BUTTE — A Texas man who was convicted of killing a southwestern Montana man and shooting two others a year ago has been sentenced to 100 years in prison.
The Montana Standard reports District Judge Brad Newman sentenced 49-year-old Tony Dwade Sawyer on Monday, leaving open the possibility of parole.
Sawyer was convicted in September of deliberate homicide in the death of 37-year-old Joe Powers and attempted deliberate homicide for the Nov. 3, 2015 shootings that wounded Steve Drury and Hunter Smith.
Sawyer testified that he and the others had used methamphetamine and that he feared for his life before shooting the men in a rural area about 13 miles southeast of Butte. Drury testified that nobody threatened Sawyer.
The shootings happened a day after Sawyer, a Lubbock native, traveled to Montana to look for work.