Montana Innocence Project Seeks New Trial for Kalispell Man Convicted of Wife’s 2020 Murder

Four years after a Flathead County District Court judge sentenced Bradley Jay Hillious to 100 years in the Montana State Prison in the death of his wife, the Montana Innocence Project (MTIP) is now representing the defendant and asking for a new trial.

MTIP attorneys Karl Pitcher and Brady Smith in June filed a petition for post-conviction relief in Flathead County District Court, arguing that Hillious was prevented from receiving a fair trial and his rights were violated following a series of confusing pretrial rulings.

The rulings, according to the pro bono MTIP legal team, either prevented lawyers from presenting a complete defense that argued the defendant’s father, Scott Hillious, was the true murderer, or denied Hillious effective assistance of counsel due to a misunderstanding between his attorneys and former Judge Robert Allison.

The petition comes a year after the Montana Supreme Court denied a new trial for Hillious, who was convicted in 2022 of murdering his wife, Amanda Hillious, and appealed following his sentencing. That appeal, which centered around a jury selection issue, caught the attention of the MTIP legal team, who reviewed the case and chose to represent Hillious as a client.

Hillious has maintained his innocence since the felony deliberate homicide charge was filed in 2020. A Flathead County jury convicted him in 2022 following a 10-day trial in the death of his wife, who died from strangulation, according to her autopsy.

At the sentencing hearing, Hillious implied that his father, who died by suicide shortly after his wife’s death, was the true offender.

“I have pleaded and maintain my innocence throughout this whole process,” Hillious said at his 2022 sentencing hearing. “I will continue to maintain my absolute innocence until the real truth is acknowledged. There is no conclusive evidence to believe beyond a reasonable doubt that I was in fact the person that caused the death of another, especially with a more likely suspect who is known [to be] violent and hostile toward others.”

MTIP attorneys argued that a series of pretrial rulings altered the case when Judge Allison ruled Hillious’s defense team would not be permitted to argue his father, Scott Hillious, could be an alternative suspect. Hillious’s defense team, Jami Rebsom and Suzanne Marshall, had filed a motion before trial to restrict the state from speculating that Scott died by suicide, which the state opposed.

Before opening statements on Dec. 27, 2021, Allison ruled the state could not admit evidence suggesting Scott’s death was anything other than a suicide. However, the district court clarified that if the defense argued in its opening statement that Scott’s suicide suggested that he had murdered Amanda, this would open the door to allow prosecutors Travis Ahner and John Donovan to argue Scott’s death was not suicide, according to the petition. During the investigation, a Flathead County Sheriff’s Office coroner ruled Scott’s death as a suicide.

Because of the judge’s ruling, jurors were told that Scott died by suicide, but they were not presented with the defense’s stronger argument that he may have been responsible for the crime and did not hear expert testimony related to his death. Hillious’s defense team instead argued Amanda’s death was accidental, following a fall down a flight of stairs and aggressive medical care.

During Hillious’s sentencing hearing, his defense attorneys told the court they had altered their strategy due to the ruling and argued they were unfairly limited at trial.

“It was pretty upsetting to our right to a fair trial that during that trial, we were really limited on arguing Scott’s suicide,” Rebsom said at the sentencing hearing. “I wasn’t able to describe that as a confession, and I believe it truly was.”

In response, Allison “expressed bewilderment that the defense had interpreted its ruling in that manner,” and claimed the ruling was to prevent the state from arguing Scott’s death was anything other than a suicide, not to restrict the defense during closing argument, according to the petition.

“There were a lot of issues that we dealt with both before the trial and during and even after and many of those issues will be considered by an appellate court,” Allison said at the sentencing hearing.

MTIP attorneys argued Hillious suffered constitutional prejudice following the pretrial rulings, which were either a misunderstanding that resulted in a denial of effective assistance of counsel or an alternative scenario that the ruling itself denied his constitutional right to a complete defense.  

“We think that Brad is innocent, but what we’re really seeing here is a procedural constitutional issue that he was prevented from putting forth his best argument, which is that his father actually killed his wife – not him,” Pitcher said in a MTIP recording. “And he wasn’t able to really make that argument.”

Flathead County District Court Judge Paul Sullivan, who replaced Judge Allison following his retirement, in July ordered that the state must file a responsive pleading within 60 days. An evidentiary hearing is reserved pending that response.

MTIP attorneys have described Hillious as an imperfect person and acknowledged evidence prosecutors presented, including a temporary order of protection Amanda had sought against her husband and father-in-law. During trial, Hillious’s defense lawyers described Scott as an “explosive” figure who was never included as a suspect in the investigation.

On Dec. 24, 2020, Scott reportedly died by suicide at their home, where authorities found three suicide letters addressed to the couple’s children — letters that were never logged as evidence. The suicide took place five days after Amanda’s Dec. 19 death. Following his father’s death, Hillious called 911, went to the sheriff’s office for an interview and was later arrested. He later told detectives his father had said, “I can’t deal with this anymore, I’m not going to jail.”

At trial, prosecutors presented evidence involving an extramarital affair, arguing it reflected tension in the marriage that gave Hillious a motive, and that he killed his wife deliberately. That theory, prosecutors said, was supported by physical evidence of Amanda’s extensive injuries and circumstantial evidence of the affair. An autopsy found strangulation, a lack of oxygen to her brain, numerous contusions, and other injuries contributed to her death, which prosecutors said resulted from Hillious’s deliberate actions to “get rid of Amanda” so he could marry his mistress.

Rebsom, however, argued there was no direct evidence tying her client to Amanda’s death, and that many of her injuries were instead caused by aggressive medical care following an accidental fall down a flight of stairs. At the sentencing hearing, she pointed to Scott as the likely offender, even though he was never considered a suspect in the investigation.

MTIP found no direct physical evidence tying Hillious to Amanda’s death. Instead, its review raised questions about how thoroughly Scott’s death was investigated and whether the defense was permitted to present its strongest arguments to the jury.

In conversations with MTIP, Hillious said his father had a history of violent behavior, including physical abuse toward him, and described a complicated relationship between the two. In another MTIP recording, Hillious said he has maintained a clear conduct record during his time in the Montana State Prison, holding a job, attending church and completing numerous courses.

Prior to his incarceration, Hillious said he worked as a wildland firefighter and EMT and spent the rest of his time at home raising the couple’s children.

“I do not have connection with my children anymore,” Hillious said. “It is to this day extremely hard. I love being a dad. I love having kids and that is extremely hard. The only contact with the outside world that I have is my 90-year-old grandmother [who] I call once a week.”

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