The light snow of the still dark early morning of December 15,1993 was melted away from around the sizzling white hot 1991 Dodge Spirit when the trucker came upon the desolate scene on Highway 68 about 1.3 miles east of the Montana state line in MacKenzie County North Dakota. As the trucker jumped from his vehicle and ran up to the car with his fire extinguisher, he peered into the broken melted windows without getting too close to the searing heat of the fire. The trucker discovered in the front seats of the vehicle two charred bodies.
The bodies of the men were draped like mannequins. The heat had burned away all the flesh from the heads, arms, and the legs of the men. The naked skulls, mouths agape and eyes melted out of their sockets, looked upward as though screaming from the tortures of the damned in hell. A pork- like stench of burned flesh wafted in the gentle wind as the trucker observed them. The grisly scene was from a real life nightmare and continuing mystery in the small town of Sidney, Montana (pop. 5150) which has only now gained the national notoriety it deserves.
Both the Watford City, North Dakota and the Sidney Fire Departments, numerous police investigators, and law enforcement personnel were on the scene as soon as possible. A pathologist from Minot, ND hurriedly drove the 170 miles to the scene but arrived later in the afternoon. The bodies of the two victims were removed from the car then taken to Sidney for an autopsy. The car was loaded on the back of a flatbed truck and hauled in to town as well.
The pathologist performed a hurried autopsy that evening on a makeshift table made of plywood boards in the Sidney Fire Station. During the procedures the Richland County Deputy Coroner was asked to leave the room after criticizing the routine. The North Dakota pathologist seemed to have come into the autopsy believing that the deaths were accidental, the simple result of neglect. Within hours the bodies were tentatively identified as two Sidney men, Michael Wolfe (25) and Bruce Madsen (31).
The radio news reports from the onset did not carry the victim's names but as more information came in the names were released. The parents of Michael Wolfe were numb with pain as they were informed first after the body was identified. The Madsen family held out hope that a terrible mistake had been made, but dental records sadly confirmed the truth after a few days. Then they were heartbroken.
In the week following the deaths, North Dakota assumed jurisdiction and began to question friends of the young men in the Sidney area. Two investigators from North Dakota, one a Sheriff's Deputy from MacKenzie County, began to question the two men's associates. Many of the friends were scared to talk about the situation. Others were never interviewed. The two young single men had been out on the town drinking on the night of their deaths. Both men were well liked in Sidney but both had minor records of scraps with the authorities. Michael Wolfe had only been released days before from the local lock-up for an alcohol related offense- and had an admitted drinking problem. Both men had used marijuana and other drugs in the past.
The close knit town of Sidney was abuzz with rumors and suspicions as the investigators went around town asking questions. Most of the townspeople knew about a firebombing of Bruce Madsen's house earlier in the year and most suspected fowl play was involved. But almost as quickly as it started the investigation ended. The Minot pathologist concluded that the deaths were an "accident". The decision was quick and arrived to the families as yet more stomach churning bad news. The news went out again in Montana and North Dakota but people who knew the boys and knew about Sidney's dark side also were not convinced of the conclusion.
Since 1986 Sidney, Montana had been the site of a battle royale involving allegations of corruption and drug dealing by local law enforcement. The dispute began when $50,000 of cocaine had disappeared from the police evidence room after the arrest of smuggler Lyle Lucky. A local attorney, T.R. Halvorson, had made allegations that a local prosecuting attorney was involved with a police detective in a drug ring. For years the battle raged. Attorney Halvorson's efforts at reform were quashed after he narrowly avoided disbarment (but was suspended from the practice of law for a short period of time) in 1990. But before he was suspended T.R. Halvorson had so maligned District Judge H.R. Obert that Judge Obert was forced to resign shortly thereafter.
It appeared that after Halvorson had been discredited the "drug scandal" would evaporate. But almost immediately Sidney City Councilman Richard Hobbs was approached by several witnesses and began the controversy again, by obtaining affidavits and going to the Montana Criminal Investigation Bureau in Helena. The Hobbs investigation went nowhere despite dozens of witnesses who gave reports of drug flights into the nearby Lambert airport and brazen drug use and dealing by the suspects. But strange reports also accompanied the investigation. A Glendive lady told that the attorney targeted in the investigation had come onto her property and intimidated her husband who was the brother of a key witness, who had admitted to hauling a large amount of marijuana from Billings for the attorney. The Helena based state investigator, Dan Skuletich, ignored eye witness accounts and exonerated the men. The people of Sidney were shocked and dismayed.
But even after the Hobbs investigation suspiciously collapsed a new "drug scandal" erupted again when trucker Clinton Mullen and his wife Rena claimed they were approached to haul drugs by the Sidney attorney. The Mullens declined and were harassed by the local police and beaten at the behest of another Sidney attorney. The Mullens were not involved with the Hobbs investigation. But this new information was sensational. Then Mullen ran into trouble with the law himself. The attorney who instigated the beating began prosecution of Clinton Mullen on a very suspicious felony theft charge. The charge was thrown out on the District Court level, then the prosecutor appealed the charge to the Montana Supreme Court where it was also thrown out. People throughout Montana were puzzled that no one in government would stop the corruption.
A witness to the Mullen beating, Anita Tomalino, received death threats on her answering machine after it was discovered that Anita was going to be interviewed by a private investigator hired by Circle attorney Arnie Hove for the Mullens. After Anita continued to be harassed by a Sidney lawyer her father Ray Tomalino, of Miles City, reported the threats to the FBI but nothing was done.
Eventually more than twenty witnesses were prosecuted by the targets. At least twelve libel actions were filed, (but not prosecuted) by the policemen involved and the lawyer. Even more disturbing were the accounts of police involvement in drug related murders. Bobby Voss of Sidney died under suspicious circumstances - officially termed "suicide"- days after he had been treated at Sidney's Community Hospital after he was thrown from his car and beaten. Bobby Voss ,who was believed to be involved at the low levels of a police protected drug ring, refused to identify his assailants. The mother of Bobby Voss later confided that she believed her son had gone to the police shortly before his death and was giving information about a Sidney drug dealer suspected of distributing drugs for the police. As people talked and compared notes other deaths appeared to be linked to a drug operation which the Sidney authorities claimed did not exist. The police detective and the attorney loudly proclaimed their innocence.
Then the family of rancher Don Kukas came forward with questions about the death of their relative several years earlier. Kukas had been shot in the chest by a handgun. The wound channel traveled straight down and the bullet was lodged in the couch where his body lay. The trajectory of the bullet showed that Don Kukas' body had not moved after the high caliber handgun was discharged. The gun was found four feet from the body. A pickup was seen by a relative leaving the Kukas feedlot less than an hour before the body was discovered. Donnie Kukas, heavily in debt, was supposed to have been involved on the fringes of two cattle companies linked to the corrupt police detective which were suspected of transporting large quantities of cocaine. Area hunters were puzzled that Kukas had not moved at all after sustaining the chest wound.
Another Sidney resident , Jerry Herdt died during the same period, after he advised friends he was providing the FBI information about a local attorney and the police drug operation. Herdt's death was ruled "suicide". Members of Herdt's Pentecostal church were not satisfied with the conclusions as Herdt also told them also he was co-operating with the authorities in an investigation. Each death terrified witnesses, but their unforeseen reaction simply brought out more witnesses who were willing to come forward. A veteran investigator who worked on the Wolfe-Madsen case speculated that the "suicides" may have been professional "hits"(murders) executed after the victims had been subdued with a high voltage stun gun; the murder weapon placed in their hands, and the trigger pulled. Such a method would leave powder burns on the victims as though they had actually pulled the trigger.
From jail Michael Wolfe advised his mother by a letter that he knew about the corrupt police detective and was going to try to do something about it. Shortly before he was released from jail Michael advised four jail mates that a local police detective would murder him as soon as he was released from jail. Two days after his release Michael Wolfe - along with his friend Bruce Madsen- was dead. The last time anyone saw the two men they had stopped off at the Wolfe residence just outside of Sidney about 12:15 AM. Michael complained to his parents that they were "being followed" and continued to look out the window. Then they went to the car, got in, drove off, and were discovered dead less than five hours later.
After the official ruling of accidental death was made, the families retained an independent pathologist, Dr. Kenneth Mueller, of Billings. Dr. Mueller determined that the men were dead prior to the fire since neither had appreciable amounts of smoke in their lungs. SAFECO fire investigator David Harrington examined the car and concluded a fire had been set by an accelerant - partly because there were pour marks on the side of the car and because Bruce Madsen's shoe had traces of flammable liquid on it. Despite this new and compelling evidence the North Dakota authorities would not change their ruling. The FBI declined to intervene. The accident looked too much as though it were done by a professional.
Then things became quiet. Still a few months later, in the spring of 1994, Virginia Wolfe was shocked to hear a frantic directive from the Sidney police dispatcher on the police scanner to detain a man leaving the family's attorney's office and "identify the man at all costs." When Virginia Wolfe called her attorney he advised her that the man had just come into his office to give a statement about " what Michael had told him while they were in jail." The man confirmed that Michael had indeed told him that "the police detective would kill him as soon as he were released from jail." The witness, Mark Palmer from Culbertson, had never been in the attorney's office before that date. After he left the attorney's office, while still in the law firm parking lot, Mr. Palmer was confronted by a Sidney patrolman and asked for identification. Afterward, Mr. Palmer identified himself and the officer left. Mrs. Wolfe was astounded at what had happened. Later that summer as the family continued on with their investigation, and while they were on vacation, their home was burglarized , and private papers were rifled. But the investigation documents had been hidden. Within days the Wolfe family attorney's office was also burglarized while he was out of town and photocopies of key documents were among the only items taken from the office.
The Wolfe family also noticed that their home was under surveillance for months after the deaths. Bruce Madsen's mother also began to receive reports that something was very strange around the death of her son. Both families began to suspect that law enforcement was purposely ignoring the circumstances around the deaths of their sons. Eyebrows raised when Glasgow FBI agent Scott Cruise scoffed at the idea that a prosecutor or police detective could be involved in the death of the two young men. Rumors abounded that the local drug operation involved with police officers and a lawyer (with Helena political connections) was much larger and more powerful than had previously been thought.
Tom Mangen, a private investigator from Helena working for the Madsen family, became curious about the drug allegations and traveled to Gillette, Wyoming to interview a cousin of the Sidney attorney. The man, "Jimmy C" advised he had used drugs with the attorney. The private investigator later commented on the interview "now we know that (the Sidney attorney) is not telling the truth."
Another witness Michael Wolfe had spoken to while he was in jail, James Horrack, was questioned about Wolfe's statements, but the interrogation seemed to be slanted to protect the suspects.
The families continued to seek a true investigation. A citizens' petition was circulated requesting an investigation and more than 2,553 signatures were obtained. The petition was sent to officials in Montana and North Dakota. The Bismarck Tribune ran a series of articles on the killings which were picked up by the wire services. The mothers of the two boys have both become active in a Virginia based organization called "Parents Against Corruption and Coverup" (PACC) founded by the parents of Tommy Burkett who was murdered in what was a botched drug investigation in which Tommy assisted the authorities.
Tommy Burkett's family has begun to mobilize families who have lost loved ones to government corruption or had the investigations covered up. One project the PACC families are participating in is the "Coverup Quilt" that has hand sewn portions for each of the victims. The Wolfe and Madsen quilt blocks are available on the excellent PACC Internet website. Among the other victims are the Ives and Henry families whose sons stumbled onto the famous drug operation near Mena, Arkansas.
Today there are two small wooden crosses near the three strand barb wire fence where the bodies of Michael Wolfe and Bruce Madsen were found. High school kids from Sidney regularly go to the makeshift memorial. Lately others have been there too, stopping to look at the site, and wondering if the mysterious drug-related serial killings (The Hi-Line Murders) will be solved and the killers brought to justice.
