Angelina Beartusk was killed on March 29, 2020, after gunfire tore through a single-wide trailer on Willow Street in Big Horn, a small community in Sheridan County, Wyoming. She was 51 and female. That Sunday evening, the first warning didn't come from a neighbor or a passing driver, but from a phone call that reached law enforcement through family: a relative in Montana reported that Dana Beartusk had contacted them and said he had killed someone.
Deputies responded to the Big Horn
residence and stepped into a scene that quickly grew worse with every room. One victim was seen through a window slumped forward at the kitchen table, and inside the home two more bodies were found—one on the floor near the table and another on a bed in a north bedroom. Investigators later described the wounds as gunshots to the head, the kind of close, deliberate violence a medical examiner likened to an execution. A dog in the bedroom reportedly became protective of the body on the bed, and an officer shut the door to keep the animal in place and to limit disturbance of the scene.
Outside, the night kept moving. During a neighborhood canvass, a nearby resident said they heard gunshots around 7:45 p.m., then saw a man in a red T-shirt arguing into a cellphone. Not long after, word reached authorities that the suspect was no longer in Sheridan County. The reporting relative told investigators Dana Beartusk said he was near a Holiday gas station in the Sheridan area and was heading toward Montana, turning what began as a death investigation into a search spanning state lines.
By about 10 p.m., Dana Beartusk was located and taken into custody in Big Horn County, Montana, still driving a vehicle identified as his. Agents later interviewed him in Lame Deer, Montana, but he reportedly did not provide a statement. Investigators noted signs that suggested recent violence—blood spatter was observed on his nose—and a search of the vehicle turned up a. 40 caliber bullet on the driver's side floorboard. Back in Wyoming, prosecutors filed three counts of first-degree murder, alleging he had killed his wife, Angelina Beartusk, along with his sister, Seana Fisher, and his nephew, Mochdaveyano “Blackhawk” Fisher.
As the case moved through court, the charges changed. Dana Beartusk ultimately pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree murder. In court, he said he had been intoxicated at the time of the killings and later claimed he could not remember key parts of what happened, including what became of the firearms. The defense described him as “blackout” drunk, while the prosecution laid out a crime scene reconstructed with modern documentation and bolstered by the medical examiner's description of point-blank head wounds.
In April 2021, a judge sentenced Dana Beartusk to three consecutive prison terms of 45 years to life—one for each killing—stacked so the punishment effectively stretched across the rest of his natural life. The sentencing hearing included emotional statements from relatives and detailed testimony from investigators. Months after the deaths, authorities also recovered three firearms associated with Dana Beartusk along a roadway near Kirby, Montana, including a. 40 caliber Glock pistol described as the murder weapon, closing one more unanswered question from the night Angelina Beartusk and her relatives were found dead in that Big Horn home.
