by Debbie Burke
Since 2008, Buggz Ironman-Whitecow has been in a Montana prison for a homicide he did not commit. Racism against Native-Americans led to his arrest and prosecution. Evidence that should have cleared him was withheld or falsified as wrongdoers scrambled to cover up the truth.
Buggz had one stroke of good luck: he is represented by attorney Phyllis Quatman, a dogged advocate determined to free him.
Phyllis is my good friend and critique partner. I asked her to write a guest post about this case that is a true crime within the justice system.
Note: the crime scene photos are graphic and disturbing. For that reason they are not included in this post. They are available to view at this link.
Here’s Phyllis’s story:
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
For 35 years, I’ve been an attorney who worked both as a prosecutor and defense lawyer. Evidence is the Holy Grail in criminal law and carries the day. A single photograph taken at a 2006 homicide scene is clear evidence that proves the innocence of my Native-American client, Buggz Ironman-Whitecow. Yet Buggz has been in prison since 2008.
Why?
I became his defense counsel five years after his 2008 conviction. My original job was to seek post-conviction relief for the excessive sentence of 65 years in a homicide with no pre-meditation and weak, questionable evidence. But investigation of that evidence led to a shocking conclusion that official negligence and misconduct had been covered up.
The victim was Lloyd “Lucky” Kvelstad, a poor white transient who, during a winter night when the temperature dropped to seven degrees, joined a group of Native Americans in a Havre, Montana ‘flop house’. Although the house had no heat, it served as a hangout for local substance abusers. A great deal of alcohol was consumed, and a fight broke out among several people there. .
At trial in 2008, prosecutors alleged Buggz had caused Lucky’s death during the fight.
At 1:20 a.m. on November 25, 2006, police and EMTs arrived on scene. Lucky was lying on the floor, face down, with head injuries. At trial, they admitted they never treated Lucky, never rolled him over, never tried to revive him, or even listen for breath. They announced he was dead and left.
The pathologist who performed Lucky’s autopsy testified the head injuries were not serious enough to have killed him. The pathologist also could not find a cause of death to a medical certainty.
Metadata on crime scene photos showed his body’s location and position were not the same as initial witnesses had stated and their diagrams showed. He had moved two feet forward after first responders left. This detail proved key.
Around 4:25 a.m., police video shows the officers rolling Lucky over. His body shows no lividity, no rigor mortis, and fresh urine on his thigh. One officer commented on the urine and the other officer said, “I wonder if this guy … didn’t die right away?” The video suddenly cuts away.
That last officer wrote in his report and testified that at 4:45 a.m. he bagged Lucky’s head with a brown paper bag and taped it around Lucky’s neck. He left the scene to go to the police department, then returned to the scene. At 5:15 a.m., someone called for the coroner. At 6 a.m., the coroner arrived and found … no lividity, little if any rigor mortis, and that Lucky’s arms were warm to the touch. He stated there was no bag on Lucky’s head which is how he could describe Lucky’s facial injuries.
Photo 42 was among 100 crime scene photos the prosecution had produced on a discovery CD back in January 2007.
Photo 42 provided my first clue that Buggz was innocent.
According to the police, it represents the first picture taken of Lucky at the crime scene and ostensibly depicts exactly how and where the officers found him just after 1:20 in the morning.
Metadata on that CD revealed suspicious discrepancies:
(1) While the police and EMTs arrived on scene around 1:20 a.m., no crime scene photos were taken until Photo 42 was shot at 3:47 a.m., more than two hours after those first responders arrived;
(2) Of those 100 photos, somebody duplicated eight of them, renamed them, and scattered those 16 replicas into the 100 disseminated to the defense just after the homicide;
(3) Somebody also added 23 photos at the beginning of that discovery CD, and the metadata showed they were taken between 9:18 and 9:38 a.m., more than nine hours after the police came on scene;
(4) Those 23 photos were a different size than the others and taken with a different camera.
In other words, all 100 photos on that discovery CD had been rearranged, renamed, or altered.
What happened to the ones that should have been there, like photos of Lucky lying in situ in his original position at 1:20 a.m., or ones an officer wrote he took at 2:38 a.m. in the kitchen?
Missing.
Photo 42 shows Lucky lying in a different location and position, the key detail noted above.
Years later when I took over Buggz’s case, Photo 42 triggered an alarm in my lawyer brain.
Dr. Gordon Giesbrecht, our renowned expert witness, concluded that Lucky was not dead when the cops left him alone on the floor, but likely hypothermic and drunk. That explained their inability to detect a pulse. He posited that Lucky arrived at his location in Photo 42 either because someone moved him there, or because he crawled forward two feet over a two-hour period. Since everyone agreed that no one moved or touched Lucky, and witnesses at the time swore Lucky was lying prone where they described and drew in their diagrams, it seemed like Photo 42 proved Lucky moved after the police and EMTs left him for dead.
Add to that the condition of his body on the crime scene video at 4:30 a.m. and the coroner’s findings at 6 a.m., and it seems clear Lucky didn’t die until much later than the 12:30 a.m. time of death the police alleged.
Indeed, Dr. Giesbrecht concluded that Lucky, had he been warmed up and treated, would have lived. But by failing to treat him, the EMTs and cops were negligent at best. When they inexplicably bagged his head at 4:45 a.m., they caused his death from hypoxia, or lack of oxygen.
Could their own exposure to civil and criminal liability cause these officers and EMTs to fabricate evidence from a crime scene and enact a massive coverup to divert attention away from their own guilt and toward Buggz Ironman-Whitecow?
I’ve spent the last 12 years, trying to get that damning evidence of a coverup before an unbiased judge. But that’s easier said than done. Montana is a large state with a small population where, in the legal and law enforcement world, everyone knows everyone. Officers and prosecutors involved in Buggz’s original homicide trial in 2008 moved up to higher positions of influence. Three became judges. The Attorney General at the time became Chief Justice on the Montana Supreme Court.
My repeated motions and requests for a new trial to present this evidence have been denied or ignored.
Meanwhile, Buggz has languished in prison for 18 years, yet has not lost faith that his innocence will be proved.
Thwarted by the legal system, I wrote the true crime memoir, Innocent Behind Bars-The True Story of Buggz Ironman-Whitecow, and created a website, The Free Buggz Project. All evidence is laid out in the website, including photos, crime scene video, trial and hearing transcripts, case files, and more.
My goal is to generate sufficient public interest and outcry that Buggz will receive a new trial. I invite you to review the evidence for yourself. If you conclude, as I did, that Lucky Kvelstad was not murdered by Buggz but died due to negligence and official misconduct, I ask your help in contacting independent agencies and courts to reverse this injustice.
Attorney Phyllis Quatman
Book sales link: Innocent Behind Bars-The True Story of Buggz Ironman-Whitecow.
Website link: freebuggzproject.com
Read more about author Phyllis Quatman.
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Thank you, Phyllis!
TKZers, Phyllis is happy to answer questions in the comments.
I was questioning those photos as I looked at them. Something was off and reading the article you explained it well. Sad when the police let someone die then blame another person for that death. I know it happens as a friend of mine had to testify about one of the men he worked with for covering up evidence in the “good ‘ole boy” department he worked for. He left police work shortly after that through retirement and because he was a computer geek was on the first to start hunting down computer criminals.
My sister was married to a Native American and I saw the looks on some people’s faces and it telegraphed “drunken no good Indian” because he had a beer with me and my husband.
Yep, prejudice is alive and well and it isn’t the rednecks either, it was the uppity snobs from the condos on the beach. I hope you get that trial soon. Too bad you can’t move it out of state due to prejudice in the justice system there.
B.A., thanks for adding your experiences this morning and for viewing the evidence on the website. Years ago, Phyllis showed me the photos for the first time and I remember thinking “What the–???”
Buggz is fortunate to have her working on his behalf.
Thank you for commenting and for your insights. If I could get a retrial and get this evidence in front of a jury, they’d acquit Buggz in under an hour. The problem is getting the conviction reversed and a new trial ordered because the good old boys are crushing us at every opportunity. Please spread the word to friends and family and maybe, through social pressure, we can finally get justice for Buggz. Again, many thanks for your thoughts. I will pass them on to Buggz.
This does not surprise me at all. I live in St. Louis County. Christopher Dunn has served 34 years for a murder he did not commit. He was freed last year and the St. Louis County PA declined to retry him citing the lack of evidence and that Dunn should never have been convicted.
But Dunn is still behind bars. This is Missouri, a blood red state. The MOAG wants to be governor. Being “tough on (black people) crime” fits perfectly with his Klan adjacent supporters.
https://apnews.com/article/missouri-case-conviction-overturned-christopher-dunn-f128653d7b67aa4099faa91d0fcba31c
Alan, in theory the prosecution is supposed to bring forth exculpatory evidence that proves a defendant’s innocence. In theory…
Here’s a case from Japan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YeOqkwHvxU
Thank you, Alan, for your comments. That is horrible but not uncommon. As you may know, John Grisham’s latest, written with Jim McCloskey from Coventry Ministries, details several cases where innocent people were framed and incarcerated – all horrifying. Debbie’s article from Japan she referenced is more of the same, but shows how widespread these wrongful convictions reach. I will pass your comments on to Buggz. We are in a very steep battle trying to get into the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals so he needs your support.
Justice may be blind, but the human beings who are charged with applying it are not. I hope we can figure out how to solve that problem. In the meantime, good luck to Phyllis and her team in getting justice for Buggz.
How true, Kay. Fallible humans skew the truth in their own interests.
Thank you so much, Kay! Please spread the word to anyone and everyone you can, and maybe, with social pressure applied to the FBI, legislators, whoever will listen, we can free Buggz. I will pass on your support to him as he approaches year 19 in custody for this crime he did NOT commit.
We have made lawyers the butt of jokes. I don’t know why. It is good to know that there are wonderful people like Ms. Ouatman out there fighting for justice. Thank you for this posting.
Brian, Phyllis truly is a crusader for justice and I’m privileged to call her “friend.”
That privilege is mutual, Deb. Thank you so much for posting this article. One reader at a time, on day at a time, but you know me well. We will never give up on this.
Thank you, Brian, and you’re right, defense attorneys in particular are vilified by many. I heard from a Native American reader a couple of days ago about his own experience on the Fort Belknap reservation and with Havre law enforcement and prejudice. Buggz’s co-defendant, who is also innocent of this murder, has no attorney, and I can’t take his case because it is a conflict of interest. It’s very frustrating that these two Native men rot in prison while the real killers walk free. I will pass your comment on to Buggz, who needs that support. We fight on.
Phyllis, you are in an honorable, but not always honored, line that goes back to Emile Zola (the Dreyfus affair) and Samuel Leibowitz (the Scottsboro Boys).
“If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: Thou shalt not ration justice.” – Judge Learned Hand
A wonderful quote, Jim. I’d never heard that before. And what an appropriate name for the judge.
That just gave me chills, James. Thank you for that quote and the reminder from one of my most admired jurists. I wish more citizens understood the truth of what really goes on in our justice system, but few do unless they read or write about it, or in the worst case, know it from personal experience. Buggz’s family is trying their best to get tribal members involved in this case along with others. Together, I’m hoping we can get him freed. I will pass on your comments to him as the support helps so much.
Thank you, Phyllis, for helping Buggs, and I hope he finds the justice he deserves. I’m sure you’ve seen this Harvard/NPR study about discrimination against native Americans.
https://content.sph.harvard.edu/wwwhsph/sites/94/2017/11/NPR-RWJF-HSPH-Discrimination-Native-Americans-Final-Report.pdf
Elaine, thanks for the link to the study. Those of us outside the profession are largely unaware of the realities. Unless the case involves a celebrity, the media rarely covers such stories.
Actually, Elaine, I have not but it is very helpful so thank you!! I printed it off to read later tonight and will post it on the freebuggzproject.com website. If we make it into the 9th Circuit, we might be able to use it in Buggz’s appeal. Every little bit helps and you just never know what will make all the difference = like that Photo 42! Again, many thanks for this and for spreading the word for Buggz if you can. I will send him a copy of this and the article as well.
Important, important post, ladies. Thank you for highlighting this despicable & deliberate miscarriage of justice.
It’s frightening to think it can happen to anyone, depending upon whose rights they want to trample.
Deb, it can happen to anyone but minorities are esp. vulnerable.
👍👍👍
Thank you for reading and commenting! Any help is highly appreciated and I will pass on your comments to Buggz. I just made an appointment to see him at the prison for April 4 = an 8 hour drive through some beautiful country, but still a slog, even after 12 years on this case. I will keep fighting for him and others will as well.