Anne Stout

Case record: Anne Stout

Background

Anne Marie Stout was convicted following a three-week trial in 2008 of shooting her husband, Bill Stout, in the head while he slept on June 10, 2007 at the couple’s Darby home.

Stout was born in California and was part of a household of seven. She had no relationship with her father after the age of 4. When she married Bill Stout in the mid-1980s, she had already had a child, who was raised by the couple. There was no remarkable martial history until 2000, when the couple’s oldest child committed suicide. That event caused a “fracture in the relationship,” and Bill Stout blamed Stout for the suicide, after which the couple began to fight.

In 2004, Bill Stout took out a $500,000 life insurance policy on himself with Stout as the sole beneficiary. The policy included a clause disallowing payment should Bill Stout commit suicide in a two-year period beginning in January 2005.

In March 2005, Bill Stout was involved in a brief affair with an old girlfriend while on an out-of-state trip, which included “creative correspondence.” Stout discovered the affair in May 2005. Stout created a fictitious e-mail account in 2005 and began a campaign to torment her husband by sending fabricated e-mails addressed from the other woman to Bill Stout and his family and friends.

Stout told the jury that she thought her family was a strong and happy one, and that her life was “very happy with Bill.” She testified to plans to possibly move to Bigfork, plans for vacation, and plans to build a new house.

Stout testified about the death of her oldest son, Ben, who committed suicide during winter break when he was 19. Stout said, “I've never been to the property where he killed himself,” and stated that what happened to Ben affected the family, and that she dealt with it differently than Bill and her two sons, Noah and Matthew, dealt with it.

Stout testified that she currently had a boyfriend and that she met him “around Thanksgiving last year at one of Matt's sports banquets.”

The offence

Bill Stout was found dead in his home with a bullet wound in his head on June 10, 2007.

At sentencing, Ravalli County District Judge Jeffrey Langton said that on May 31, 2007 Bill Stout reported his Beretta 9mm pistol and two magazines stolen. Langton said that ten days later Stout fixed Bill Stout a dinner, saw their son out the door, had sex with Bill Stout, and while he slept, shot him with his own handgun. Langton said that when their son returned later that evening, Stout acted normally, and that the next morning the mother and son went to Missoula for breakfast and a shopping trip to the mall. Langton said Stout reported finding her husband’s body when they returned home.

Stout’s husband was killed with his own pistol, which was found in the saddlebag of his motorcycle in the garage of the house. Investigators also found a latex glove embedded with gunshot residue on the outside and Stout’s DNA on the inside in the same laundry hamper where the pistol’s holster was discovered.

A note in Stout’s handwriting was discovered in her nightstand that contained apparent instructions on how to fire a pistol similar to the one used in the crime. Stout claimed the note was a guide for the couple’s college-age son for using the clothes washer.

Investigators found 56 internet searches on how to kill someone and get away with it on Stout’s computer. During trial testimony about computer forensics, words frequently searched on Stout’s laptop included “how to kill someone,” “common household poisons,” “how to put someone to sleep,” “how to poison someone,” “homemade poisons,” “how to poison someone and get away with it,” “untraceable poisons,” and “how to make a sleeping formula.” On Stout’s workplace computer, the searches included “divorce,” “planning a divorce,” and “Barbara Miller.”

Prosecutor Bill Fulbright said, “This wasn’t a case where a person was overcome in a moment of passion,” and stated: “This was something that was planned out,” adding, “It was not an impulsive thing.”

Investigation

During the investigation, computers from the Stout residence and Stout’s work computer and laptop were seized on June 11, 2007 after Bill Stout was found dead with a bullet wound in the head. The computers were searched for possible evidence and then submitted to the Montana computer crime unit, a department of the Montana Division of Criminal investigation.

Ravalli County Detective Dave Potter testified after he searched Stout’s work computer internet history that someone visited a California Supreme Court Web site that explained a mental defense. Stout’s defense attorney, Bill Sheehy, said that while the history might indicate someone visited the web site, there was no way to know who that person might be, and that several other employees used the same computer.

Jimmy Weg, chief computer forensic agent at the state’s computer crime unit, testified about computer forensics, including that “Computers don’t delete things the first time you ask them to,” and that he had “the tools to obtain, find and print any evidentiary relevance.”

Weg testified that Stout’s computer forensics showed the creation of two e-mail addresses in the name of Barbara Miller, the woman Bill Stout allegedly had an affair with in 2005. Weg said Stout’s computer history showed the creation of the e-mails, from the Yahoo server, in Barbara’s name. Weg also described a list of contacts within the e-mail’s address book and several e-mail messages sent to Bill and to Anne and several of the couple’s friends. One message titled, “Old friends and lovers never go away” detailed the relationship between Bill and Barbara and mentioned a pregnancy, and was sent from the created account in Barbara’s name on Stout’s computer.

Fulbright asked the jury to infer that a user of the computer had to create the e-mails because of the login and logout history, stating, “So, what you’re telling the jury is that somebody sitting at that computer had to create these e-mails because the computer’s history shows somebody logged in and out of those specific e-mail addresses.”

When Sheehy asked Weg whether he could prove who created the e-mails, Weg stated that he could not tell who created the accounts, only that someone who knew how to log on to Stout’s laptop would be able to create the accounts.

Arrest

Stout was arrested on June 13, 2007 for the alleged homicide of her husband Bill Stout, after he was found dead on June 10, 2007 with a bullet wound in the head.

An Associated Press report said the wife of a Darby man found shot in the head in his home last weekend was arrested Friday on suspicion of murder; it identified her as Anna M. Stout, 42, accused of fatally shooting her husband William Stout, and said she was being held in the Ravalli County Detention Facility.

According to authorities, Anna Stout called 911 last Sunday afternoon and said there was “something wrong” with her husband: “There's blood, and his eyes are all bruised, and he's cold,”

The report stated that when ambulance crews arrived, Anna Stout led them to the master bedroom, where her husband was found dead from a gunshot wound to the back of the head. A cartridge from a 9 mm handgun was found under a pillow.

Police later learned William Stout had called the Sheriff’s Office a few weeks earlier to report that his 9 mm handgun and holster were missing from a safe in his closet. The gun was found last week Monday in a saddlebag on William Stout’s motorcycle. The holster and some bloody socks were later found in a hamper under some of Anna Stout’s clothing.

The report also stated that police inspected Anna Stout’s car and found rubber gloves with blood and gunshot residue on them. Authorities said Anna Stout told police she cooked dinner for her husband Saturday night before the couple went to bed at 10 p.m. She told one of her husband’s friends the next morning that her husband wasn’t feeling well. She told police she then left to go shopping in Missoula with one of her sons at about 8 a.m. Sunday, and that she found her husband dead when she came home at about 4:30 that afternoon.

The report stated that autopsy results found that because the food in Stout’s stomach had not been digested, he must have been killed before 8 a.m. Sunday.

Trial

Stout was charged with deliberate homicide for the killing of her husband.

At trial, the jury received testimony about computer forensics. Stout testified in her own defense, answering questions about her past, her family, and her life with her husband Bill. Her testimony is described as continuing.

In a video shown to the jury, Stout’s defense attorney presented Stout’s interview with Ravalli County Detective Perry Johnson on June 15, the same day she was arrested for allegedly killing her husband. In the video, Johnson told Stout: “I can assure you that I do know you are the main suspect in the murder of Bill Stout,” “We have all of the evidence and all of the findings to prove that. I know that he died before you left on Sunday morning and I have the time of death to prove that. I'm asking you these questions now to help me with the investigation.”

Stout emotionally reacted and said she didn’t kill her husband: “You are so misinformed,” “You can't prove anything, because you don't know. You are not informed because that did not happen.”

A Ravalli County jury found Stout guilty of murdering her husband with a 9 mm Beretta handgun. The jury returned a verdict less than six hours after deliberations, following a nearly three-week trial that included testimony from more than 60 witnesses.

A report said that as the guilty verdict was read to Ravalli County District Judge Jeffrey Langton, Stout put her head in her hands and was taken into custody and would remain in the Ravalli County jail awaiting sentencing. Another report said Stout faced sentencing scheduled for Aug. 26 at 9 a.m. in Langton’s courtroom.

Sentencing

Ravalli County District Judge Jeffrey Langton sentenced Stout to life in prison. Stout was sentenced on September 28, 2008.

At sentencing, Langton said he didn’t find any mitigating circumstances for the murder in a pre-sentence report, which indicated that Stout failed to show remorse for the killing. County prosecutors recommended a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors said Stout subjected her husband to “two years of public and private humiliation” before shooting him after she discovered he’d been involved in an affair and that she had carefully planned the murder.

Langton left the door open for parole, but only after Stout was psychologically evaluated and completed any recommended mental health treatment. Langton said Stout appeared to suffer from an inability to accept reality, which “won’t be cured by a few counseling sessions.” Langton stated at the sentencing hearing: “Ms. Stout has a great deal of soul searching and mental health work for this (rehabilitation) to ever be possible in this case,”

Langton provided a biography of Stout and an outline of the case before passing judgment. He also said that “All of that indicates some degree of a lack of emotion,” and that sentencing decisions related to parole eligibility did not reflect that Stout was being punished because she was convicted, but because she committed the crime.

Langton ordered Stout to pay costs accrued by the state public defender’s office and other court costs. One reported figure was $57,127 of court cost incurred during the trial. A hearing on whether to adjust the amount was set for Nov. 26; the reported amounts included an estimate that the public defender’s costs amounted to $15,000, and a prosecutor’s challenge asserting a more realistic fee for two attorneys working for a year of between $70,000 and $100,000.

A statement by Stout at sentencing asked that she be allowed the chance to return to her family as quickly as possible to help her sons recover from the loss of their father, including: “Allow our family the seeds of hope,” “Your children will be deprived of your company,”

Langton responded: “It’s not because you’ve been convicted of the crime. It’s because you committed the crime."

Appeals

Stout appealed the conviction, arguing that Langton improperly allowed the jury access to reports, improperly admitted evidence, and refused to suppress evidence seized under the authority of a search warrant. She also argued that Langton did not have jurisdiction to modify her sentence after appeal to include reimbursement for costs of her appellate counsel.

Four of five Supreme Court justices ruled that Langton acted properly in addressing issues of evidence during the trial. The matter was remanded for the portion of the sentence related to attorney costs incurred during the appeal process. Justice James C. Nelson dissented. Nelson disagreed with the majority opinion that Stout’s “so-called harassment campaign” was admissible under district court rules.

The decision was filed with the Ravalli County Court on July 13.

Outcome

The Montana Supreme Court affirmed Anne Marie Stout’s conviction and life sentence for deliberate homicide.

Other details

Stout was identified as 43 years old at sentencing and as 42 in other trial and arrest-related reporting.

Stout’s husband Bill Stout was 50 in the report announcing the guilty verdict.

At the sentencing hearing, Stout’s son Noah Stout said he believed what his father would have wanted, including: “This hearing is for justice for my father,” Noah Stout said. “When I think of justice for him, I don’t see that as his grandchildren getting to know their grandmother by putting their hand against a piece of bulletproof glass.” Noah Stout said he was not there to ask the judge to disregard the verdict, but “to give my mother no chance ever again … that isn’t the right thing. It’s not something my father would have wanted.”

Stout’s mother, Irma Moreno, told the judge she still believed her daughter was not guilty, stating: “Mothers know their children,” “I know that my daughter is a good individual … I wish that I had been able to protect my daughter from this terrible ordeal.”

Stout’s brother, Jose Luis Moreno, said Bill Stout’s death left a large void in the family’s life and that sentencing Stout to life without a chance for parole would “just make it worse for all of us and her children … We all love her. We haven’t given up on her and we never will.”

Stout was described as the beneficiary of a $500,000 term life insurance policy her husband took out two years before his death and as the co-owner of real estate worth over $500,000.