Anna Marie Stout's attorney, Ed Sheehy, claims the Ravalli County Sheriff's Office overstepped the scope of a search warrant when deputies discovered the pistol involved in the shooting in the saddle bag of a Harley-Davidson parked in the couple's garage.
Ravalli County District Court Judge Jeffrey Langton listened to testimony Wednesday on the motion to suppress the evidence.
“I just got home and there's something wrong with my husband,” Stout was recorded saying in the 9-1-1 call. “There's blood and his eyes are all bruised and he's cold.”
Stout was later charged with deliberate homicide after investigators found a 9 mm Beretta handgun wrapped in a towel in the motorcycle's saddle bags, as well as other evidence.
Sheehy argued that because the motorcycle wasn't included in a search warrant obtained by the sheriff's office, the gun should be excluded from the trial set for June.
Through a series of witnesses, Chief Deputy County Attorney Geoff Mahar offered the judge a look at just how the murder investigation and subsequent search unfolded for local authorities.
LaDonna Morgan, a local EMT, told how she discovered the body in bed. After a cursory look for a firearm came up empty, “we backed out of the room. Š We were concerned there wasn't a weapon there. We didn't know what had happened.”
Ravalli County Sheriff's Detective Matt Cashell serves as deputy coroner. He was next to examine Stout's body and saw the injury to the right temple.
“There was a large amount of blood Š and an observable hole in his skull,” Cashell said.
Cashell and another deputy also looked inside the bedroom for a weapon. They found a shell casing under the pillow. When they didn't find a gun, Cashell said he determined that a search warrant was necessary.
Detective Jason Basnaw said he got the call Sunday evening to go into the office and put together a search warrant. Basnaw did so and later had the document signed by a local justice at her home.
The pistol was discovered after Basnaw served the warrant at the Stout home.
Basnaw said the warrant included a physical description of the home as well as a number of different vehicles owned by the Stouts. It didn't specifically include the motorcycle.
That was a point that Sheehy pressed in cross examination.
Basnaw said he believed the sheriff's department stayed within the terms of the search warrant because it encompassed the entire residence.
Langton took the matter under advisement, saying he'd make a ruling by early next week.
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