Photo credit: AI-generated image created using ChatGPT. Illustrative only
There are a lot of ways for a bad decision to catch up with you in the hunting world, but this one came with a long fuse. Two out-of-state men accused of spotlighting and shooting deer around Creston, Montana, in September 2023 are now staring down felony charges that were filed in 2025—nearly three years after the night Flathead County deputies first stopped their truck.
The case details, laid out in the source post, read like a checklist of what not to do: shooting from a vehicle, shooting at night with a spotlight, trespassing, and leaving dead deer behind. Investigators also say the evidence didn’t stop with one night near Creston, but pointed to multiple incidents across Northwest Montana in late summer 2023.
A late-night call: shots, spotlights, and a fleeing truck
According to court documents cited in the report, authorities got reports of gunshots and spotlights sweeping fields near Creston Hatchery Road and Egan Slough Road late on Sept. 11 and into the early hours of Sept. 12, 2023. When Flathead County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrived, they reportedly encountered a white truck that “promptly fled” from them.
Deputies stopped the truck in Creston and identified two occupants they suspected were spotlighting and shooting game: Brock Arthur Massie, 26, of Woodland, Washington, and Connor Pettitt, 23, of North East, Maryland. That stop is where a “night hunt” turned into a long investigation.
What investigators say happened on Egan Slough Road
Court documents described in the article say one person in the truck admitted the pair had spotlighted and killed at least one deer, then removed its head and put it in brush along the shoulder of Egan Slough Road. Under escort, Massie led authorities to the deer’s head and agreed to speak with game wardens when they arrived.
Massie allegedly told wardens they had left Kalispell around 11 p.m. to hunt coyotes. In his retelling, he mostly drove while Pettitt rode in the back seat and did most of the shooting. When a whitetail deer appeared, Massie allegedly said Pettitt shot it. He also estimated they shot at three or four deer that night and fired from inside the truck while it was parked on the road.
The article also notes Massie claimed they walked onto private property to remove the deer’s head, and that the head ended up tossed along the road after it upset him that it was put in the truck bed. However it played out inside the cab, the alleged result was the same: a dead deer, a removed head, and a trail that wasn’t hard to follow once law enforcement was involved.
The gear in the truck wasn’t “coyote hunting” gear in the eyes of the case
A search of the truck reportedly turned up two rifles—a Savage .17-caliber bolt-action rifle and a CMMG 6 mm ARC rifle—along with a spotlight, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, spent casings, and mobile phones. Investigators also described a bloodied knife with deer hair on it, bloodied ratchet straps in the truck bed, and blood in various areas of the truck.
None of that proves a legal hunt by itself—folks carry all kinds of things in a pickup—but in a suspected spotlighting stop, it becomes a pile of context. Spotlight plus rifles plus blood evidence is the kind of combination that turns a roadside contact into seized evidence and lab work.
Five dead bucks, missing heads, and the DNA work
The investigation continued into Sept. 12, when game wardens reportedly located five dead whitetail bucks in the Creston area. Three of those bucks were missing heads. That detail matters, because it’s not just a wildlife crime issue—it’s a public-safety and public-trust issue, too. Headless carcasses left behind are a calling card that someone wasn’t hunting for meat, and it’s the kind of thing that makes landowners and local hunters mad in a hurry.
Authorities collected DNA from the dead deer and allegedly matched it to evidence collected from the knife and ratchet straps found in the truck. Ballistics also came into play: one deer reportedly contained a bullet fired from a .17-caliber rifle, and another recovered bullet was matched to a 6 mm rifle.
Then there was the phone data. With a warrant to search the phones, investigators reportedly confirmed the devices were in the area where the dead animals were found between Sept. 11 and Sept. 12. In cases like this, that kind of digital footprint can tighten the timeline when suspects later try to shrug and say they weren’t there.
Investigators say the phones also pointed to earlier wildlife crimes
The report says evidence on the phones allegedly linked the pair to wildlife crimes before the traffic stop near Creston. One video dated Sept. 3, 2023 allegedly showed Pettitt shooting an antlerless deer with the .17-caliber rifle from the front seat of a white pickup truck, with phone data placing the pair on Camas Road near Polson. Authorities reportedly found the remains of an antlerless deer on private property about 55 yards from the road.
Other videos described in the court documents included footage from Aug. 30 in Kalispell showing three deer heads with antlers still in velvet, plus additional videos allegedly showing Massie and Pettitt killing a fawn—one video capturing the bloodied animal flailing while trying to escape. The article also describes an Aug. 27 video on Pettitt’s phone featuring him running up to a bloodied and dying mule deer buck, and another recording from the same day showing him stomping on a headless carcass.
Pettitt allegedly shared videos of the mule deer on Snapchat on Aug. 27. He also allegedly sent videos of a dead mule deer and fawn to another person via text message, writing that he and Massie had “folded a few deer.” That phrase is included in the report, and if it ends up in front of a jury, it’s hard to see it helping the defense.
The charges, the delay, and what’s on the line
Both men now face felony counts of accountability for unlawful possession of game or furbearing animal. They also face misdemeanor counts of accountability for waste of game animal, accountability for unlawful use of equipment while hunting, accountability for hunting from a motor vehicle, and accountability for failure to obtain landowner permission for hunting.
Prosecutors filed the felony charges in August 2025 and wrote that restitution for animals killed between Aug. 27 and Sept. 11, 2023 amounted to at least $5,400. That time gap—incident in 2023, felony charges filed in 2025, article published in 2026—highlights something hunters sometimes forget: wildlife cases can move slow, especially when wardens are building DNA matches, reviewing phone data, and tying multiple incidents together.
On the court side, Pettitt pleaded not guilty at an arraignment on Dec. 11 before Judge Paul Sullivan. He was expected to go to trial in late March, but his defense attorney filed an unopposed motion to schedule a change of plea hearing on March 24, with that hearing set for April 16. Massie was still awaiting arraignment; he was set to appear before Judge Amy Eddy on April 2, but his appearance was continued until April 23.
If convicted of the felony charge, the men face up to five years in Montana State Prison, a maximum fine of $50,000, forfeiture of hunting, fishing, or trapping licenses, and a possible lifetime loss of those privileges. In other words: even before you talk about jail time and fines, this is the kind of case that can end a person’s hunting life for good.
There’s an old saying that the woods don’t keep secrets, and neither do modern phones or forensic labs. If the allegations are proven, this wasn’t a “one bad shot” situation—it was a string of choices that put other people at risk, disrespected private land, and wasted game. And even though the hammer didn’t fall right away, the paperwork eventually caught up.
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