Missoula Crime Report: Two Jury Trials Finished This Week

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - The Missoula County Attorney’s Office filed 16 new felony complaints this week, which is the same as last week and right around the weekly average. County Attorney Matt Jennings provided the report. 

“We did have two instances of family violence,” Jennings said. “We had one case that was charged with non-family violence or robbery. We had one endangerment crime, which was related to felony drunk driving. We had three property crimes, and then we had seven drug crimes.” 

According to Jennings, his office also finished two jury trials this week, and both involved domestic violence. 

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“On Wednesday, a person named Matthew Anders was convicted of several different felony offenses, including aggravated assault, tampering, and assault on a peace officer, along with a couple of misdemeanors,” Jennings said. “That was an 8-day trial, which is pretty long for a domestic violence case, but there was a whole lot of evidence, a lot of different sorts of actions and offenses that were wrapped up in this. We were just happy to bring some justice for that victim in that situation.” 

After a two-day trial, Tracy Vaughn was found guilty of strangulation. 

“Strangulation is sort of a new charge in the state of Montana,” Jennings said. “It was only passed about six years ago because we were seeing a lot of strangulation in domestic violence incidents. Normally, we'd have a partner or family member assault where the first two of those are misdemeanors, and then the third is a felony. Sometimes those were charged as aggravated assault, but it was kind of hard to get there sometimes because strangulation is a little bit in between.” 

READ MORE: Missoula News - Crime Reports

Jennings said strangulations are very common in these domestic altercations. 

“Strangulation is really a tool of control and violence, and this sort of lingering threat in these altercations, it's super scary,” Jennings said. “Even just a couple of moments of having your blood or your breath cut off can cause long-term damage and even death sometimes. We take those very seriously, and we're happy to bring some justice to these victims.” 

The Missoula County Attorney’s Office provides a weekly crime report every Friday morning at 9:00 on Talk Back.