fbpx

Report: Barry Beach Propositioned 12-year-old Girl

Report comes about two months after Beach was granted clemency and released from prison after three decades

By Dillon Tabish

BILLINGS — Barry Beach sexually propositioned a 12-year-old girl about two months after he was granted clemency for a murder conviction that kept him in prison for three decades, the girl’s mother said Wednesday.

Clair Kindness filed a report against Beach with the Billings Police Department on Jan. 13 and has spoken to officers twice since then, she told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle (http://bit.ly/296KHQR).

Beach has not been charged with a crime. Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito, who will make the decision on whether to file charges, told the newspaper that he could not comment.

Beach declined to comment in a brief telephone interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday evening.

“I have nothing to say,” he said. “It’s wrong what’s being done here.”

Kindness’ police report, which the Chronicle obtained through a public-records request, said Beach picked up the girl on the night of Jan. 10 while she was walking along a street.

Kindness said she doesn’t have custody of her daughter, who is under state supervision in another city.

“(She) ran away from a group home the night Barry Beach picked her up,” Kindness said.

Beach drove the girl to his home, asked if he could touch her and whether she liked performing a sex act, according to the allegations in the report. She told him no and he eventually dropped her off at another house.

The girl’s name and age were blacked out of the report.

The age of consent in Montana is 16.

Gov. Steve Bullock granted Beach clemency in November after he served about 30 years of a 100-year prison sentence for the 1979 beating death of Kimberly Nees, 17, his Poplar High School classmate.

Beach had steadfastly denied killing Nees and said his 1983 confession was coerced. His campaign drew support from hundreds of people, including prominent Montana political leaders.

Bullock said in a statement that the Montana Department of Corrections is cooperating with the new investigation into Beach.

“I take the allegations made against Mr. Beach seriously and must await the results of the investigation,” Bullock said. “Law enforcement must first do its job.”