Undersheriff Orville Bitle, a 36-year-old White male serving Rosebud County, was fatally shot on December 16, 1911, in Forsyth, Montana, while attempting to arrest a father and son suspected of cattle rustling. The account says the precise circumstances of the confrontation have become unclear over time, but that Bitle died in the course of trying to bring the alleged rustlers into custody.

Local authorities arrested the father and son as the primary suspects in the killing, though available historical records do not clearly document the subsequent legal proceedings or the ultimate outcome of their case. Bitle had recently married Edith Perkins, and family accounts say she died soon after him, her death attributed to a broken heart.

Are there any family descendants, local records, or newspaper archives that can shed light on the identities of the arrested men or what happened at the trial?