Dustin Kjersem / Update // 452
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What is going on, true crime fans? I'm your host, Heath. And I'm your host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in today. As many of you know, last week we discussed the happening now case of Dustin Gersom. And there were some updates as soon as the day after we published the episode. So we kind of wanted to wait a few days to see how much information would be released and

We've just been following the news every single day on this and now just felt like a good time to update you guys because there is a lot to talk about because his killer has been arrested and named and Heath and I have been doing some serious digging. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. We've been doing some digging and you guys are going to be super surprised to

Also, I just wanted to let you guys know that if you want to see photos from this case, I will say the alleged killer, photos of the alleged killer, because he has not been convicted yet.

Go on over to our socials. We're on Instagram at Going West Podcast. We're also on Facebook. We have the discussion group where we can talk about this case and also just our regular Going West true crime page. Yes, and of course, I just want to say that, again, our hearts really go out to Dustin's family. We can't imagine what they're feeling right now with this news, but we are going to put that GoFundMe link once again in the description of this episode. Heath and I donated. It would be awesome if you guys did as well, if you're able to donate

to help support his kids during this very, very unimaginable time. So thank you guys so much in advance. Thank you for listening. And without further ado. All right, guys, this is episode 452 of Going West. So let's get into it.

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We now know the identity of the man allegedly responsible for murdering Dustin Gerstum, the 35-year-old Belgrade man who was viciously killed earlier in October while camping near Big Sky.

On October 12th, 35-year-old Dustin Gersom was found viciously killed in his tent while camping near Big Sky, a murder that rattled the entire nation.

This weekend,

We lost our brother, our son, our uncle, our best friends, and our dad in the most unimaginable way. According to court documents, Abby was located in Butte by the Butte Police Department the morning of Saturday, October 26, and taken into custody on a probation violation. If you have some need to commit these types of crimes, let it be known we will hunt you down, and we will make sure that you never see the light of day again.

We know most of you guys probably listened to the first episode on Dustin Gerson, but if you didn't, check it out in episode 449 and then come back here because we go over a lot of stuff over there, even though we also had a lot of questions that have since been answered. So of course, we will correct everything that has been clarified in this episode today.

Now, that said, for those who aren't super fresh on the episode or need reminding on certain details, we are going to run through everything with the updates. Okay, so as we know, Dustin was an amazing person. You know, father, son, brother, friend. He was very handy, a tradesman. He worked in construction, which he actually had in common with his killer, but we will get into that.

Now, Dustin was also a major outdoorsman. He loved fishing, camping, snowboarding, you name it. He had high quality camping gear and loved spending his free time outside. So even in October of this year, 2024, when it was kind of outside of typical camping season for most people, but still, you know, before the weather turned, Dustin decided to head out camping.

Now, as we mentioned in part one, Dustin was planning to meet a friend, but actually it was his girlfriend. So I think it's really interesting because I think most of us assume that his friend was a male just because...

The sheriff's department only said friend. They didn't say anything else. So I think we all assume, oh, he's going camping with his buddy. Yeah, and a lot of us probably also were assuming that maybe this friend could have been responsible for what happened to Dustin. But to clarify here today, that is not what happened. And his girlfriend was the one to actually...

find him. Yeah, I think, you know, naturally all of us were wondering that because we had no information, which is why in part one we did say we don't know. But of course, naturally, we are curious. But that wasn't the case. You know, he was going to go camping that weekend with his girlfriend. But yeah, before that episode came out, the sheriff, the department and every news source reporting on Dustin's case referred to this person exclusively as Dustin's friend and

with no other details until an arrest was made. And the sheriff held another press conference to give some new details. So Dustin was gearing up for what was supposed to be a relaxing, beautiful camping weekend with his girlfriend in the stunning tree-covered landscape just under an hour outside of Bozeman, Montana, at the base of the Gallatin Mountains.

The plan was for them to begin camping together as of Friday, October 11th, again 2024, because she worked during the week and wouldn't be available until Friday evening, which was okay because they had the whole weekend ahead of them.

But Dustin wanted to get some extra camping in, so he decided to head down and snag a spot a day early on Thursday, October 10th. And, you know, this happens a lot as well. Sometimes when you're going to meet people to go camping, you want to scope out the area, make sure that you can snag one before the weekend, because as we know, even, you know, in off-season situations,

Sometimes those camping spots can get booked up pretty quick or you might not be able to find one. So Dustin was thinking ahead and he snagged one on Thursday. Yeah, and we know that this was a dispersed campsite again, so it wasn't regulated. There wasn't, you know, you didn't have to pay for the spot. So even more so, it's not like you can reserve campers

a camp spot. So I doubt that it was super busy, especially with what happened, but maybe he had a particular area that he really liked and wanted to make sure it was available and thought he would go down early, which we have absolutely done before as well. And on top of that, he is an outdoorsman. He loves camping. So maybe he was, maybe he was just very excited to go. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

So he did exactly that on Thursday just over four weeks before we're recording and releasing this episode. He found a beautiful spot near Big Sky, Montana, a quiet spot right by Moose Creek, roughly 2.5 miles off of Highway 191, just off of Moose Creek Road in a dispersed campsite. So outside of a designated campsite located on public land, of course, as Daphne mentioned.

Now, by himself, 35-year-old Dustin set up a great camp. He had a massive 10-foot wall tent that included a wood stove, a bed, lamps, etc. I mean, he went all out to make it comfortable for his girlfriend. And it was probably set up to be like this romantic and memorable weekend together, or at least, it was supposed to be.

Now, jumping ahead just a bit, Dustin was set to, after setting up his campsite and enjoying it for one night by himself on Thursday evening, to head back to the Bozeman area to pick up his girlfriend on Friday night after she got off work. So he was going to go back, he was going to pick up his girlfriend, take her up to the campsite, and they were just going to enjoy this wonderful weekend together. But Dustin never showed up.

In part one, we mentioned that he was supposed to meet his friend on Friday. We didn't know where or why, if they were going to camp somewhere else together, or what the situation was, because it hadn't been released yet. But now we know that this meeting place with his friend, or his girlfriend, was at her home to pick her up.

But when Dustin didn't show up, she got worried. Remember, there was no cell phone service at the campsite, so she couldn't reach Dustin by phone. So we can only imagine that she didn't know what was going on when he didn't show up. Yeah, like did something happen on the road? Did something happen at the campsite? Did he just fall asleep? Did he go out and, you know, something happened during the day and he got hurt? Like there was probably a million things going through her mind.

Exactly. She was very worried at this point, but it was night and the campsite was an hour away.

So she decided that the next morning on Saturday, October 12th, 2024, if he still hadn't shown up, she would go out there to find him herself. And that's exactly what she did. She arrived at the spot around 10 a.m. with a friend coming up to Dustin's truck and his campsite. And when she opened the tent, that's when she found Dustin deceased, which, you know, obviously I can't even imagine just the shock

and fear and terror that she was feeling in that moment. So in that unthinkable confusion, she called the police and mentioned her belief that it could have possibly been a bear attack, just not really knowing what happened to him. As we know, police and a bear expert assessed the scene and determined that it was not a bear that killed Dustin, but instead a human and a full homicide investigation began.

But little did we know when we released part one on October 28th, three days earlier on October 25th, the Montana State Crime Lab had uncovered something very important. A DNA match from a beer can found inside Dustin's tent.

This DNA did not belong to Dustin. And this beer can was taken in by law enforcement as they tested multiple items at the scene to see if they could, in fact, get some sort of DNA match. And then they did. Again, naturally, we were all wondering if the person who took Dustin's life was somebody else that he knew because the crime seemed so brutal and so brutal.

Like maybe somebody else knew that he was camping there and decided to retaliate for some unknown reason, right? But Dustin actually did not have any known ties to his killer because the DNA found on the beer can belonged to a 41-year-old man named Darren Christopher Abbey.

Now, what is a beer can with another man's identity doing in the same tent that Dustin was found savagely murdered in? Well, police wondered the same thing, so they worked very hard to track him down. And the following day, the day after they made this DNA discovery, on Saturday, October 26th, exactly two weeks after Dustin was found dead, police

Police found him in a local establishment in Butte, Montana and arrested him, but not in connection to Dustin's murder, not yet. They instead arrested him on unrelated charges for parole violation because Darren has a criminal record.

Oh yeah, this guy is a big P.O.S. And you guys are about to find out. So, before diving into what else we know about what happened to Dustin, let's talk about what we know about the monster that took his life.

In 1983, Darren Abbey was born alongside his twin brother, whose name is actually Dustin. They grew up in Reno, Nevada and attended Robert McQueen High School there before moving around to many different states like Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, Wyoming, and then eventually Montana.

Now, over the years, the brothers worked on construction projects for different companies, but it didn't always go well, because it's apparently been known that both of their anger got in the way of projects. Like, one Redditor posted regarding this story and said, quote, "This guy and his twin brother subcontracted painting work from the company that I worked for. We kicked them off the job eventually for anger issues. This doesn't surprise me. He was a psychopath then."

Now obviously, we can take this with a grain of salt since, you know, they're Reddit comments, but they do seem to kind of check out here. And another Redditor commented, quote, "Just double-checked with my landlord. Yeah, this guy was literally my next-door neighbor. He and his brother lived in the same apartment building as me in Lincoln, Montana. He painted my door in trim."

I remember not getting good vibes from him. And then in another comment, they said, quote, "'This dude knocked on my door one time asking for Febreze "'cause his apartment stank and he needed help. "'My partner kept hanging out with him in the bar, "'and it always made me uneasy that he kept hanging out with this Nazi. "'I knew that this guy was bad news. "'Cause, oh yeah, as we haven't mentioned yet.'"

He's a total Nazi, and there will be more examples of that to come, but eventually, Darren and his brother founded a small independent construction company called Abbey Painting and Construction LLC, and they specialize in, quote, "all aspects of painting and general construction, log home staining and chinking, remodels, decks, etc."

So Darren spent many years in Montana and had been terrorizing the state in his own way ever since, and even beyond Montana. Because back in 2011, he did something absolutely disgusting to a different innocent man.

On July 3rd, 2011, 28-year-old Darren Abbey was sitting at a bar in Bayview, Idaho, which is a Lakehead community just north of Coeur d'Alene, when he confronted a 46-year-old black man named Marlon L. Baker and reportedly told him that he, quote, didn't belong there, along with other horrific racial slurs.

And just so everybody knows, Darren Abbey has numerous offensive tattoos, including an iron cross, which is a known white supremacy symbol. Though some claim it to have non-racist uses, we can very much guess that is not the case here. He also has a swastika tattoo and two SS lightning bolt tattoos, which is also a white supremacist slash neo-Nazi derived symbol.

So Marlon sees some of the tattoos on Darren's body and not wanting anything to do with this guy or wanting any trouble from him, 46-year-old Marlon Baker left the bar.

Now, this was a Sunday, the day before the 4th of July, so there was a boat parade happening down at the marina on Lake Pend Oreille, which is the lake that Bayview is located on. So at 9 p.m., Marlon left the bar and walked down to the marina to watch this parade. However, with numerous witnesses, 28-year-old Darren followed him out of the bar and continued to taunt him with racial slurs, even poking Marlon in the chest as he spoke.

So once Darren had put his hands on him, Marlon responded by punching Darren once in the face, which rendered him unconscious. Ha, he got his ass whooped. He got punched square in his Nazi face. Well, other than knocking him out, the best part about this is that the back of Marlon's shirt said Howard Street Boxing Club Champion. And this is a boxing gym in Spokane, Washington.

And he wasn't actually a known boxer or boxing champion, but considering he took Darren out with one punch, it gives us a good laugh. Yes, it does. So after this, Darren, who suffered facial fractures, was taken into custody and arrested for battery and felony malicious harassment based on Idaho's law against hate crimes. And he was sentenced to three to five years in prison.

and Marlon was free to go. I love a beautiful story like that. It's crazy, though, because even when Darren was in the Kootenai County Jail for his attack on Marlon, numerous reports say, quote, he engaged in similar conduct with a corrections officer at the jail who is Latino.

So I couldn't find more information on that or what he said, but he kept harassing people for not being white. Like this guy is such a piece of shit, like you said. And there was also an incident back in 2004 when he was about 21 years old where he told Coeur d'Alene police, that's in Idaho, that he was a quote, independent skinhead who didn't like minorities because he has had so many run-ins with the law. But back in 2004 when he,

for whatever reason, told this to the police. He was reportedly living as a, quote, transient in the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho area after moving from Montana. And then after he was released from jail for attacking Marlon, he went back to Montana. Now, obviously, we don't want to focus on Darren's family or even his brother, but we just want to mention things that have come up in our research that could possibly help shape this entire story.

So we just want to mention briefly that five months after the attack of Marlon, Darren's brother, 33-year-old Micah Abbey, was reportedly asphyxiated to death by a Reno police officer. He had been living at a group home for persons with mental illness and or substance abuse, of which Micah was dealing with both, according to court documents, when on December 6, 2011, an

an officer responded to an incident where Micah is said to have been punching holes in walls and breaking windows. There were multiple incidents following this in the coming weeks, and then on December 25th, 2011, Micah was on the phone with Darren regarding Darren's recent arrest for the attack on Marlon L. Baker. Micah was overheard saying that he would, quote, be going gangsta on the officers who put his brother in jail, and after hanging up,

is said to have been agitated for the remainder of the day.

As the evening came, according to court documents, Micah continued to act aggressively, shoving the on-duty night caretaker against a wall while holding a fork in his hand, yelling obscenities and then telling officers after they arrived that voices in his head were telling him to do things. He also attempted to throw himself out of a window before resisting arrest, and during a struggle that ensued for multiple minutes with officers,

With officers pinning Micah down onto his bed trying to taser and handcuff him, Micah stopped being able to breathe.

and as a result, he was pronounced dead at 9:00 p.m. that night. Their mother, who's actually a licensed clinical social worker specializing in anxiety and panic disorders, depression, grief and loss, etc., began fighting for justice for Micah as soon as this happened, even organizing a protest in 2021.

Also,

Also, I want to mention, according to an article from 2013 on Darren's arrest for the attack on Marlon Baker, quote, Abby's parents are divorced with his father living in Sacramento and his mother still in Reno. She doesn't have any associations with either of her sons, which would obviously be about Darren and his twin brother, Dustin, possibly due to her professional work with top officials in Reno, including the mayor.

So we don't know if that is true, but I definitely found her profession very interesting. I also read that in December of 2003, she apparently kicked Darren out of her Reno home. And then he went to go live with the leader of the Aryan nation, Stephen Holton, who was...

by the way, later arrested for sending out mass emails that, quote, promised murder and mayhem to minorities, gays, and anyone against the white power movement. And this is what Stephen had to say regarding the Marlin attack. Quote, for that knockout, he's knocked out two or 300 people and got away with it. But this time he didn't. Well, Darren has garnered flakiness

four DUIs. Actually, he got his fourth DUI for excessive alcohol consumption, which made it a felony offense in April of 2020 in Flathead County, Montana. And for this, he was sentenced to five years in prison. And even so, this year in 2024, meaning he was released early, 41-year-old Darren Abbey was a free man living in Basin, Montana.

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On October 30th, 2024, so the day after we released part one on Dustin's case, the Gallatin County Sheriff's Office posted the following statement. Quote, the Gallatin County Sheriff's Office has identified a suspect in the Moose Creek homicide. The suspect is currently in custody on unrelated charges. The suspect is cooperating with our detectives and has led us to the evidence we have identified in prior press releases.

The investigation into this homicide continues. It is believed the suspect acted alone and there is no longer a threat to the community. Further details and charges are forthcoming, but it is important for this community to know they are safe to resume their outdoor activities. The Sheriff's Office will have no further comment in regard to this investigation until charges are filed.

And then just a day later, such charges were filed and they released a little bit more. So what we know about that night, Thursday, October 10th, 2024, is that Darren Abbey, who is known to be an avid hunter and fisherman, arrived at the dispersed campsite by Moose Creek that Dustin had just recently set up.

Now, whether Darren was interested in camping in the same spot or was just driving around looking to harm someone or rob someone, we still are not sure. But according to his conversation with the Gallatin Sheriff's Department, he arrived at the campsite that night and was offered a beer by Dustin.

Which is the backside of an axe.

He then continued to strike Dustin until his death before taking the ax to a creek to wash it and also washing the screwdriver in this creek.

Darren then admitted to police to taking multiple items from the scene, which we discussed in part one, but there are others as well, including two coolers, a .44 Magnum pistol and holster, a shotgun, and a shotgun ammunition sleeve. And then from Dustin's truck, he stole binoculars and a headlamp.

Then, after doing all of this, Darren left the scene entirely and disposed of two phones that he stole from Dustin's tent, which were found on October 17th.

But then he returned to the campsite the following day because he had left his hat at the scene. It's just crazy to know that he went back on Friday. Nobody came upon Dustin's body or campsite on Friday. And he was able to go back. Everything was exactly how he left it and get his hat. Yeah, he was taking a real risk by going back to that campsite on Friday. But one thing that he thankfully forgot at that campsite was...

was the beer can that he had drank from, which again was found inside Dustin's tent where his body was also found. - Which makes you wonder, like, why was it in his tent? Did it get thrown in his tent?

were they sitting in Dustin's tent? Like what, what happened here? It's possible that they were sitting inside Dustin's tent, maybe having a conversation, but Darren actually admitted to the police that he had washed his clothes that he was wearing when he murdered Dustin. Because obviously there was probably a lot of DNA evidence from this very brutal attack. And then he burned his shoes that he was wearing in a wood stove. Yeah. So he is, he's trying to destroy all the evidence here. Exactly. So,

So after law enforcement uncovered his DNA from that beer can, on October 26, 2024, police arrested him at an establishment for a parole violation in Butte, Montana, which is near his home in Basin, Montana.

After having him in custody for days and being able to question him, they officially charged Darren Abbey with deliberate homicide and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence, and he is currently on a $1.5 million bail.

Darren's fingerprints, of course, were all over the evidence that he stole from Dustin's campsite, and he admitted to killing Dustin on Thursday, October 10th. He admitted to this on October 29th. However, he claims that it was in self-defense. Yeah, fucking right. Considering his vicious past and the fact that he stole so many of these items from the campground and killed Dustin so horrifically...

You and I, and probably all of you guys, call total bullshit on this. Yeah, don't believe this for a second. So to me it seems like he just wanted to steal Dustin's gear and guns, and having attacked countless people in his life, he thought out there in the woods where no one could hear them, that he could get away with Dustin's murder. Just having absolutely no care for Dustin's life or his family.

And police don't believe this was self-defense either, which is why they charged him with deliberate homicide. And I wonder as well how he came upon Dustin's campsite and just how creepy that would have been. Like, you don't do that. You don't just walk up to someone's campsite and bother them. Like, people are out there to find solitude or have family time, especially at night. Like,

mind your business and imagine Dustin is out there alone. There's nobody around. It's not like, oh, I'm at a campsite where there's, you know, 12, 20, 30 other people neighboring me. There's nobody else around. And suddenly this strange man approaches him. Like that must've been really creepy. Well, actually I have my own story that is pretty similar to something like this. Thankfully nothing happened, but yeah,

Years ago, I was with some friends and we were at this remote campsite in Oregon. And it was late at night. We were all sitting around the campfire, hanging out. Wait, was this dispersed or like a... Fuck, what's the word? Established? Regulated? No, no. This was just on the side of a creek. So not established whatsoever. Right. But we're just sitting there around the campfire. We're chilling. We're telling stories. We're having a couple beers. Yeah.

And all of a sudden we see these headlights start driving in to the area that we are, you know, we're camped out at. And so I'm getting kind of worried and I'm like, what the fuck is this car doing out here? Like nobody should be out here.

And so me and my buddy, we walk up to this car and we're like, "Hey, like, what's up? What are you guys doing?" We look inside the car, there's people dressed up, like there's a dude dressed up in a bunny costume. Was it Halloween? No, it wasn't. It wasn't. So I'm like, "Okay, what the hell is going on? Why are these guys dressed up, right?"

And they go, well, we're looking for this rave. We heard that there was this outdoor rave somewhere out in this area. And we're like, no, like we haven't seen anything. You know, maybe it's down the road. You guys should go check down there. So anyway, they end up leaving and we're like, okay, that was pretty fucking weird. And so we go back to the fire and we're chilling. And then about 30 to 45 minutes later,

Here comes that same car again. And it's mind you, it's like this beat up old like Buick or something. So really shitty car. I'm just getting bad vibes. So I pick up the axe from next to the campfire, pick it up and I want to intimidate these guys. So I start dragging it. I start dragging it in the gravel back towards this car. And they've got their at this point, it's like midnight. And so it's pitch dark out there.

So other than the campfire and these headlights. So I'm dragging the axe back to him and I ask him again like, you know, what are you guys doing? We told you guys there's no rave here. I don't know what you're doing at this campsite. Like you guys need to figure out where you need to be. And one of them said that they had taken, that they had like dropped acid or had taken mushrooms or something like that. So me and my buddy were just kind of freaked out and we're like, no, like you guys need to leave. You guys need to figure it out. Go find your rave. We don't know where it's at, right?

So that entire night I'm in my tent and I just keep hearing shit outside and I'm thinking, oh God, there's that fucking Buick again. Yeah, because they could come back and do God knows what. Exactly. Nothing happened that night and I'm glad that nothing happened, but it's just weird when you're out there in the middle of nowhere and you're not really expecting people to come upon you and then they do. Yeah, I mean, I remember we...

One of the... I think the only times I ever camped somewhere that was not a regular campground that you have to pay for was when we were with my dad and your parents and there was a car driving by and somebody stopped and they were trying to come down to where we were and I was like,

what is happening? Like, it's really scary. Yeah, that was at like Salmon Creek when we camped underneath that bridge or whatever it was. Yeah, and that was in Oregon. So yeah, it's scary. And I feel like it's a known thing that you don't do that. You don't come upon somebody while they're camping, especially at night. You don't do that, you know? Yeah, and we also don't know the exact time

that Darren came upon Dustin's campsite. Like, we don't know the exact time, so was it during the day? Was it at night? But one thing we do know is that Dustin, being, you know, the nice person that he was, you know, decided to invite Darren in

We also wonder, did the guy ask him for a beer? Was he trying to say, hey, I'm, you know, came over here looking for a spot. Can I hang out with you? Like, we have no idea what happened. So...

Of course, that is what Darren said happened. But can we trust him? We obviously don't have Dustin's account. So is is he telling the truth? It's just it's so, again, scary to think about. We actually did an episode for Heath's birthday this year over on our bonus series that you can find on Patreon and Apple subscriptions. But we told all these scary near miss camping tales.

tales that are true because I feel like everybody who has camped or camped a good amount at least has some type of scary thing that's happened to them in some way. So it's just devastating that this happened and it's I can't imagine how freaked out Dustin must have felt.

And, you know, for anybody saying that, you know, when you go camping, you need to be packing. You need to have something to protect yourself. Dustin did. And that's the horrifying part here. He had at least two guns. So, yeah. Well, also for anybody who might be wondering if his brother Dustin was involved, he was not because Dustin has been in prison since 2022 for also having a fourth DUI offense.

And he was rejected parole a little while after his arrest, but he will appear in 2025 because, quote, Complete Victim's Impact Programming.

Reasons for denial also include need for CD treatment and victims impact previous criminal record pattern of similar offenses, multiple offenses, poor history on supervision. So there's that. But it's also, again, it's crazy to think about the fact that Darren was sentenced to five years in prison for that fourth DUI. And he was released before the five years. Cause if he was not,

he would be in prison until next year and Dustin would be alive today. Which is extra disappointing looking at what we know about Darren and the types of offenses that he has committed and

He has been very violent in the past. He has abused alcohol and hurt people because of it. It's devastating that he was released. Yeah, I think the justice system kind of failed in this case because when you look at people who have long criminal histories like this or long records, it's like, why? Why are we giving these people the opportunity to

To get out early. Why? Well, actually, I want to play this little clip from his recent hearing where a prosecutor highlights other previous arrest charges for Darren, which spans across multiple states because we don't have access to these type of records. But here are at least some of them.

Guilty conviction for battery on a police officer. Burglary, also found guilty at trial. He had multiple charges of aggravated assault on a peace officer. Malicious harassment charge. He spent time in the Idaho State Penitentiary. There's multiple DUIs across multiple states. So right now, Darren Abbey is behind bars at the Gallatin County Jail in Bozeman, Montana.

So,

So honestly, sadly, I don't see Darren pleading guilty next week at his hearing and explaining what he did.

That's not historically what we see happen. Yeah, he does not seem like the type. But make sure that you guys are following us on social media for that update. And now, finally, I want to play part of the recent press conference from the Gallatin County Sheriff. It states everything that we have already explained, but we know a lot of you guys like hearing these types of clips. And there is a Q&A at the end, so here it is.

So this press conference today, we're going to, I will have a few things to say. I'm going to invite Nate Cameraman up, who is the captain of our detective division. He'll have a brief statement and then I will finish off with a few words. So to start, thank you guys for being here. The Sheriff's Office is here to announce the arrest of Darren Christopher Abbey for the murder of Dustin Gerson.

This murderer is a 41-year-old male who is currently living in the Basin, Montana area and working in the Big Sky area. I will no longer refer to him by his name as I don't want to give him any further notoriety regarding this homicide. During the investigation, the detectives collected DNA from a beer can inside of Jerisum's tent and sent it to the Montana State Crime Lab. The Montana State Crime Lab worked diligently

to get us a match and on October 25th they informed us they had a combined DNA index system or CODIS confirmation. These investigators worked all day to locate this individual and on October 26th they learned he was in the Butte area. With the assistance of the Butte Civil War Sheriff's Office and the Montana Department of Corrections, Probation and Parole Officers

He was arrested leaving a local establishment. This individual was interviewed by our detectives and the Montana Department of Justice DCI agents on October 29th. This individual confessed to the murder of Dustin Gerson.

In order to understand what happened, I want to give a little background on what was learned during the course of the investigation. Dustin arrived in the Moose Creek area on Thursday, the 10th of October and set up camp. This camp included a wall tent complete with wood stove, beds, lamps, and multiple other items. His girlfriend had to work on Friday, so his plan was to travel back to the valley

Friday evening and pick her up so they could spend the weekend together. On Friday night, Dustin did not show up to pick up his girlfriend and she became worried. On Saturday morning, she and a friend drove to the campsite and found Dustin deceased in the tent. By all accounts, this homicide appears to be a chance encounter. There does not appear to be any connection between our victim and our suspect.

During the confession, we learned the suspect was looking for a place to camp on Thursday night and had planned on this particular site. As he approached the site, he realized someone was staying there. He stated Dustin welcomed him to the campsite and offered him a beer. At some point, this individual struck Dustin Gerson with a piece of solid wood, stabbed him in the neck with a screwdriver, and ultimately hit him with the axe. The motives of this attack are still unknown.

and the investigators will continue to piece together everything they can to build a better picture of the events that evening. This appears to be a heinous crime committed by an individual who had no regard for the life of Dustin Gersom. This individual removed items from the campsite he believed had evidence that could tie him to the crime. He removed the items he had touched to include the cooler, the firearms, and the axe, and returned to the crime the following night and removed further items.

This is the behavior of a guilty subject who thought they could get away with murder. And with that, I will take some questions. So... You mentioned the motive isn't clear yet. Did the suspect provide information that he was welcomed into the camp and had a beer with the victim and then the suspect struck the victim? Is there any kind of rationale for why the suspect decided...

We have a bit of his story, but we don't really know what the true story is. The question is, do we really know what happened in this case? What caused this? And we have a story. We just don't know if it's accurate. So I'm not willing to share that until we know what's actually accurate. Is the suspect a huge, big guy? Where did he help him? So he was living...

Kind of, I don't want to say transient, but it was kind of in multiple different areas. He currently had a place in Basin, Montana and was spending some time in Butte that night when he was arrested. He was employed up in the Big Sky area at different times as well. She was arrested in Butte. Where is he currently being held? The question is, he was arrested in Butte. Where is he currently being held? He was arrested in Butte. He was being held in Butte up until today and our plan is to have him transferred back to here as charges are filed.

The press release said that you picked up on unrelated charges. What were those charges? The question is about unrelated charges in the prior press release. He'd been picked up on a probation violation, and that's what he's being held on.

Last one. Any specifics on what he was doing up in Big Sky? Where he was employed? What kind of work he was doing? Yeah, so he was in the construction business. The question is, what was he doing up in Big Sky? Where was he employed? He had, I understand he was a contractor, but I don't have all the details as to exactly what he was doing at that time. Good? All right. Thank you all.

Well, we'll see what happens in this case and can only hope that this monster gives Dustin's family some much-needed answers and why he so senselessly took their beloved brother, son, father, and friend far too soon.

Thank you so much, everybody, for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. Don't forget that that GoFundMe is going to be in the description of this episode. So if you want to help alongside us, please do. His family and his children could really use the help. So please do that. Absolutely. Please check that out. And thank you guys so much for listening to this update. We were so shocked the next day. Oh, I couldn't believe it. Like we were like, whoa, whoa,

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Because honestly, sometimes this stuff, you never get answers. You get answers years later. Like, we had no expectations. So that was such a shock that they figured this out so quickly. So honestly, big props to the Gallatin County Sheriff's Department. I was just about to say that. They did incredible work on this case. And now...

Dustin and his family will have some form of justice. And a monster is rightfully behind bars. But yeah, appreciate everybody tuning in for this. And we will see you on Tuesday with a whole new episode. All right, guys. So for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger.

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