Quiet fields broken by gunfire, the splash of a body dropping into the Madison River, cries for help cut off into silence and the grim last words spoken on the gallows all color the bloody history of Gallatin County. Cut-and-dried murder charges, unsolved cases and questionable accusations all paint the picture of law enforcement in and around early Bozeman. From the gruesome to the mysterious, sordid accounts of robbery, crimes of passion and fatal self-defense fill the annals of the historic county jail. Gallatin History Museum curator Kelly Suzanne Hartman chronicles each tale, allowing the reader to follow along the path of the investigations and the pursuit for justice.

Quiet fields broken by gunfire, the splash of a body dropping into the Madison River, cries for help cut off into silence and the grim last words spoken on the gallows all color the bloody history of Gallatin County. Cut-and-dried murder charges, unsolved cases and questionable accusations all paint the picture of law enforcement in and around early Bozeman. From the gruesome to the mysterious, sordid accounts of robbery, crimes of passion and fatal self-defense fill the annals of the historic county jail. Gallatin History Museum curator Kelly Suzanne Hartman chronicles each tale, allowing the reader to follow along the path of the investigations and the pursuit for justice.

As Jaci makes plans to travel to her deceased Father's ranch in Montana, she is unaware that a murder has taken place and that terror and mayhem await her arrival.

In the fall of 1920, two couples pulled into a campsite just off the famous Yellowstone Trail. A few weeks later, one couple drove away, while the other simply vanished. The identities and fate of the couple left behind didn't hit newsstands until three years later. In one of the most sensational murder cases ever played out in a Montana court, Seth Orrin Danner put up a fight for his life and lost. The state executed Seth on July 18, 1924, at the Gallatin County Jail, but did he commit the crimes? Historian Kelly Hartman follows the trail of the Danner family from Kansas to Montana and details the trial of the century, trying to decipher what truly happened in Central Park on that grisly day.

Wicked Bozeman delves into a dangerous and dark past The Gallatin History Museum, housed in the old Gallatin County Jail, holds many secrets. From the house of ill repute on Mendenhall Street to the earliest jail break in 1873, the historic crimes are replete with con artists, forgers, robbers and the insane each leaving a trail of deceit and mystery. There is laughter, shock and the hard reality of a life lost to time behind bars. Using the original jail ledgers as a jumping off point, Museum Curator Kelly Suzanne Hartman takes the reader along on an investigative journey through Bozeman's seedier past.

A woman and her young son are murdered in Montana's bucolic farming community of Gallatin Valley. The woman's husband is suspected of being the murderer but he commits suicide before anyone can find out for sure. Who really committed the murders - and why -remains a mystery until 30 years later when the family's surviving daughter (who wasn't home the night of the killings) returns to find out exactly what happened. Did a fight over water rights or an unrequited love affair have anything to do with the killings? The surviving daughter and a local retired attorney turned farmer, manage to stir up a hornet's nest on their way to unraveling this mystery.

Sting is a story of murder, mayhem and love that takes place in a rural town in the Florida panhandle. It involves a conflict with a local sheriff and three young lawbreakers. When the governor sends a beautiful Cuban-American agent from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to assist in the investigation of a murder, it creates another conflict between the somewhat inept sheriff and the agent. The sheriff is also tormented when he faced with a more experienced and better- educated candidate in an upcoming election. As the story proceeds, additional murders occur, capped off by the presence of a serial killer in the area. A private investigator known as the "King of Stings" joins forces with The FDLA agent who use creative methods or "stings" to bring the criminals to justice. Intertwined throughout the story is a love story that develops between the gorgeous FDLA agent and one of the other characters.