Feb 16, 2000
LIVINGSTON - Three brothers of a man who disappeared in the Yellowstone high country nearly a decade ago have sued former Park County Sheriff Charlie Johnson, claiming that he botched
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LIVINGSTON - Three brothers of a man who disappeared in the Yellowstone high country nearly a decade ago have sued former Park County Sheriff Charlie Johnson, claiming that he botched the investigation into what the brothers maintain could have been a murder.
Dan Campbell, 41 years old at the time, started hiking at the Hellroaring Trailhead in Yellowstone National Park on April 4, 1991. He was hunting for elk antlers to gather and sell, an illegal activity in the park, but one that occurs every spring.
Campbell had arranged for his girlfriend to meet him in the Jardine area outside the park two days later. When he didn't show up, Tracy Erb reported him as missing to Yellowstone and Park County authorities on April 8.
Current Park County Sheriff Clark Carpenter, who replaced Johnson in 1998, said the case has always been handled as a disappearance, not as a homicide investigation.
But the Campbell family, long critical of Johnson's investigation, has now filed a federal lawsuit, claiming intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress. One brother, Bill Campbell of Idaho, said he has spent thousands of dollars keeping the case alive, but added, "it has never been about money."
"We just wanted to find Dan's remains and bring him home and give him a decent burial," he said.
The family maintains that Johnson knew, or should have known, that murder was a possibility.
"Information was developed in the course of the investigation which indicated that Dan Campbell may have been murdered," says the suit, filed Jan. 10 in U.S. District Court in Billings.
Johnson "breached his legal duty … to properly and competently conduct the investigation relating to the disappearance of Dan Campbell."
Campbell had traveled lightly, without much gear and accompanied only by a dog. A heavy spring snowstorm hit the forested plateaus and steep canyons of northern Yellowstone shortly after he started walking.
Despite an extensive search, no trace of him or his dog ever turned up.
There was speculation at the time that he had chosen to disappear, a theory strongly denied by his family and his lawyer, who said he was due to collect a significant legal settlement in a court case that was nearing settlement.
His family maintained he could have been murdered by other horn hunters, possibly in a dispute over the prized antlers.
"From the evidence I've acquired down through the years, I believe that my brother was murdered there," Bill Campbell said. "There as 14 people up there horn hunting in the area at that time. … Another horn hunter up there heard two shots."
But much of the evidence gathered at the time has been disposed of or lost, the brothers contend. Johnson's deputies seized camping gear from a pair of local horn hunters who had been camping just outside the park's northern boundary, where such activity is legal.
The suit maintains Johnson should never have returned the confiscated gear, which included ammunition, spent cartridges and "it is reasonably believed, a firearm."
Because those items were returned to the horn hunters without "fingerprinting, fiber analysis and other customary law enforcement modes of testing to ascertain the involvement of any suspects," the suit maintains, "the homicide investigation will never be properly resolved."
Carpenter said Campbell's disappearance remains an open case but is a missing person case and not a homicide investigation.
"We have no proof of that (homicide) at all," he said. "We don't know that the guy was even in Park County. He may be down in Las Vegas for all we know."
However, the Campbell brothers' attorney, Penelope Strong of Livingston, noted that the Montana Criminal Investigation Bureau was involved in the investigation at some point.
MCIB doesn't normally investigate missing person cases.
Carpenter said nobody was ever identified as a suspect in the case, though some horn hunters were questioned.
"They made a tremendous attempt to find this guy," he said of the search team and subsequent investigation. "But when the leads run out, they run out."
Searchers spent weeks in the air and on the ground, combing rough country for any sign of Campbell. The National Park Service and Park County cooperated in the work.
Because of the uncertainty over their brother's disappearance, Bill, Jerry and Rod Campbell continue to suffer "severe depression, anxiety, obsessive thoughts, inability to concentrate, insomnia and other emotional distress" as a result of Johnson's "negligent acts and omissions," the brothers say in the suit.
"I've been fighting this thing for almost nine years," Bill Campbell said. "My family gave Park County every opportunity to adjust their mistakes and they didn't do it."
Johnson served as sheriff from 1985 until he was defeated in the 1998 election. He had been charged in 1997 of misdemeanor sexual assault and misuse of office charges for allegedly fondling a female employee. A jury acquitted him of all charges, but the county's insurance company later paid the woman a cash settlement after she sued in civil court.
Just prior to the election, Johnson faced an uprising among his deputies when all but one of them signed an advertisement publicly endorsing Carpenter.
Johnson is now working as a police officer in Kosovo and could not be reached for comment.
Strong said she has been unable to serve him with formal notice of the suit. No hearings have been scheduled. The suit seeks $100,000 for each brother, plus unspecified punitive damages and legal fees.
Strong and Carpenter both said the county probably will have to underwrite any judgment against Johnson.
"If this thing had been properly handled, the family could have had some timely closure," Strong said, adding that there hasn't been a memorial service for Campbell because of the uncertainty surrounding the case.
