On a tragic day in August 2016, Terry Klein, a 63-year-old White/Caucasian male from Sidney, Montana, lost his life in a senseless act of violence. On August 24th, while working at a construction site near a breached irrigation canal south of Sidney, Klein was fatally shot. He was an employee of Franz Construction and was operating a heavy equipment vehicle at the time of the incident. He suffered at least one gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at the scene.
The investigation into Klein's death quickly led to a suspect. Raymond Blair Hansen, a 35-year-old from Sidney, was arrested less than two hours after the shooting. Authorities believed Hansen acted alone in the commission of this crime. Witnesses reported seeing Hansen at the job site interacting with Klein shortly before he was found deceased from a single gunshot wound to the head.
The family of the victim stated they had never heard of Raymond Hansen before the day of the murder and believe Klein did not know his killer. The shooting was described by detectives as unprovoked, and it is believed that Klein likely never saw it coming.
Raymond Blair Hansen was charged with deliberate homicide in connection with Terry Klein's death. Initially, he pleaded not guilty, but later changed his plea to guilty. In July 2017, Hansen pleaded guilty to the charge of deliberate homicide. Court officials stated that Hansen did not provide a reason for the shooting. His defense attorneys attributed his actions to drug use, an explanation the victim's family refused to accept. Following his guilty plea, Raymond Hansen was sentenced to 100 years in Montana State Prison. The judge, in a deviation from the prosecutor's recommendation of suspending 30 years, declined to suspend any of the sentence.
