Darcy Buhmann, 37, a female from Bozeman, Montana, was killed on March 9, 2016. That morning, police say her former boyfriend, Anthony Tobias Fagiano, broke into her home despite a protective order and fatally shot her as she tried to hide in a closet. He surrendered to authorities within hours, and investigators later described messages he sent acknowledging the killing.
In the days that followed, prosecutors filed deliberate homicide charges and added counts of aggravated burglary, theft, and violating an order of protection, with bail set at $1 million as the community learned more about the history of fear that preceded her death. Court records and contemporaneous reports noted the killing happened just over two weeks after the restraining order was served.
Fagiano initially pleaded not guilty, then changed his plea on April 26, 2016, admitting he had broken into the house and shot Buhmann as she hid. At sentencing two months later, Judge Holly Brown imposed life in prison without the possibility of parole, closing a case that authorities and family members had framed as a stark example of intimate partner violence and the limits of protective orders when an abuser decides to ignore them.
Records summarizing the incident list Buhmann as the victim in a domestic-violence homicide and identify Fagiano—then 35—as the arrested suspect. The relationship was categorized as significant others, current or former, underscoring the domestic nature of the crime.
