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Man Convicted of Polebridge Murder Denied Parole

By Beacon Staff

DEER LODGE – The man responsible for a 1979 murder in Polebridge has been denied parole.

J.R. Fletcher had a parole hearing on Tuesday.

The 59-year old Fletcher was convicted of stabbing Roy Cooper to death and sentenced to 100 years in prison.

Fletcher, his wife and another man were attempting to flee to Canada when their truck became mired in mud in Cooper’s Polebridge-area driveway in April 1979.

The three conspired to steal his horses, then held him at gunpoint while they broke into area homes. Before they left, Fletcher and his co-defendants held Cooper hostage while they robbed and tortured him. Fletcher stabbed Cooper in the neck.

Fletcher’s next parole hearing will be in five years.