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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The authorities were alerted to the death on Oct. 12 by a caller who “indicated that the death may have been caused by a bear attack,” the sheriff’s office said on Facebook.

But there was no evidence of a bear, according to the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, which visited the crime scene to investigate.

“If there is a bear in the area, they leave tracks, hair, scat — that sort of thing,” Greg Lemon, the administrator for the communications and education division for the department, said in a phone interview on Friday. “We didn’t see any signs of bear activity.”

It was not immediately clear if Mr. Kjersem’s friend was the caller. The sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to questions seeking more information about the caller or the friend.

“He was a loving, helpful and adoring father who in no way deserved this,” Jillian Price, Mr. Kjersem’s sister, said at the news conference. “I ask our community to please help us find out who did this. There is someone in our valley that is capable of truly heinous things.”

The family has set up a GoFundMe to help support Mr. Kjersem’s children. Ms. Price did not immediately respond on Friday to a request for comment made through GoFundMe.

The authorities did not know exactly what weapon was used to kill Mr. Kjersem. But Sheriff Springer said it was “something hard enough to cause significant damage to the skull” and “some flesh areas of the body.”

Even though the woods where Kjersem was killed is “fairly remote,” it is a popular place for hunters and other campers, Sheriff Springer said.

The authorities are hoping that someone may have seen Mr. Kjersem or his truck — a black, 2013 Ford F-150 — and are asking the public for tips or trail camera footage.

“People have asked me if there is a threat to this community,” Sheriff Springer said. “And the answer is ‘We don’t know.’”

Bear attacks have been known to occur in Montana.

In September, a man was injured by a bear while hiking in Glacier National Park. Last year, a woman was killed by a grizzly bear on a trail in Montana.