{"id":11976,"date":"2026-05-29T15:46:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T15:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/finding-justice-for-dustin-kjersem\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T15:46:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T15:46:21","slug":"finding-justice-for-dustin-kjersem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/finding-justice-for-dustin-kjersem\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Justice for Dustin Kjersem"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In October of 2024, Dustin Kjersem drove into the mountains south of Bozeman, Montana, to prepare for a romantic weekend of camping.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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He was never seen alive again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When his girlfriend finally discovered his body, she thought he’d been attacked by a bear. But the truth, it turned out, was far more disturbing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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To find Dustin’s killer, investigators followed a trail that led through a bloody campsite, a missing axe, two tequila glasses, and a pair of cell phones found by a man who claimed he saw them in a dream.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This is a story about finding justice for a man who had never made an enemy \u2014 a carpenter, a father, and a friend who, by every account, would have welcomed a stranger into his tent without a second thought. But the very quality that made Dustin so beloved may have been what got him killed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The year-long investigation and prosecution that followed tested the limits of Montana’s self-defense laws and forced a jury to decide what really happened inside that canvas tent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Got a tip about this case or know about another you think we should cover? Send us an email at bloodtrails@themeateater.com<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In October of 2024, Dustin Kjersem drove into the mountains south of Bozeman, Montana, to prepare for a romantic weekend of camping. He was never seen alive again. When his girlfriend finally discovered his body, she thought he’d been attacked by a bear. But the truth, it turned out, was far more disturbing. To find<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.ctfassets.net\/pujs1b1v0165\/5wqE03AySlHQ6RUrQO6NuU\/612716de95159c0ba56a1f7815b1aff4\/1000004233.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hunting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11976"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11978,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11976\/revisions\/11978"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}