John Jefferson
Inset: Whisper Dawn Mari Sellars (Facebook). Background: Del Orrin Crawford (KRTV).
A Montana man convicted of killing a woman and wounding her husband in a bar parking lot after an argument will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Del Orrin Crawford, 42, was sentenced to 100 years behind bars on Tuesday in the killing of Whisper Dawn Mari Sellars, 28, and the attempted killing of her husband, Doug Crosswhite. Crawford was found guilty in July of deliberate homicide, attempted deliberate homicide, assault with a weapon, and evidence tampering. He was acquitted of a separate assault with a weapon count.
Flathead County District Court Judge Dan Wilson took the defendant to task, blasting his self-defense claim, upbraiding him for blaming his defense attorneys for his guilty verdict, and calling him out for his lawbreaking during his pretrial release, the Flathead Beacon reported.
“Whisper Sellars was not in any kind of attacking posture when she was shot and killed, and the bullet ripped through her heart, which virtually guaranteed that she was not only going to die, but she was going to die right there and then,” Wilson said. “She was in a submissive posture.”
“This court is not impressed by Mr. Crawford’s conduct during pretrial release,” Wilson added. “He was convicted of three counts of unlawful trapping. He was charged with not only a traffic offense but evading authorities.”
The victim’s father-in-law, Robert Crosswhite, spoke out in court.
“Del Crawford handed Whisper a death sentence,” he said. “He also intended to hand that sentence to Doug and, in doing so, he also handed a life sentence to their kids and our family of a life without Whisper.”
The bloodshed happened on Aug. 27, 2022. Deputies from the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office received several calls at 1 a.m. about a shooting at the Southfork Saloon in Martin City, near Glacier National Park.
The shooting happened after an argument over a golf cart Crawford was using to take people between a wedding rehearsal and the bar. Sellars and another woman argued with Crawford after he found them taking pictures in the golf cart he’d driven to the bar, the Hungry Horse News reported, citing court documents containing witness interviews. The argument was over the golf cart keys that Crawford thought someone had taken. After Crawford pushed Sellars, her husband pushed Crawford.
Prosecutors said Crawford fired his gun out of anger, while Crawford claimed self-defense, telling investigators, “I argued with these folks for some time. They won’t let me get on the golf cart and leave, and all they can tell me is, ‘If you don’t like what we’re doing, call the cops.””
He said he got into a fight, fell to the ground, then “I stood up, produced my handgun and shot twice.”
“I was on the ground, and they were on top of me in a public area. What more do I need to explain?” Crawford asked the detectives. “So I produce and I called law enforcement, and you guys showed up. And now they know how long it takes for the sheriff to show up.” The video of his interrogation was shown during his trial.
Robert Crosswhite said on GoFundMe that the shooting happened after a senseless verbal dispute in which a “coward of a man pushed my daughter inlaw after which my son pushed him.”
He said his son spent eight hours in surgery fighting for his life. The site raised money for the funeral and for money to care for the couple’s five children.
“His beautiful family’s life has been forever changed,” the post said.
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