Opinion ID: 2598537
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Events Leading Up To and Subsequent To the Murders

Text: [ś 5] At approximately 4:15 p.m. on the day of the murder, Olsen's mother contacted him at RJ's Saloon where he had been drinking and requested he return home. Olsen left the bar, went home, had dinner, and left home again at 6:30 p.m. to play dart games for a dart league team. Between 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., Olsen and three others played darts at the American Legion where he consumed five or six beers. The group moved on to the Rendezvous for an hour and drank at least two more beers. By 10:00 p.m., Olsen was back at RJ's playing pool and continuing to drink. He was seen leaving RJ's around 11:30 p.m. A few minutes before midnight, Olsen pumped gas into his truck at a convenience store, paid for snacks and a coke with a fifty-dollar bill, and conducted a friendly conversation with the store clerk for several minutes, telling her that he was going to Colorado where the temperature was 56 degrees. A register receipt from that store indicated the purchase occurred at 11:54 p.m. The clerk could smell alcohol on his breath, but did not notice any drunken behavior, until, after seeing numerous police cars driving by during the evening, she asked Olsen if he knew what the cops were doing. The clerk testified that at that point, Olsen couldn't say 56 degrees and he then went to the door, apparently agitated, turned around, said Yes, I have been drinking, and walked out the door. Olsen went home at a few minutes after midnight, parked in the alley, and entered a doorway that opened directly to his room and locked the door that opened to the rest of the house. [ś 6] Testifying as a witness for the State, Olsen's mother described the following events. Hearing him return and lock his door, his mother became concerned, and knocked on his bedroom door. He joined her in another part of the house, and the two talked until about 12:35 a.m. She returned to bed, but became aware that Olsen was packing, and arose to confront him. She saw a gun and, at that point, Olsen confessed to her he had killed three people, claiming that years earlier, while in the Marine Corps, he had accumulated a $70,000 gambling debt and still owed $17,000. He claimed that over the years, he had been constantly harassed for the money and, several years before, his fiancé had been killed because of the debt. He further claimed that he believed he had seen the man sent to collect the gambling debt in town and followed him into the Little Chief Bar, shot him, and shot what he described as two innocent people. Olsen told his mother that this man was involved in the death of his fiancé and Olsen believed that the man would try to kill Olsen's ex-wife and daughter. Olsen finished packing, loaded his truck with his belongings and the murder weapon, returned to his mother and talked about his options of either running or turning himself in. Olsen told her his third option was to kill her and his father. When she responded that he would not do that, he said there was a fourth option to which Mrs. Olsen did not respond. Olsen told his mother he was going to Colorado, and left. He called her a few minutes later on his cell phone, reporting that the police had apparently found the bodies of his victims. Mrs. Olsen, a police dispatcher, then contacted police and turned in her son. [ś 7] The State's direct examination of Mrs. Olsen at trial disclosed that in 1990 she had learned that her son had been engaged to a girl who had died in a car accident. She had run a driver's license check on Olsen's fiancé that indicated that the license had expired and not been renewed. In her continued direct examination, Mrs. Olsen disclosed that on the night of the murders she believed Olsen was intoxicated, agitated, and was slurring his speech. She also disclosed during her direct examination, that in March of 1993, Olsen suffered an aneurysm that she believed changed his disposition. On the night of the murders, Olsen had taken a relatively new drug to control seizures. Apparently, Olsen's heavy drinking after his aneurysm ruptured had caused him to suffer seizures. [ś 8] A customer discovered the three bodies at the Little Chief Bar at 12:05 a.m. and reported the discovery to the police. The police were investigating the crime when Mrs. Olsen reported to police that her son had confessed committing the crime to her. Worland police issued a teletype identifying Olsen as the suspect in the triple homicide and describing his vehicle. Instead of heading to Colorado, as he had told his mother, Olsen traveled east. At 4:20 a.m., he was spotted as he drove through Buffalo, Wyoming. The officer followed him for a considerable distance as other officers positioned themselves for an arrest, and did not notice erratic driving by Olsen, but did notice Olsen was driving slowly and drifting onto the shoulder of the highway, both of which are indicators of drunk driving. Olsen was stopped and arrested without incident. A gun, later identified as the murder weapon, was in plain view in Olsen's vehicle. The arresting officer read Olsen his Miranda rights, placed him in the back of the patrol car and waited at the arrest site for the arrival of an agent from the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI). During the half-hour wait, he and Olsen engaged in a conversation that the officer recorded on an audiocassette. Olsen repeated his gambling debt story and stated he had shot three people in the head. [ś 9] Olsen was taken to Buffalo and interrogated by DCI Agent Kevin Hughes during the drive. That recorded interview was conducted at 5:10 a.m. and Olsen again repeated his gambling debt story. During a recorded interview conducted at 7:05 a.m. at the Buffalo judicial center, Olsen claimed that he did not remember confessing to his mother or telling the gambling debt story, continued to admit that he had shot three people in the back of the head, but now explained that his motive for killing them was fright and intoxication. During a recorded interview conducted at 8:40 a.m., Olsen detailed his actions before the robbery, stating that he had parked on the side street of the Little Chief Bar, had locked his vehicle to prevent the stealing of his cell phone, entered the bar and observed the two customers and one bartender, proceeded directly to the restroom and, after using it, returned to the bar with his gun drawn. He placed the two male customers on the floor on their stomachs. He ordered the bartender to place money in a sack and then placed her on the floor next to the two customers. He then shot each of them in the back of the head, firing three shots. He claimed that he had not planned the robbery, did not remember the actual shootings, and had no motive for the murders other than drunkenness. Agent Hughes testified that, on the afternoon of the January 21, he returned Olsen to Worland. During that drive, Olsen provided more details in an unrecorded conversation. Olsen told Hughes that when he ordered the bartender to give him all the money, she bitched at him, and said, `you are not going to get away with this.' Other than this statement, none of the three victims resisted him in any way. Hughes testified that Olsen told him during this unrecorded statement that the bartender's words scared him as he realized that the people could identify him, and he shot them. Olsen also told Hughes that he needed money because he was two months behind on his child support and because the rings were going out in his pickup. Olsen stated that after the robbery and before entering the convenience store, he had placed part of the robbery money in his wallet and part of it in the sun visor of his vehicle and used a $50 bill to pay for gasoline, coke and snacks at the store. [ś 10] The arresting officer, a certified Intoximeter operator, gave Olsen two Intoximeter tests, one at 7:33 a.m. which read .063 alcohol concentration, and another at 7:34 which read .061 alcohol concentration. Olsen consented to blood and urine tests that were conducted at 9:00 a.m. on the morning of January 21. Olsen's truck was towed to Buffalo and searched after a warrant issued later that morning. Olsen was videotaped between 11:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. on the day of January 21 identifying the money stolen and other items found in his truck. Later that afternoon, Olsen requested a lawyer, and the interrogations ceased. [ś 11] Counsel was appointed to defend Olsen, and charges were filed. The State filed notice that it would seek the death penalty. Pretrial rulings permitted the state prosecutor to have the assistance of a United States attorney at trial. Hearings were held on Olsen's motion to suppress his statements to police and the evidence seized from his truck on grounds that he was too intoxicated to have voluntarily consented to the search. That motion was denied. Olsen also moved to suppress statements made on the afternoon of January 21 following equivocal statements about needing an attorney. That motion was also denied when the trial court found that all questioning ceased after Olsen explicitly requested an attorney. Before trial, Olsen's mental health was examined by doctors, including a Dr. Gummow, who indicated that Olsen suffered from brain damage. The State filed a pretrial motion demanding to know whether Olsen would be changing his plea of not guilty to a plea of not guilty by reason of mental defect. During the hearing on the motion, defense counsel did not change the plea but reserved the right to do so should an expected final report indicate the necessity. Ultimately, Olsen did not change his plea.