DNA testing led to the 1996 murder of a Montana girl. He killed himself a day after being questioned.
For nearly three decades, the identity of the person behind the brutal murder of a 15-year-old girl found in a Montana river in 1996 remained a mystery. Thanks to a breakthrough in modern DNA testing, a suspect was identified and questioned, before committing suicide the next day.
Danielle “Danni” Houchins, of Belgrade, Mont., was murdered on Sept. 21, 1996, the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office said.
She was last seen leaving her home around 11 a.m., but when she did not return, her family reported her missing. Houchins’ truck was discovered by her mother at the Cameron Bridge fishing access in Bozeman on the Gallatin River. Later that night, Houchins’ body was found face down in the shallow waters of the river, according to the sheriff’s office.
During the investigation, numerous suspects were questioned and DNA evidence was collected on Houchins. But over the years, the case faded.
That is, until a significant breakthrough in the case last month: DNA evidence collected around the time of his death was matched to Paul Hutchinson, 55, of Dillon, Mont. — a married man with two adult children and no criminal or traffic history, authorities said in a news release Thursday.
On July 23, law enforcement questioned Hutchinson for two hours, during which he “displayed extreme nervousness.”
He was sweating profusely, scratching his face and biting his hand. When shown a photo of Houchins, he “slumped in his chair and showed signs of discomfort,” the statement said.
Around 4:15 a.m. the next morning, Hutchinson called the Beaverhead County Sheriff’s Office to say he needed help, then hung up.
Officers found him a short time later on the side of the road, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the sheriff’s office said.
Investigators said Hutchinson and Houchins had no prior connection and that the 1996 killing was considered “a crime of opportunity.”
Authorities “believe Hutchinson and Houchins met by chance at the river, where Hutchinson raped and then suffocated her in shallow water,” the sheriff’s office said.
At the time of Houchins’ death, Hutchinson was a student at Montana State University. He went on to earn a degree in wildlife and fisheries biology, raise a family and work for the Montana Bureau of Land Management in Dillon for 22 years.
Hutchinson had never been linked to the case until the DNA results. The sheriff’s office said the investigation emphasized “the importance of preserving evidence so that future technologies can identify suspects.”
A fresh look at the case
During the initial investigation in 1996, four hairs were taken from Houchins’ body.
In 2019, the sheriff’s office renewed its efforts to solve the case.
In 2021, the bureau hired a private investigator, Tom Elfmont, a retired Los Angeles Police Department officer with decades of experience. He was assisted in the case by Sergeant Court Depweg of the Newport Beach Police Department, who specializes in solving homicides using DNA technology.
DNA collected in the crime was sent to Astria Forensics in California for analysis, and a partial DNA profile was created from one of the hairs. It was run through CODIS, the FBI’s Combined DNA Indexing System, but yielded no matches, the sheriff’s office said.
The profile was then sent to Parabon NanoLabs in Virginia, where “genealogists used additional DNA databases to identify Hutchinson as the suspect,” the statement said.
After Hutchinson’s interrogation and subsequent suicide, “we received confirmation that the DNA evidence was a perfect match for Paul Hutchinson,” Sheriff Dan Springer said at a news conference Thursday.
Springer said he knew this day would come.
“The investigation remained open because we knew Danni was murdered and that one day we would have the tools to solve this case,” he said. “This case exemplifies our relentless pursuit of justice. We never gave up on finding the truth for Danni and her family, exhausting every avenue necessary to close this heartbreaking chapter.”
Springer said the Houchins case was now closed, but that an investigation into Hutchinson remained ongoing to ensure he had no other victims.
Houchins’ younger sister, Stephanie Mollet, spoke at the press conference and said: “After almost 28 years without answers, without justice. We celebrate today.”
“Even though this man will not stand before a jury of his peers, I have no doubt that he is the one who sexually assaulted my sister with force and violence, then held her head in a swamp until she suffocated in the mud,” she said. “When it came time to face his violence, he chose to end his life. He knew he was guilty and could not face my family or his and the pain he had caused.”
For her, the feelings are mixed. Mollet also expressed anguish over the initial handling of the investigation by the sheriff’s office and the state forensics lab in 1996.
