COLUMBUS - Prosecutors describe a violent early morning ambush-style attack at a family's Stillwater County home that left a mother and daughter dead and two men injured.
Charging documents in Stillwater County District Court released Wednesday allege 23-year-old Ty Allen Turney was waiting for his estranged girlfriend, Nila Lynn Dawson, and her two friends when they pulled up to the family home in the dark early morning hours.
Turney is accused of shooting Nila Dawson and her mother, Justine Lynn Dawson, to death in the garage and then chasing down and shooting Gregory B. Dawson in the back as he came to check on his daughter and wife after hearing a commotion in the garage.
Turney is also accused of shooting a fourth person, Mathew Cale Osgood, in the arm.
Turney was arrested after fleeing the home and crashing a pickup into the Stillwater River not far from the home located in the sparsely populated area between Absarokee and Nye. He is being held in the Yellowstone County jail.
Turney is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in Stillwater County District Court on two counts of deliberate homicide and two counts of attempted deliberate homicide.
Charging documents paint the picture of a jilted boyfriend who drove from Texas to Montana in an attempt to reconcile with his girlfriend, but instead raped the woman before killing her and her mother and shooting her father and friend.
The charging documents provide this account of the incident:
The shooting was first reported at about 3:40 a.m. through a 911 call to the Stillwater County Sheriff's Office Dispatch Center by a female caller stating shots had been fired at 1015 Stillwater Road.
The caller, later identified as Cheyenne Turner, a friend of Nila Dawson, told the dispatcher that she believed her friend was deceased.
A second 911 call was made at the same time by Greg Dawson, who advised that his daughter and wife had both been shot and were in the garage. He was unsure of their injuries or where the assailant had gone. The call then disconnected.
After failed attempts by dispatch to establish contact with the second caller, Greg Dawson called a second time about three minutes later and reported that Osgood, a friend of his daughter, had been shot.
Osgood then spoke with dispatch and was able to relay that the suspect had left the area in a white GMC pickup and that he knew the suspect's first name was Ty.
When deputies arrived at the home, they spoke briefly with Greg Dawson before he was transported by ambulance to meet a waiting Life Flight helicopter. He told deputies that he was asleep when he heard arguing in the garage and was shot when he went out to check on the commotion.
A detective at the scene spoke with Turner, who explained that Nila Dawson and Ty Turney were in an on-and-off relationship.
She said Turney had recently travelled to Billings from Texas to meet Dawson at Rocky Mountain College, where she attended classes and lived in an apartment.
Turney made the trip in an effort to try and reconcile their relationship, the woman reported. But Nila Dawson told her friend that he had raped her on Dec. 6 in her apartment, but she refused to report the crime to law enforcement.
Turner further explained that she met Nila Dawson and their friend Osgood on Sunday. As the three were driving around Columbus, Turney and Dawson were exchanging text messages and calls that Turner said concerned the group "because of the aggressive manner in which Turney was communicating."
The trio decided to drive to Nila Dawson's parents' home near Nye.
When they arrived, they saw Turney's truck parked in front of the garage. Turner said she parked in the driveway and they all got out of the vehicle.
As Osgood got out, he grabbed a pistol from Nila Dawson's purse, both Turner and Osgood told investigators.
Turner said she then saw Turney coming down a flight of stairs with a handgun and he "began firing at them." Turner took cover behind a vehicle and called 911, while Osgood was struck in the arm by the gunfire.
Osgood told investigators he dropped the handgun while running to the side of the house and continued running to a neighbor's residence when he heard additional gunfire. He also saw Turney's truck leaving the residence.
Nila Dawson was pronounced dead at the scene. Justine Dawson's body was found laying across her daughter's body where she had suffered a point-blank gunshot to her head. She died later that morning at a Billings hospital.
Greg Dawson had been shot in the back and is being treated in intensive care at a Billings hospital.
Osgood was treated for a gunshot wound to his arm at a Billings hospital.
