Henriette McCracken Brumbaugh, a 78-year-old woman from Libby, Montana, was found dead inside her home on the morning of July 9, 2026, in a case authorities described as an apparent murder-suicide. Although some online memorial listings associated her death with July 13, official reporting and her funeral-home obituary identify July 9 as the date she died. Henriette suffered multiple gunshot wounds, and the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office investigated her death as a homicide.
At approximately 10:34 a.m. on July 9, the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office received a call reporting a possible suicide at 22 Conifer Road in Libby. Deputies and detectives from the sheriff’s office responded alongside officers from the Libby Police Department. While they were traveling to the residence, authorities were informed that two people were inside the home and that neither appeared to have a pulse or be breathing.
When officers entered the residence, they found two people dead and determined that no one else was inside.
The second person was identified as Richard Brumbaugh, who was Henriette’s son. Authorities reported that Richard died from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Investigators said the circumstances indicated that Henriette had been killed before Richard took his own life, leading law enforcement to describe the deaths as an apparent murder-suicide. Henriette’s obituary also establishes the family relationship, stating that she was followed in death by her son Richard.
Henriette’s death was therefore treated separately from Richard’s death: her multiple gunshot wounds were classified for investigative purposes as a homicide, while his fatal wound was believed to have been self-inflicted. Both bodies were scheduled to be transported to the Montana State Crime Lab in Missoula for autopsies as authorities continued examining the circumstances surrounding the shootings. Initial public statements did not disclose a possible motive, describe an argument or other events immediately preceding the violence, or explain who contacted authorities to report the possible suicide.
Because Richard died at the scene, there was no arrest in connection with Henriette’s killing. Publicly available reporting does not identify another suspect, and no charges, criminal prosecution, trial or conviction followed against Richard because he was deceased. Authorities did not report evidence that another person had been present inside the home, and investigators said the two deceased individuals were the only people found in the residence. The available reporting consequently centers on Richard as the apparent perpetrator in what investigators believed was a murder followed by suicide, rather than on a search for an unidentified killer.
Henriette had deep ties to Montana and the Libby community. She was born Henriette McCracken in Shelby, Montana, in 1948 and later graduated from high school in Tacoma, Washington. As a young person she joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an affiliation that remained an important part of her life. She attended Brigham Young University and earned a degree in elementary education before eventually building a career in Libby. Her obituary says she taught there for approximately 20 years, initially spending six years as a classroom teacher before leaving the classroom for a period to raise her children.
Family occupied a large part of Henriette’s life. Her husband, John Howard Brumbaugh Sr., had died in December 2024 after the couple had been married for approximately 52 years. Together they had eight children, including Richard. At the time of Henriette’s death, she was survived by seven of those children, along with 25 grandchildren and a great-grandchild whom she had been looking forward to meeting.
In the days after the shootings, the homicide investigation remained publicly described as ongoing, with authorities indicating that additional information would be released if it became available. The information released by law enforcement consistently pointed toward a contained incident inside the Conifer Road residence rather than an ongoing threat to the community. Henriette’s family later scheduled a celebration of her life for July 25, 2026, at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Libby, bringing attention back to the decades she had spent as a mother, educator and member of the community after a violent death that investigators attributed to her own son.
