Chief Calf shot 27-year-old Phillip Lyster to death outside Westside Lanes bowling alley in August. The men were strangers, and Chief Calf said he feared for his life after receiving a barrage of anonymous telephone threats in the 24 hours leading up to the shooting. He was extremely intoxicated, and mistook Lyster for his aggressor.
Witnesses say Lyster was only trying to keep the peace when he approached Chief Calf in the parking lot of the bowling alley and asked him to hand over the 20-gauge shotgun, which Chief Calf had stolen from a friend's house nearby.
Deputy County Attorney Jennifer Clark, who prosecuted the case, asked Deschamps to impose a 75-year prison sentence with no time suspended. Clark was ultimately disappointed with the sentence Chief Calf received, but said the circumstances posed some difficult questions.
“This is such a hard one,” Clark said. “It's hard to balance the two lives affected. I don't agree with the sentence given the fact that someone lost their life at the deliberate actions of another, yet I think the judge balanced the factors he needed to consider.”
Chief Calf's mother, Kathleen Stewart, characterized the sentence as “a gift.”
“He was given a gift today,” she said. “The judge saw that there was good inside him, despite the terrible thing he did.”
Phillip Lyster's mother, Lori, clutched her son's childhood teddy bear, Carmichael, and was “mostly satisfied” with the sentence, but said no punishment could ever undo the tragedy dealt to her son and her family.
Lyster said she appreciated that Judge Deschamps publicly recognized her son was not culpable in the shooting.
During the two-and-a-half day trial, Chief Calf's public defender, Scott Spencer, argued that mitigating circumstances led to “a confluence of two people that ended in tragedy.” Spencer applied legal arguments of mitigation, justifiable use of force and necessity.
In an effort to prove mitigated deliberate homicide, Spencer argued that Chief Calf was acting under the influence of extreme mental and emotional stress. Spencer said Lyster exacerbated that distress by confronting his client in a threatening manner, while Chief Calf tried to back away.
Friends of Lyster who witnessed the shooting said he was merely trying to defuse the situation, and walked up to the man calmly.
“I just wanted to stand up for Phill, because he's not able to stand up for himself today,” Lori said.
On the eve of the shooting, Zeb and Bonnie Erickson, Lyster's best friends, were celebrating their last night as an unwed couple. When the gunshot ripped across the parking lot, Zeb Erickson ran to Lyster, who would have been his best man at the wedding, but instead lay gasping in his arms before he died.
“It's so hard to comprehend how something so terrible can happen to a person so full of goodness,” Bonnie said. “Phill's last act on this earth was caring for his loved ones. I truly believe Phill saved Zeb's life and my life. I thank God I have so many good memories of Phill, because those last memories are the worst of my life.”
Deschamps said Anthony Curtis, the man who repeatedly called and harassed Chief Calf over the telephone, should also be held responsible for his role in the shooting.
Chief Calf, who stole the shotgun from a friend who lives near the bowling alley, then pointed the weapon at several people, was also convicted of two counts of assault with a weapon and a count of robbery, all felonies. Deschamps sentenced the man to 20 years in prison on each of those counts, but ordered that they run concurrent to the homicide charge.
“Sending you to prison will do one thing - it will punish you,” Deschamps said. “And I know that you're gonna come out worse than when you went in. Nothing good is going to happen to you in prison. But if you take another person's life, no matter what the circumstances, you need to be punished.”
After the hearing, Lori Lyster and Kathleen Stewart stood talking in the courthouse lobby, one mother to another, both grieving in different ways. Still holding Carmichael, Lyster showed Stewart a photograph of Phillip with his wife, Julia, and the women hugged.
“We're going to have a nice lunch in the near future and talk about the problems of underage drinking,” Lyster said. “Maybe someday some good can come out of this.”
Reporter Tristan Scott can be reached at 523-5264 or at tscott@missoulian.com
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