Interesting Few Weeks

A VERY interesting few weeks! Some of the things that I did not post in my July 4th update are now public record so I can get it all out there now. While we were in MT, Mehan had taken down Marc’s camera, which was at the end of his driveway. This camera has been used extensively during the murder investigation, so Mehan was charged on Friday July 6th with tampering with evidence and his bail set at a very high amount. Full details can be read in the Helena IR and viewed on KXLH so I will not go into them.

On Wednesday July 11th we got a call from one of the detectives, who advised us that a lot of the case information had been published in the paper that morning. Apparently, the reporter had gotten access to an 11 page affidavit which we thought was to be sealed but was not. This document contained intimate details of the investigation, including the name of the other suspects and why they were suspects. I don’t think this is a good thing, but at the very least now I can share things that I had to keep secret, since it is all now contained in a public document.

The week of July 16th, yet another article came out in the Helena IR, explaining our reasons for fighting the default judgment that was entered against Mike. If you have not read about that, we (the family) found out from a newspaper article in January that Mehan, his wife, Katy Wessel, and Dennis Shaw had filed a lawsuit alleging that Mike was doing the same things that they had been doing, ie looking in people’s windows and filming them, harassing them, making them fear for their lives. The interesting thing about this lawsuit is that Mike never saw it. I am the one who went through thousands of pieces of paper from Mike’s house, over a 10 month period, and I never (nor did anyone else who was in his house) saw one piece of paper that made reference to that lawsuit. He did have about 30 pages from a ticket the county gave him for driving my Dad’s truck down to the mailbox with Colorado plates. He had not changed the plates to MT plates and had to drive the truck down the dirt road to the mailbox because of heavy snow. For this infraction I found scores of papers from the county, and also a lot of papers where he had been doing research on it (pretty sure he had just had enough of getting in trouble for little minor things, when people around him seemed to be untouchable) The other really interesting thing about this lawsuit is that it was filed in April, he went “missing” in June, and when the bones on MacDonald pass were identified as his, Mehan’s lawyer filed a default judgment because Mike hadn’t responded. Everyone who knows Mike will absolutely swear that he did not know about this lawsuit – or he would have researched, filed a lengthy response on his own (he was pretty legally adept) and….he would have TOLD at least half a dozen people about it!! Mike shared EVERYTHING!! He may not have mentioned names, as he always referred to one of the perps as “the crazy guy”, but he would have lamented to quite a few people. He was never served – period. If it weren’t for the Flora’s being witness to everything, and their having an excellent reputation, we may have had a more difficult time challenging this. Although we have a strong case for getting this judgment “set aside” we still must use the system, which means a very lengthy brief had to be prepared supporting our argument. That was the brief that the reporter used to write his article – it is a well written article and if you feel like looking at the entire brief it is public record.

I also need to add here that Mehan made bail and was released from jail on the 19th. I believe the hearing is this week. I hope I have time to update in a few days, but meanwhile, you can always check the Helena IR.

Back to today…….we were really hoping that after all of the pain and suffering (and money) this ridiculous lawsuit has cost my family, that Mehan would not fight our request to set aside the judgment. Everyone knows Mike was murdered, and most of us know that he was not even aware of the lawsuit. And, we also know that Mike would never have exerted the amount of effort into harassing them that they allege – he only got in your business when you chose to trespass and harass him. Why do they want to cause my mother more grief and money? Is this whole situation not stressful enough? Apparently they do not care about a mother’s grief, nor the truth, because today I received a copy of their denying our request. I would encourage you to read their reply – it is quite well written. So now we, the real victims family, get to spend more money to continue to fight this. At first we figured they were after his land, and had he simply remained missing that may have been a viable option. But now that he is a murder victim, they still feel that we should pay thousands and thousands of dollars to them in “damages” to make this go away or in legal terms “settle”. If I were them I wouldn’t put that down payment on the condo in Costa Rica just yet – just sayin’…………………