Plentywood, MT: Plentywood deaths look like murder-suicide

ZACH BENOIT Of The Gazette Staff | Posted: Friday, January 29, 2010 3:25 pm | 1 Comment

The Sheridan County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the deaths of two Plentywood residents earlier this week as a murder-suicide, Sheriff Patrick Ulrickson said Friday.
The bodies of Michael Lodahl, 52, and Monica Olson, 44, were found late Tuesday night in a home on the south side of Plentywood after a sheriff’s deputy was dispatched there.
Ulrickson said Friday afternoon that Olson died from a single gunshot wound and Lodahl died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
A sheriff’s deputy went to the home in Plentywood on Tuesday at around 11:20 p.m. and found the bodies of Lodahl and Olson, according to a Sheriff’s Office press release. Ulrickson said a neighbor who heard a dog barking at the home went to check on it, noticed the bodies of Lodahl and Olson were not moving and called 911.
Ulrickson said Lodahl and Olson were not married, but he did not release more information on their relationship and said he didn’t want to speculate on a motive for the deaths.
The bodies were sent to Billings for autopsies, the release said. Sheridan County Coroner David Fulkerson said autopsies have been completed, but he declined to release details of the findings because of the continuing investigation. Ulrickson said toxicology results will not be available “for quite some time.”
The investigation will now focus on establishing a timeline for the evening leading up to the deaths and searching for a motive. The sheriff’s office and an agent from the Montana Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation continue to investigate.
According to her obituary in today’s Billings Gazette, Olson is survived by her two daughters, Ashley and Taylor, and stepdaughters, Erin and Alexa, as well as numerous family members, including her parents and four siblings.
Born in 1965 in Plentywood, Olson graduated from high school in Medicine Lake in 1984. She attended beauty school in Billings, according to her obituary, before starting a 24-year career with the U.S. Postal Service, working in Billings as a clerk and Plentywood as a letter carrier over the years.
Her obituary described her as a “fierce defender of friends and family” who spent much of her free time volunteering for the Humane Society of the United States and at local events in Plentywood.
Services for Olson will be held at 10 a.m. Monday at the Plentywood Lutheran Church. She will be laid to rest at the Plentywood Memorial Cemetery. A service also will be held on Feb. 6 at 1 p.m. in Billings at the Dahl Funeral Home, 10 Yellowstone Ave.