and stored in plastic totes.

and the back of a pickup truck for over four weeks. While the families of these men were frantically searching for any information on their disappearances. Once I got through the initial shock of my brother's murder, everything started to set in. The fact that my brother's body was mutilated so badly I never got to see him one last time took a huge toll on me and the rest of my family. The nature of these crimes stripped our families of any of those choices and given my baby brother the proper burial we felt he deserved.

After the body parts were discovered, they were quickly transported to a medical examiner. Once there, the cause of death was determined. Unsurprisingly, this missing persons case became a double homicide investigation. Obviously, they're both dead and they're still being intended to kill. Well, Phillip was shot right here. He was shot behind his ear, I guess execution style, for lack of better words. Jody was also shot in the back of the head and then shot in the back a couple times.

Both men had been shot to death before their bodies were dismembered. Strangely, when the medical examiners attempted to piece together the bodies, they realized they were missing several pieces. This of course begged the question, where was the rest of them? At the same time, the homicide investigators were also trying to piece together the story of how this all happened. And in order to do that, they interviewed several people.

One of those people was Mike Montano's girlfriend, 22-year-old Kylie Collins. You grew up in July, right? How long have you and Mike been together? Almost a year. Our year is October 13th. So you guys have lived, when did you guys move in together? Probably November, but we've jumped around places we've lived at, lived with friends. When did you meet Jodi?

- Do you remember the last time you saw him?

I don't. I really don't. It's been a while. Did he ever like stay at your house with you guys? He, I think he only came like once and that's since we've, we've only had this trailer for, this will go, it'll be going on a third month. Like whenever Jodi would like come or hang out, I wasn't around, you know? Usually they're having their bro time, you know what I mean? Right, in that time. No, in the time for me, you know?

Mike and Kylie lived together in a small trailer in Gillette. And according to Kylie, she didn't know Jody very well or see much of him. Because when Jody was around, it meant that Kylie shouldn't be. As for Phillip, Kylie claimed that she knew even less about him. And you said you met Phillip a couple times? I've only met him once. Where was that? I don't remember. I think it was Mike's old place.

So I don't know that much about Philip. I really don't. Philip, I don't know anything about. If you're getting the vibe that Kylie was trying to distance herself from Jodi and Philip as much as possible, you're not alone. The detectives clearly felt the same way, and they quickly transitioned into another line of questioning about a very particular pickup truck. Was it weird that you saw Mike's truck over there? Kind of, but... How come?

I don't know, this is weird. Because I haven't been able to talk to him. Did you notice anything unusual about the truck? No. Did you ever see him putting stuff in the pickup? Or wonder what was in the back of that pickup? I never wondered. I mean, I just, I'm not going to go and question everything he does, you know? I think that'd be weird. Alright. Did you ever walk by the pickup and think, this pickup stinks? No, I've never, because when he parked the pickup, he parked it back.

The reason that the cops were questioning Kylie and Mike's truck was because the truck that contained Philip and Jodi's body parts belonged to Mike Montano. Given that fact, the obvious assumption was that Mike murdered both men and dismembered their corpses. And given the other fact that Mike and Kylie lived together, the detectives clearly believed that Kylie knew a lot more than she was telling. I have not seen Mike since...

What Thursday at 2. Okay. I have not seen it. I mean, was there something more going on that he maybe mentioned to you? No, and we just get in big fights. Well, sometimes we get in big fights and we just kind of, you know what I mean, go our separate ways for a few days or maybe a day or two and then we can't stand not talking to each other and we talk. Not only had Kylie tried to distance herself from the murder victims, but she also tried to distance herself from her live-in boyfriend.

She claimed that even though they were dating and lived together, Kylie would frequently go days without seeing or hearing from Mike at all. Despite these, well, blatant lies, I mean, let's just call it what it is, the detectives were able to get Kylie to admit that Mike did have a mean streak and that he was a jealous man, especially when it came to other men and Kylie. You ever seen him get really pissed at somebody?

Besides you. Yeah. Who? Seen him, you know, at Tim before, but not like horrid mad. Were you there the other day when he punched Tim and choked him? No, I didn't hear about that. Did you hear about that? Yeah, I heard about it. Did she say what happened or why or anything? Because we heard that too.

Naturally, the police didn't only question Kylie. After the body parts were found and police determined who the pickup truck belonged to, Mike Montano was promptly arrested and brought into the interrogation room.

Mike was primed and ready to start pointing fingers. But there was one major issue. The body parts were found

in his truck. It's kind of hard to blame someone else for a double murder when you're driving around with dismembered pieces of the victims. As to be expected, and as too often the situation, when Mike was questioned, his first concern wasn't Phillip's or Jody's families or the heartache and trauma they were enduring at the time. Mike's first concern was

his own future. Five years for double homicide? What is this guy smoking? I need some of that. Given what the police found and where they found it, it was pretty clear that Mike had murdered Jody and Phillip. But when Mike was questioned about this, he told

Quite a story, and that story implicated not one, but two people. Philip's girlfriend, Shelby Warren, and his own girlfriend, Kylie Collins. ♪

My watch says we've gone three miles. This app is like having a personal trainer. Yeah, but those apps collect a lot of your personal data. Aren't you worried? Really? That's creepy. How do I stop that? You should go to privacy.ca.gov to learn about your privacy rights and get on the best path to protect your privacy. You think they could help us get up this next hill? One step at a time. Californians have the strongest privacy protections in the country. Go the extra mile to protect your information. Learn more at privacy.ca.gov.

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In mid-October of 2016, 37-year-old Mike Montano was arrested after several dismembered body parts were found in the bed of his pickup truck. The body parts belonged to 38-year-old Jody Fortuna and 33-year-old Phillip Brewer, both of whom had been reported missing just over a month before this gruesome discovery was made. For police, there was little doubt that Mike had killed both men.

But they still had plenty of questions. Like, how did they die? And why did Mike do this? Also, when medical examiners tried to put Phillip and Jody back together, they found that several body parts were missing. So where was Mike hiding the rest of them? In an attempt to get answers to these questions, Mike Montano was taken to an interview room and interrogated. I know this isn't easy. I mean, there's a body found in your truck.

And I think you want to get it off your chest. What went down? And where it went down? And how it went down? I'm just a guy. I don't know. I'm not a bullshitter. I'm just a guy. I don't think I fucking did it. You don't think you killed him? No. I really, really don't. And we'll figure that out. Okay. In listening to Mike's interrogation, it's obvious that

He was a very desperate man, looking for any way to deny responsibility for the body parts that the police had found in his truck. One way he tried to do this was to point the police toward a potential suspect. You know who Shelby is? Shelby Warren? I know Shelby. Do you think she's a good person? Do I? Yeah. No? I did.

Throughout Mike's interrogation, he continuously talked about Philip's girlfriend, Shelby Warren, and claimed that Shelby was an evil, manipulative sociopath who could have orchestrated the killings of Philip and Jody. I don't know, she was really worried about me. Worried around what? Around me. Oh, okay. So they started tracking me, basically. Like, fucking literally tracking me. Philip would tell me about, a hint about, like, what she could follow people that normally hadn't. Who would? Philip. Philip? Yeah. Okay.

According to Mike, he suspected that Shelby had been spying on him and tracking his movements for months. Why she would do such a thing, Mike wasn't sure. But he believed that Philip and Jodi knew all about what Shelby was up to.

Despite his suspicions, Mike maintained his relationships with them because he didn't want to feel lonely. Oh, what a sad guy. I saw signs, you know, but I never fucking put it together. Yeah, because I'm tired of being by myself, you know. It's hard to go through life without another trip or no one. Eventually, a guy just starts to fucking lower his standards and, you know, he's shooting, but... Mike claimed that his friends were about to enact some sort of unknown plot against him.

"Never mind, I don't want whatever these people were smoking. It makes you too paranoid apparently." Mike was obviously very paranoid. He didn't know what the hell the plot was, but he knew there was one and he suspected that his girlfriend Kylie may have been in on it as well. Well, they're all fucking together, dude. Oh, no. They're fucking with me mentally.

Basically, Mike's story was that

In order for him to end up where he was, namely having the body parts of two dead men in his truck, did I mention that? Yeah. He had been manipulated into that position because he would never have done this on his own, of course. Okay, okay, solid argument. Got it, got it. Other people clearly have been pulling the strings. And the only other people capable of pulling those strings were the people closest to him. This included his girlfriend, Kylie.

Speaking of Kylie, after Mike was arrested Kylie was quickly put on notice that it was time to come clean about what she knew. So you know Mike's in some serious trouble, right? That's what I'm... It's all a seaming remember I don't get what serious trouble and I don't get it. Well he's charged with first degree murder. What? Yes. That's why we're here today. What's first degree? I don't know the differences between... You killed somebody on purpose and there's two guys missing, right? Yeah. You know it's Phillip and Jodi.

Kylie maintained that she knew nothing. If Mike had killed Phillip and Jodi, she was completely unaware of it.

Mike, however, had already told these same detectives that Kylie knew everything. According to Mike, after a night of drinking with Jodi and Phillip, Mike blacked out. The next morning he awoke to Kylie asking him what he had done. The reason why I woke up that morning was because Kylie came over to check on me. I didn't know her. She woke me up. Out of the trailer? Yep. Okay. What'd she say? She just asked me what happened and I was like, what do you mean what happened? She went to the bathroom. Before she woke me up, she went straight to the bathroom.

Okay.

Supposedly, Kylie was the first person to discover the dead bodies piled in hers and Mike's bathtub. When Kylie was confronted with this accusation, she didn't handle it very well. And what did you see? I was homemaking. This is the time. This is your chance. You understand why we have to know.

I said, "Why we need to know." You understand why we need to know. - I don't get this. I don't get what you're doing. I don't get it. - We're asking you what you saw. - I don't, I don't. - Because Mike's already telling people and we don't want to just take his word for it. - What do you mean he's already telling me? - He's told somebody that you walked in and saw him doing something.

- You know what? Talking to us is a difference between seeing something and being involved in something.

Do you get what I'm saying? The detectives spelled it out for Kylie. She could either be a cooperating witness or an accessory to a double homicide. What would you pick? So do you want to tell us about it or you don't want to talk to us anymore? I don't want to talk to you. I have a letter or something. A letter or something? I don't know. I don't think I need one. I just...

So are you saying that? I feel like I'm being trapped. I feel like you guys aren't going to be honest with me and you guys are going to say whatever and twist whatever you want to make me say something. Well, we're telling you what we know so far. But how do I know that you know that? Because I know that. Because you know that we know it because you know it happened. You know we know it because it's true. Because what you saw, we found some of that yesterday. We've seen it too. And it's horrible.

I mean, we understand why you're upset by having seen that, but it's bad. For the most part, the detectives approached Kylie with kid gloves, but that didn't sway her. Kylie opted to deny involvement, at least for now. Meanwhile, Mike continued to try and cast doubt on the likelihood that he killed Jodi and Phillip. I honest to God could never hurt Jodi, ever.

That is the only reason why I don't think I did it. My claim that he didn't know how Jody and Phillip's dead bodies ended up in his bathtub

But after he became aware that they were there, Kylie pressured him into doing something about it. Fucking women, am I right? They're always just yapping away, just nagging about everything. They always want a clean bathroom, no dead bodies, blah, blah, blah. Then what'd you do? You want me to go into detail, dude? I do. I think I cut one of them in half. With what? A stupid little tiny fucking saw. A hand saw or electric saw? A hand saw.

No, I think I caught one.

Soly to appease his girlfriend and ladies you know how much we do for you, Mike used a small handsaw to dismember Phillip and Mike's so-called best friend and brother Jody.

According to the medical examiner, this had to be a very brutal and messy affair, not to mention outright disgusting. Based on the state of the body parts, there was obvious aggression behind what Mike had done.

especially when it came to Philip. Did you hate Philip? No, I didn't hate Philip enough to fucking kill him. I mean, I didn't like him. I didn't trust him. And I've made that clear to everybody that I didn't really like Philip. I didn't care for him. I think that he fucking gets Jody into stupid bullshit and he's always getting in fucking trouble and dragging everybody with him. I mean, everybody knows that about Philip. Everybody does. And I fucking am telling you the truth. Well, he's just... And the reason I ask is because he was cut up quite different than Jody.

Mike admitted to chopping up the bodies. That element of the crime was clear, but there was still a big question that needed to be answered. The police only found some of Jody and Philip in the back of Mike's truck, so where were the other body parts? They should all be in the truck. There's two bodies in those two totes? There should be. All their parts are in there? Yeah. That's why I'm asking, because I don't think two... I don't know, maybe they're in there, but...

After some pushback and a few lies, Mike admitted that some of Jody and Phillip were inside a storage unit that he and Kylie shared. In fact, this storage unit is where Mike had been keeping the body parts before moving some of them into his truck.

For nearly 40 days, the body parts of Jody Fortuna and Philip Brewer rotted in a storage unit.

During this time Mike and Kylie made frequent trips to check on them and make sure that they weren't discovered. Unsurprisingly after only a day or so things started to get pretty stinky. I would smell that smell everywhere I would go. I still smell that smell in the fucking... I still smell that smell. I've never smelled anything like it. It does not ever go away. I can smell it when I'm eating sometimes. I don't want to eat

To cover up the smell, Mike poured baking soda on the body parts and Kylie gave him a few bug bombs to keep the flies away. Still, they both knew that these were only temporary solutions and that they were both going to have to dispose of the evidence somehow. Kylie went and sold the bug bomb and got me that stuff too. And it progressed from there and then it kept getting... I mean, she said that we needed to get rid of the bodies, right? Mm-hmm.

Mike and Kylie agreed that they wanted to dump the body parts out of state, so they packed up Mike's truck with some of the body parts and drove to South Dakota. Why they didn't take all of the body parts remains unclear. After arriving in South Dakota, Mike struggled to find a suitable and well-hidden place, so he gave up, turned around, and went home.

After returning from South Dakota, Mike parked his truck on the side of the road near his mobile home and just left it there for days. Eventually, someone noticed the smell and alerted police. She was with me driving around in your truck? Yeah. You guys both loaded on that day or whatever? Okay. I know. I came back and I parked my truck and I just kept my truck parked. Everything Mike had done was blatantly cruel and horrific.

Yet he maintained that his actions weren't his fault. If Mike had done anything wrong, it was because the people around him manipulated him into doing it. Call me surprised for someone not having personal responsibility in this day and age. I'm not a fucking evil wicked person. I'm really, really not. For like two days, dude. Two days. I didn't fucking do nothing to them. They just sat in there. Oh, well, that makes it better.

As long as you wait two days, it's fine to chop up some murder victims in your bathtub. Anywho, again, Mike admitted to dismembering Philip and Jody, but he maintained that he wasn't capable of killing them.

When asked who might have done it, Mike was quick to offer up a theory. According to Mike, Shelby Warren had a known and provable history of spiking Mike's drink with drugs and causing him to black out.

People sure do like to do that to this guy, don't they? Mike suggested that Shelby planned and arranged the murders with the help of an unknown friend. According to Mike, Shelby must have drugged Mike's drink, waited for him to pass out, and then murdered Philip and Jody. Then she cleaned up the crime scene and put the dead bodies in Mike's bathtub. Totally makes sense. Who do you think may have killed him?

I think it's somebody that Shelby's friends with. I swear to God, because Shelby hinted about Philip never coming back and shit before. You know what I mean? How or why would they put him in your bathtub? To make me look guilty. What was your thoughts of why you ended up going to cut him out instead of saying, you know, if you don't think you did this, why didn't you call for help or do something else besides cut him out? Because I'm a felon. And to me...

It just looks like, you know what I mean? And there's no way, I've never gotten away with anything. Mike's theory about how Philip and Jody ended up dead in his bathtub was obviously ridiculous. And cops knew that. They're not all dumb. But that didn't necessarily mean that Shelby was off the hook. If you remember from her earlier police interview, Shelby claimed that she drove by Mike's trailer after seeing Philip for the last time.

She claimed that when she saw Jody's car parked outside, she just left and went home, but the cops weren't entirely sure she was being honest about that. In fact, when Shelby was questioned and before the details of the murder were released to the public, Shelby seemed to have a pretty solid theory about how everything happened. It's possible that during her police interview, she accidentally let something slip. He was going to shoot him as well. What do you mean as well?

I just say as well because he shot Phil from Jody. How do you know that? I guess I don't know for sure. I'm only assuming. Okay. How come you're assuming that? Because they're dead and Mike, that's just my, I think he did it. You're telling me the truth because we're talking to a lot of people. Yeah. Okay. So if you know more or you somehow know more things they're into...

Today's the day. Yeah. I don't know if they were into murder. That's how I remember it. Detectives didn't suspect that Shelby committed the murders, but they did wonder if she witnessed it happen. At a minimum, they clearly believed that Shelby knew a lot more than she was telling. But if that was the case, they could never prove it. In fact, when it came to the details of the murders, police weren't able to prove much at all because, frankly,

They didn't have much to work with. All they had was Kylie's refusal to cooperate, Shelby's denials, and Mike's insane accusations. So the police were never able to say with certainty when the murders happened or where. The prominent theory among investigators is that Mike shot and killed Philip first and that he made Jody watch him commit that murder. Then he turned the gun on Jody.

They also believe that Kylie didn't witness this happen, but that she did discover the bodies and helped Mike clean up the mess. Kylie knew, dude, and Kylie led, I mean, Kylie led the whole mission to chop it up and get away with it. The way she handled this was just, it gets me goosebumps just thinking about how she reacted. She had no emotion? She had nothing whatsoever, like fucking it was nothing to her, like she's seen it before.

You know what I mean? And I'm not trying to... That's why I asked if Kylie... If Kylie came. If she had no reaction. She had none. What's the wonder? Did you... Did you help her? She pretty much told me what to do, dude. Put him up. The way I think about Kylie right now, I don't fucking... I don't think I ever knew Kylie. I didn't want to do this. I didn't want to do this. I did this because fucking... I... Kylie told me I could or I should and fucking that we'd be together and be forever after and that's what I needed to do and that's what I did and...

I would never have done it if Kylie wouldn't have fucking said, you know what I mean? I would never have chopped them up is what I would have done. If Kylie wouldn't have said, let's be together, let's work through this. As for the dismemberment, Mike admitted to doing that, but he directed the blame at Kylie. He claimed that he never would have chopped up the bodies had it not been for her encouragement. And we all know that ladies love to encourage men to do things and men are happy to do them.

most of the time. Obviously, even if that were the case, it wasn't going to mitigate Mike's responsibility. But it did mean that Kylie was culpable, and she didn't do herself any favors by continuously lying to the police. So do you guys have a storage unit together or anything like that where you keep extra stuff? Do you know if Mike has a storage unit anywhere? Not that I know of. Maybe. I don't know. He wouldn't tell you if he did?

You guys have been together a year. I know, we have been together a year, yeah. Kylie lied about just about everything. And cops could prove it. When Kylie was called out for her lies, she did what she should have done right away. She asked for a lawyer. But it was too late. The damage was already done, as it often is.

She'd already broken the law by lying and hindering the investigation of a double homicide. I want to give you a minute to think about it, okay? No, I feel like I don't get it. What don't you get? This. What part is confusing you? I don't think you're confused. You're not dumb. I know I'm not dumb. You're a smart girl. You know exactly what's going on. You have to stop.

So you saw what Mike was doing, right? In that bathtub. And you know who those people were, right? And what you saw happening was found in that truck yesterday when we searched it, okay? And we know you know what happened. So you can be a witness and or a suspect. Because I know, I assume you're not the mastermind. It wasn't your plan to kill people or to chop them up and put them in plastic totes and hide them.

I'm going to get a lawyer then. Okay, fair enough. In the end, Kylie did admit to her role in helping to cover up the murders, and she agreed to testify against Mike if his case ever went to trial. In exchange, Kylie did not face any accessory charges, but she did face charges for misleading police. Ultimately, Kylie never had to testify because Mike didn't take his case to trial.

Montano's earlier pled no contest to killing 33-year-old Philip Brewer and 37-year-old Jody Fontana, dismembering their bodies in an attempt to dispose of them. Before he was sentenced, Montano apologized to Fortuna's mother. District Judge Michael Deegan sentenced Michael Montano...

on Wednesday to 60 years to life in prison. Montana's former girlfriend, 24-year-old Kaylee Collins, was also sentenced Tuesday to two years in jail for interfering with the police investigation after the men were reported missing. After Mike and Kaylee were sent off to prison, the Brewer and Fortuna families had no choice but to pick up the pieces of their lives and move on. In an effort to do something good in her brother's name,

Phillip's sister set out to have some of Wyoming's laws changed. Once the memorial was over, my husband and I started researching the charges that the defendants were accused of. Two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of post-mortem corpse mutilation for the first defendant. When we looked up these penalties for corpse mutilation, we were shocked that Wyoming only carries up to three years. Three years technically means that a person charged with this crime can ultimately receive probation.

For the sake of her brother, Phillip's sister lobbied to change the penalties for corpse mutilation in Wyoming. And after several years of fighting for that change, she was successful.

Because of her efforts, anyone who dissects or mutilates a dead human body in Wyoming now faces a possible five-year prison sentence. A much more fitting sentence, I may say, for such a horrendous crime. I finally was able to give back, to do something extraordinary for my brother and his legacy. I was humbled.

Throughout his police interviews, Mike Montano repeatedly referred to Jody as his brother. He claimed that their bond meant so much to him that they were practically siblings.

When you compare those claims to the way that Philip's sister speaks out about her brother and the things that she did to honor his life, Mike's claims about brotherhood sure do come across pretty hollow. Mike shot and killed his so-called brother. Then he mutilated and dismembered the body. A clear motive was never established in this case, but more than likely Mike was driven by some very dark and deep-seated resentment and jealousy.

I don't remember pulling the trigger. I really don't remember pulling the trigger, Mr. Apichick. I really don't. What led up to that? Like, I don't know. I don't know, man. All the drugs, all the times they ripped me off, all the times... This is what I would think. I mean, like, in the fucking... Lying about Kylie being a prostitute and shit with them and just fucked up shit, like, taking advantage of me and putting me down and fucking making me a joke to everybody and just fucking stealing from me everything. They took everything of my...

Mike was fed up with being the joke among his friends. He was angry about Jody sleeping with Kylie and he hated that Jody's friendship with Philip carried more mutual respect than his own friendship with Jody. So, in what was probably a drunken and drug-fueled rage, he lashed out and shot both men to death. Then he chopped up their bodies in a lousy attempt to cover up the crime.

On top of being a pathetic psychopath who blames everyone else for his own actions, Mike Montano is also pretty dim-witted. Most dim-witted people think that way. They think things belong to them that don't. They think the whole world revolves around them. Something that was clearly lost on this idiot was a pretty basic and common sense understanding about family.

It's one thing to call someone a brother and claim to have some sort of family-like bond with them because you grew up together. It's another thing entirely to actually live up to that claim. When Philip and Jody went missing, Jody's mom drove 500 miles from Montana to Wyoming to find her son. That's what family is. She went out there to seek out whoever it was that had last spoken to Jody.

and ask them a couple of questions. After the body parts were discovered, Phillip's sister worked her ass off to get the laws in Wyoming changed as a way to honor her brother's life and legacy. Those are the kind of things that family members do for each other. They don't just sit around and talk about it while drinking beer. Those are the kind of things that people do when they actually give a shit, when they care. What they don't do is allow petty resentment to drive them to commit murder.

And they certainly don't mutilate and dismember the people they love. That goes without saying, I hope. Maybe after 60 years in a prison cell, Mike Montano will come to better understand that. But I wouldn't hold my breath. So if you've been listening for a while, why don't you head on over to our store and get something nice for summer. Head to swordscale.com and stay safe.

so

Hey Mike, this is Pam Whitaker from Knoxville, Tennessee.

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so

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