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Episode 266

June 16, 2024 /

This episode of Sword and Scale covers the double homicide of Philip Brewer and Jody Fortuna, the investigation into their disappearances, and the subsequent discovery of their dismembered bodies. Key figures include Mike Montano, who was arrested for the murders, and Kylie's Collins, his girlfriend who was implicated in the cover-up.

The story begins with the background of Gillette, Wyoming, where Philip and Jody went missing in September 2016. They were last seen with Mike Montano and his girlfriend, Kylie Collins, after a night of drinking. Tensions among the friends were high due to complicated relationships and past grievances.

As the investigation unfolds, police interview various individuals, including Philip's girlfriend Shelby Warren and Mike's girlfriend Kylie. Conflicting accounts and suspicious behavior lead detectives to focus on Mike, who eventually admits to dismembering the bodies but claims he was manipulated by Kylie.

The gruesome discovery of the victims' remains in Mike's pickup truck leads to his arrest. The episode details the shocking nature of the crime, the emotional toll on the victims' families, and the eventual sentencing of Mike to 60 years to life in prison.

In the aftermath, Philip's sister advocates for changes in Wyoming's laws regarding corpse mutilation, highlighting the impact of the crime on the families involved.

TLDR

The episode details the double murder of Philip Brewer and Jody Fortuna, focusing on the investigation and Mike Montano's confession.

Episode

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Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences.
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Listener discretion is advised. Do you remember seeing it? No, no, no. Don't, don't, don't, don't.
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Please don't, don't. We understand why you're upset. Because of what you saw? We found some of that yesterday.
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We've seen it too. And it's horrible. oh boy it's time for some more murder stories you sick fuck this is sword and scale episode 266
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season 11 here we go So I'm sure you've heard by now about Sword and Scale Television,
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and now we have something new coming up this month. It's season two of Sword and Scale Nightmares.
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If you have not had a chance to listen to Sword and Scale Nightmares yet, listen to it.
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You might enjoy it. It's true crime for bedtime. Basically what we do here, the stories that you all have
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come to know and love, you weirdos but without the clips, without the 911 jarring call
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that will wake you out of your slumber so you can actually put this on with a pair of earbuds
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and what do they call it, earbuds? whatever, and go to bed a lot of people listen to True Crime
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before going to sleep yeah, like I said sick fucks The End interesting. It's Gillette. Gillette, Wyoming, produces and distributes more coal than any other
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city in the United States, and is also a significant contributor of crude oil and methane gas.
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As a developer of these things, Gillette is an attractive place for people looking to make a
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lucrative and honest living. If you're willing and able to work a strenuous blue-collar job,
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there's good money to be made in Gillette. For many years, thousands of men and women have taken advantage
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of the employment opportunities that Gillette offers. And as is often the case, when a city attracts a lot of people
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it also attracts a lot of crime. To combat that crime, this city depends on the Gillette Police Department
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and the Campbell County Sheriff's Office. Back in mid-October of 2016, two deputy investigators at the Campbell County Sheriff's Office were hard at work, questioning a young woman named Kylie Collins.
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What don't you get? Well, you told me, well, you saw that someone reported that at my house or whatever, so I feel like you guys know stuff and you're withholding stuff from me.
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Well, I mean, that's true. We do know things that we're not going to tell you. We're concerned about these guys who are missing and trying to locate them and find out exactly what happened there.
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The reason that Kylie was being questioned was because about five weeks before this interview took place, two young men who were last seen in Gillette had been reported missing by their respective family members.
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One of those two men was 33-year-old Philip Brewer. Philip was a Wyoming native who lived and worked in Gillette.
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He was a father of two young sons who made a hard-earned living by working on an oil field.
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Philip liked to fish and ride snowmobiles. He was an avid outdoorsman who was considered by his family to be a kind and caring guy.
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Sadly, in September of 2016, Philip seemingly dropped off the face of the earth and nobody could reach him.
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Eventually, Philip was reported missing and this led police to question his girlfriend, Shelby Warren.
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When did you guys start dating? Right around Christmas. Last year? Last year, yeah.
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When me and Philip started dating, we went up and stayed with Jodi in Helena, Montana.
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in February. Phillip had lots of friends, but he was closest to his childhood friend, Jody Fortuna,
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who happened to be the other young man that police were searching for. Like Phillip, 38-year-old Jody
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loved to fish. He was a rare rock collector, and he enjoyed the outdoors. Jody was a self-employed
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general contractor, and his work, along with the advice of his family, led him to settle down in
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Helena, Montana. This move from Wyoming to Montana put about 500 miles between him and Philip.
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But that didn't stop two friends from seeing each other. They'd often make week-long trips to hang
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out and visit each other. Philip and Jody were close. They were like brothers. Philip considered
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Jody to be his best friend but so did someone else Jody also remained close friends with his other childhood friend Mike Montano I mean I know that Mike loved Jodi I can add now
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How do you know that? Because they've been best friends forever. Jodi was Mike's best friend,
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and Jodi was Phillip's best friend. I realize I probably just threw a bunch of names at you,
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and your brain is buzzing, so it might be a little bit difficult to follow. So let's just recap for one moment.
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Two guys go missing. Their names are Philip Brewer and Jody Fortuna. Philip was dating a woman named Shelby Warren,
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the woman you just heard being interviewed. And Jody had a friend named Mike Montano.
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Got it? Probably not, but let's keep going. About a day or so before Philip and Jody went missing, Philip and his girlfriend Shelby were driving around Gillette when they ran into Mike Montano.
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According to Shelby, Mike told them Jody was coming to visit all of them. We went for a drive and he said, hey, Jody's on his way down here. He'll be here in an hour.
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I got a job and he called Jody to help him with a three-day job. He said it was.
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When the police questioned Mike Montana, he confirmed much of what Shelby had told him.
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Mike explained that Jody was his closest friend, and that Jody had come to Gillette within days of his disappearance.
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Mike also explained that he wasn't a big fan of Phillip, and didn't particularly like being around him.
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So Jody, you've been around Gillette for a while then? He was coming back at birth all the time, even before he went back to his mom.
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me and Jody Vox being close. And I didn't like Phillip after I got a few times off the road
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because he's just a bad person. Again, the friendship dynamics that Mike explained to police were
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consistent with what Shelby had already told him. Jody was Mike's best friend, and Jody was
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Phillip's best friend. Everybody liked Jody. Jody had lots of best friends. But Mike and Phillip,
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they didn't like each other at all. Did they get along? No. No? No. They were like frenemies.
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The first time Jody brought Mike around, him and Phillip agreed that they were going to fight, but that they were going to, you know, one of these days they were going to throw down.
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And they were good with that. Okay. They just mutually knew that when they were around each other, they really like each other.
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Yeah. putting things mildly the relationship between mike philip and jody was unusual there was a lot
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of built-in tension between mike and philip but that wasn't the only thing that made things volatile
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you see these three guys had a habit of sleeping with each other's girlfriends For lack of a better phrase, Jody, Mike, and Phillip swapped women.
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And none of them actually ever really checked in with each other to make sure this was okay.
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Even Shelby admitted that in addition to dating Phillip, she'd also hooked up with Mike.
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Did you ever date Jody? No. Ever date Mike? No. Sure? Yeah. Pause there a minute.
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Huh? You paused there a minute. Because we hooked up one time. I don't know. We never dated.
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Okay. Despite this weird behind-the-back woman swapping thing, whatever you want to call it, Jody and Mike maintain their friendship.
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They grew up together and considered themselves brothers. It's that weird thing young men do.
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Boys, really, as they're trying to figure out who they are. They form these relationships where it's not real, but they have a sort of camaraderie of sorts.
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A bond that can't be broken, or so they thought. In 2015, Mike met and began dating a young woman named Kylie Collins.
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And before long, Mike introduced Kylie to Jodi. In December of that year, Mike and Kylie took a trip to Montana and spent a few days at Jody's house.
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He tricked me into coming up there. Oh, where? To Montana. Jody did? Yeah. How long were you up there?
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Only a week. Okay. But Jody was still fucking, he was being fake. And he was just getting me up there to get back at me because he thought I fucked his girlfriend.
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Jody had this plan. And he told me to because he thought I fucked his girlfriend.
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he was like, fuck Mike. I know. According to Mike, when Jody invited him and Kylie to come visit,
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Jody fully intended to sleep with Kylie. And he eventually did just that. He made me a drink, and that's the last thing I remember.
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He made me, because we all drink Crown and Coke, but that would change to Crown and 7-Up.
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He gave me a drink, and I drank it, and for like fucking a whole day, I was out.
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When I woke up from that, I fucking... Kylie was, like, I don't know. She was super high and just fucking acting weird as fuck.
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Anyway, he fucked my girlfriend. And I was in love with Kylie. And I was like, fuck it, dude.
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You figure you got me, then that's fine. We're good. We're done. Mike claimed that Jody spiked his drink.
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And while Mike was passed out, Jody and Kylie slept together. when Mike came to he suspected that they had sex and he was pretty pissed off about it but he didn say anything or make any accusations Why rock the boat I guess
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From there, Jody only made things worse by taunting Mike. Jody supposedly wore a t-shirt that read,
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Relax, it's just sex. When I woke up, he's like, I'm wearing that shirt, and he wore it.
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And he said, relax, it's just sex. Needless to say, Mike wasn't having the best time at Jody's.
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So he and Kylie packed up their belongings and headed back to Wyoming. Kylie, I fucking didn't forget.
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Either she realized that she'd been suckered or whatever, or she's part of it and she fucking felt bad or something.
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But it was just an awkward thing, so we went back home. Despite what happened in Montana,
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the relationship between Jody and Mike seemed to weather the storm. After a short period of no contact, Jody and Mike reconnected and their bond seemingly remained intact.
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I suppose this is the first ignored red flag. Or at least one of them. If a friend sleeps with your girlfriend and you say nothing about it and just pretend like nothing happened,
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yeah, I'm sure everything's going to be fine. Just fine. But for Mike, he just couldn't discount the friendship they'd built as children.
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I mean, you make a lot of poor decisions as children, but I guess he just didn't want to come to terms with that.
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Again, Mike claimed that they were like brothers. We fought and argued like brothers and said things like brothers, but never physical and never nothing like that.
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My mom even knows that. And Jody's mom and Jody's family pretty much took care of me when my family was fucked up.
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In September of the following year, it was Jody's turn to do the traveling. And Mike invited Jody to Wyoming.
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Mike told Jody that in addition to visiting, Mike also had a three-day contracting job for Jody that would pay well.
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So Jody packed up his work year and made the seven-hour drive from Helena, Montana to Gillette, Wyoming.
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When Jody arrived, he and Mike quickly linked up with Phillip and Shelby. Jody showed up. We started drinking.
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So all of us went out. We started drinking there, and then we went out to the bar.
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So you say all of us. It's you, me, Phillip, Jody, Mike. that night philip jody mike and shelby went to their local casino the sundance lounge where they
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continued to drink and party we went down to the sundance we um shot a couple games of pool we had
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a few drinks we were drinking and like we're having a good night to the bar and everything
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after we leave the bar we went back to shelby's house we just got sorry we fucked up together
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whatever we want. You, Shelby, Jillian, and Phillip? Yeah. We left. Went to my house where they proceeded to drink
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some Bacardi 151. By having their little bro man sing, sleeping to them. After a few games of pool
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and a lot more drinks, this foursome went to Shelby's house where they continued to drink
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even more. Things got pretty rowdy. among the guys as the testosterone started to flare,
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along with the drama. Coming back to Shelby's in there, Jody starts drinking a McCarty 151,
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and Jody started acting really fucking weird. Like, Jody knew I thought he'd fucking did what he did in Montana.
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Okay? According to Mike, the interactions between him and Jody became awkward as the topic of Mike's girlfriend came up.
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Meanwhile, Shelby and Phillip started arguing about all the money they just spent at the casino.
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So he picked a fight with me like he has before. And still been drinking. And we're still fighting.
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He left. And Jody followed him. They went straight up to Mike's. I'm guessing. What makes you think that?
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Well, because I was spying on him thereafter. And that's where the Tahoe in Jody's car was.
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Okay. So you drove by there? Mike, Phillip, and Jody left Shelby's house and headed towards Mike's mobile home.
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At least, that's what Shelby assumed and tried to confirm when she drove to Mike's trailer park later that night.
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Shelby claimed that she saw Jody's car parked near Mike's mobile home. So she knew that Phillip and Jody must be there and decided to just go home.
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For detectives, that seemed kind of weird. I mean, why go there just to turn around and go home?
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The cops couldn't just take Shelby's word for it, because this was the last night that anyone saw Jody and Phillip.
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In fact, both men had been missing for over a month. And in all likelihood, this was probably the last night that Jody and Phillip were alive.
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Despite the efforts by police and the interviews they conducted, the question of what happened to Philip and Jody remained unanswered for quite a while.
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But in mid-October of 2016, something happened that revealed their fate. The Gillette Police Department received a report of a strange black pickup truck that was parked on the road on the northern edge of their city.
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when an officer arrived on scene to investigate he noticed an overwhelming smell coming from the truck the smell was unmistakable It was rotting flesh The officer hoped that this truck belonged to a hunter and he was only going to find a rotting deer carcass
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in the bed of the pickup. But the officer wasn't so lucky. Instead, he found Philip Brewer and Jody
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Fortuna. But he didn't find all of them. He only found a few chopped up pieces. In early September 2016, 38-year-old Jody Fortuna and his childhood friend, 33-year-old Philip Brewer,
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were reported missing by their respective family members. According to Philip's girlfriend, Shelby Warren, she last saw Philip and Jody at her home in Gillette, Wyoming.
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When questioned by police, Shelby explained that she'd been drinking pretty heavily
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with Philip, Jody, and their mutual friend, Mike Montano. That night, the collective intoxication led to Philip and Shelby getting into an argument,
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and Philip ended up leaving Shelby's house, as did Jody and Mike. Shelby assumed that they all went to Mike's mobile home,
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and her assumption was pretty much confirmed when she decided to drive to Mike's trailer park later that night.
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night. As she did this, she saw Jody's car parked nearby and went home. Or so she claimed.
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When police questioned Mike about this, he confirmed that Philip and Jody had gone back
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to his home that night. But from there, he couldn't recall much of what had happened.
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Everyone was really drunk. And Mike claimed that when he got home, he just passed out.
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So what happens at your house? You guys get into a big fight? No, no, if I don't, straight up black the fuck out.
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Mike also claimed that when he woke up the next morning, Philip and Jody were both gone,
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and he didn't know where they went. Woke up, Jody's stuff was gone, they were gone,
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and then just from there, it's been fucked up weird. As for Shelby, she told police that the last time she spoke to Philip was at her house.
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But this wasn't the last known contact that Philip had. with someone. In the early morning hours of the next day, Philip apparently called a friend and
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explained to them that he and Shelby were fighting. The main reason for the call was that Philip was
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looking for a place to stay. My girlfriend Crystal has told me since then that Philip called her
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at 5 30 and asked her if she was in Casper, if she could come stay with her, told me that me and her
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were fighting, and that was the last year. As far as everyone knew, this was the last time that anyone
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heard from Philip, but it may not have been the last sighting of him or Jody. A few days later,
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Shelby drove to Mike's trailer park with a friend, and they supposedly saw two men on or near Mike's
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porch, though neither Shelby nor his friend could be sure that these men were Philip and Jody.
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But when we drive by there, we can see from the road, and we've seen two, I guess they're guys, running out of Mike's house.
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I remember one jumping off the stairs, you know what I mean, not taking the stairs, jumping off.
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And I want to say they didn't have shirts on either. Okay. And we thought it was Phillip and Joey.
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Why did you think that? I just assumed that. Like, I can't see that far anyway. And Benny said, oh, there they are.
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so they really did no benny doesn't know for sure either and i'm like well i don't want to
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talk a fight with philip so i'm not going there so we just kept driving up to this point shelby's
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story was mostly consistent with mike's but after philip and jody disappeared their respective
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versions of events started to conflict mike told police that after he woke up from their night of
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drinking, Phillip and Jody were just gone, and he had no idea where they went. But according to
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Shelby, Mike knew a lot more than he was telling. I don't know how many days it had been until Mike
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came to talk to me again, and I believe he came to the house, my house, to talk to me, because I
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wanted to know what was going on. First, Phillip can't get all over. I think so, yeah, something
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like that. And he tells me that Philip and Jody took some guns of his to go sell them.
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So he gave him some guns. They went to go sell them and he hasn't heard from them since.
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Shelby accepted the explanation that Mike gave her. But after a few more days went by,
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Mike flipped the script on Shelby and started accusing her of knowing where Philip and Jody
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were. Mike keeps coming around, thinking that making me, he accuses me of talking to
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him, knowing where they are. I'm like, Mike, I seriously haven't talked to him. I don't know
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what's going on. He thinks that he's making me think that they burned him and are off
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doing something. How do you seem? Like Mike, nothing abnormal. Good. After Jody and Phillip went missing,
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I started getting scared. Because Shelby and this Benito dude started fucking saying like,
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acting like I knew what happened and shit. You know what I mean by that? Like, they do?
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Yeah. On September 17th, 2016, Philip and Jodi had been missing for just over a week.
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And it was around this time that Shelby started to become very concerned. Mainly because the 17th was her birthday.
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And she knew that despite any arguments she and Philip were having, Philip would never let this day pass without at least giving her a call.
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So my birthday was September 17th. So that day came and went, and I know Philip again.
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And then I kind of knew. That's when it kind of starts to really hit me, too, that there's something else wrong.
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There's something. And then Jody's mom gets a hold of me. She's worried about it.
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She contacts me, and I don't have no information for her. And it gets quiet again.
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And I don't really hear from Mike for a while. More days passed and no sign or contact with Philip or Jody.
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Their respective family members started to worry and eventually missing persons reports were filed for both men.
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Though Jody's mom wasn't satisfied with leaving the investigation solely in the hands of police,
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so she decided to drive from Montana to Gillette. Her plan was to question both Shelby and Mike.
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Jody's mom comes down here, because I told her, too, that I think Mike knows more than what he's telling us,
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and that she needed to, you know, look at Mike. She spends a day here, goes out to Mike's.
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He won't answer the door for her. So I meet up with her and take her to Old Chicago, and we corner Kylie.
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Then all of a sudden, Mike answers the phone. and he says he'll meet with Jody's mom.
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In an attempt to reach Mike, Shelby and Jody's mom found and briefly questioned Mike's girlfriend, Kylie Collins.
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As they were doing this, Mike suddenly became available to meet with Jody's mom.
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Though, when Jody's mom finally met with him, Mike convinced her that he knew nothing about her son's whereabouts
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and that she should be directing her questions and accusations at Shelby. She calls me to tell me that she's leaving.
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She's talked to Mike. He doesn't know anything. She's like, you were the last one to see them, you know.
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It kind of made me feel like I was a suspect. Right. But I knew that Mike has that kind of effect on people,
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especially he was like a sender. What do you think of it? I think that Philip was already drinking and on one when they got out to Mike's because we were fighting.
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I think that I know Mike's always had a gun. What kind of gun? A handgun. I think that Philip was probably drunken on one and they either got into an altercation that way.
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If there was an altercation between Philip and Mike, I think Jody would have tried to break it up and got caught in the middle.
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By October 5th, Jody and Philip had been missing for over a month. And Shelby had supposedly assumed the worst.
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She suspected that Mike had killed both of them and that he may have been plotting this double murder for some time.
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As far as this three-day talk goes that Mike had Jody come down for, we find out there is no three-day job.
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That's my mother. Mike told her. I think Mike lured Jody down here and told him he had a job for him
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and when he got here there was no job. Shelby claimed to have suspicions about Mike
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and in turn Mike had plenty of suspicions about Shelby. Bear with me here because
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this is where the story starts to get a little outlandish. Yes, I said starts. Mike believed that Shelby was a drug dealer
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and that Phillip and Jody were working with her he suspected that all three of them were involved
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in some sort of elaborate smuggling operation and whatever business they were doing together
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they weren't letting Mike in on it and that's when I figured I learned that Jody, Shelby
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all of them were like in bed together you know Shelby, who else? Phillip. Phillip?
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And they were all secretive about the relationship. They were all secretive about everything, basically, within you.
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And the way they were being, it was like they were leading up to something. And I can't say that Shelby's a drug dealer.
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She doesn't not talk about that. But anytime I ever fucking needed something or wanted something, she had it.
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She's such a fucking dominating weird bitch. She has to know everything going on.
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It's creepy. But Laura told me that fucking... chelsea's a sociopath and that this is what this bitch is like right we're starting to become more
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realistic you know i mean it's kind of scary it's scary by october 9th 2016 jody and philip had been
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missing for almost 40 days but it was on this day that they were finally found at least some pieces
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of them were. The local police in Gillette received a report of a pickup truck that was
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parked on the northern edge of the city. The truck reportedly smelled like rotting flesh, and
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when officers arrived on the scene, they confirmed that the information they received
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was accurate. There was indeed a very stinky pickup truck parked on the side of the road.
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When officers opened the bed of the pickup truck they found two plastic totes And inside those totes well what do you think Yeah several dismembered body
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parts. This was the moment that the fate of Philip Brewer and Jody Fortuna was revealed.
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Both men were dead and had been chopped into pieces. Tragically, this information did not
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stay within the walls of the Gillette Police Department for long. The news of the gruesome discovery quickly leaked to the families of Philip and Jody,
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and they learned about their loved one's death and the state of their bodies through
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social media and various news outlets. What followed was years of hardship for the families as they struggled with the reality
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that their loved one's bodies had been mutilated. Many of you have read and heard about a double homicide in Gillette, Wyoming,
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which was first reported in early October 2016. My younger brother, Philip Reware, and his childhood friend, Jody Fortuna,
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were brutally murdered. The victims' bodies were not recovered until October 8th and 9th.
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These bodies of these two men were mutilated and stored in plastic totes in the back of an oven cup truck for over four weeks.
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while the families of these men were frantically searching for any information on their
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disappearances. Once I got through the initial shock of my brother's murder, everything started
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to set in. The fact that my brother's body was mutilated so badly I never got to see him one
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last time took a huge toll on me and the rest of my family. The nature of these crimes stripped
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our families of any of those choices and given my baby brother the proper burial we felt he deserved.
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After the body parts were discovered, they were quickly transported to a medical examiner.
00:31:54
Once there, the cause of death was determined. Unsurprisingly, this missing persons case became a double homicide investigation.
00:32:04
Obviously, they're both dead and there's something intended to kill them. Well, Philip was shot right here.
00:32:11
He was shot behind this here, I guess execution style for lack of better words. Jody was also shot in the back of the head
00:32:18
and then shot in the back a couple times. Both men had been shot to death before their bodies were dismembered.
00:32:27
Strangely, when the medical examiners attempted to piece together the bodies they realized they were missing several pieces.
00:32:36
This of course begged the question where was the rest of them? At the same time the homicide investigators were also trying to piece together
00:32:45
the story of how this all happened. And in order to do that, they interviewed several people.
00:32:52
One of those people was Mike Montano's girlfriend, 22-year-old Kylie Collins. You grew up in July, right?
00:33:00
Mm-hmm. Born in May. How long have you and Mike been together? Almost a year. Almost a year.
00:33:05
Our year is October 13th. So you guys have lived... When did you guys move in together?
00:33:11
Probably November, but we've jumped around places we've lived at, lived with friends.
00:33:18
When did you meet Jody? Sometime last year. Okay. I've only met Jody like a handful of times because he doesn't live here.
00:33:27
Do you remember the last time you said him? I don't. I really don't. It's been a while.
00:33:34
Did he ever like stay at your house with you guys? he i think he only came like once and that's since we've only had this trailer for this
00:33:43
will go we'll be on going on a third month like whenever jody would like come or hang out i wasn't
00:33:48
around you know usually they're having a bro time you know right in that time no time for me you know
00:33:55
mike and kylie live together in a small trailer in gillette and according to kylie she didn't know
00:34:02
Jodi very well or see much of him because when Jodi was around it meant that Kylie shouldn't be.
00:34:10
As for Philip, Kylie claimed that she knew even less about him. And you said you met Philip a couple times?
00:34:17
I've only met him once. Where was that? I don't even remember. I think it was Mike's old place.
00:34:25
So I don't know that much about Philip. I really don't. Philip I don't know anything about.
00:34:30
If you're getting the vibe that Kylie was trying to distance herself from Jody and Phillip as much as possible, you're not alone.
00:34:38
The detectives clearly felt the same way, and they quickly transitioned into another line of questioning about a very particular pickup truck.
00:34:48
Was it weird that you saw Mike's truck over there? Kind of, but... How come? Because I don't know. It's just weird.
00:34:56
because I haven't been able to talk to him. Did you notice anything unusual about the truck?
00:35:07
No. Did you ever see him putting stuff in the pickup or wonder what was in the back of that pickup?
00:35:13
I never wondered. I mean, I'm not going to go and question everything he does now.
00:35:18
I think that would be weird. All right. Did you ever walk by the pickup and think,
00:35:23
this pickup stinks? Because when he parked the pickup, he parked it back. The reason that the cops were questioning Kylie and Mike's truck was because the truck that contained Phillip and Jody's body parts belonged to Mike Montano.
00:35:41
Given that fact, the obvious assumption was that Mike murdered both men and dismembered their corpses.
00:35:48
And given the other fact that Mike and Kylie lived together the detectives clearly believed that Kylie knew a lot more than she was telling I have not seen Mike since what Thursday at 2 I have not seen him I mean was there something more going on that he mentioned to you
00:36:10
No, and we just get in big fights. Well, sometimes we get in big fights and we just kind of,
00:36:15
you know what I mean, go separate ways for a few days or maybe a day or two and then we can't stand
00:36:20
not talking to each other and we talked not only had kylie tried to distance herself from the murder
00:36:26
victims but she also tried to distance herself from her live-in boyfriend she claimed that even
00:36:32
though they were dating and lived together kylie would frequently go days without seeing or hearing
00:36:39
from mike at all despite these well blatant lies i mean let's just call it what it is
00:36:46
the detectives were able to get Kylie to admit that Mike did have a mean streak and that he was
00:36:53
a jealous man especially when it came to other men and Kylie you ever seen him get really pissed
00:37:01
at somebody besides you yeah who seen him you know out of 10 before but not like yeah horrid
00:37:11
mad. Were you there the other day when we punched him and choked him? No, I didn't hear about that. Did you hear about that? Yeah, I heard
00:37:19
about it. Did she say what happened or why or anything? Because we heard that too.
00:37:25
Because I used his phone to call Mike. You used Tim's phone? Oh, so he got jealous
00:37:31
or something? I don't know. He just, I guess he said, who's your real, who's side are you on?
00:37:37
Whose friend are you or something? Oh, to Tim. Naturally, the police didn't only question Kylie.
00:37:44
After the body parts were found and police determined who the pickup truck belonged to,
00:37:49
Mike Montano was promptly arrested and brought in to the interrogation room. We both know why we're here today, right?
00:37:56
Okay. In the bed of your truck is a Mendel's torso. It looks like two bullet wounds right here.
00:38:04
I don't have nobody in the middle, so I want to help you guys. Some shit cleared up these motherfuckers before, you know.
00:38:09
Okay. They grow even bigger than that or whatever. If I can help, I will. Well, let's do that today.
00:38:14
Okay. Mike was primed and ready to start pointing fingers. But there was one major issue.
00:38:23
The body parts were found in his truck. It's kind of hard to blame someone else for a double murder
00:38:32
when you're driving around with dismembered pieces of the victims. As to be expected, and as too often the situation, when Mike was questioned, his first concern wasn't Phillip's or Jody's family's or the heartache and trauma they were enduring at the time.
00:38:52
Mike's first concern was his own future. There's no crime for me. A five-year sentence in prison is a death sentence for me.
00:39:11
Five years for double homicide? What is this guy smoking? I need some of that. Given what the police found and where they found it, it was pretty clear that Mike had murdered Jody and Phillip.
00:39:25
But when Mike was questioned about this, he told quite a story, and that story implicated not one, but two people.
00:39:34
Philip's girlfriend Shelby Warren and his own girlfriend Kylie Collins In mid-October of 2016, 37-year-old Mike Montano was arrested after several dismembered body parts were found in the bed of his pickup truck.
00:40:20
The body parts belonged to 38-year-old Jody Fortuna and 33-year-old Philip Brewer,
00:40:27
both of whom had been reported missing just over a month before this gruesome discovery was made.
00:40:34
For police, there was little doubt that Mike had killed both men. But they still had plenty of questions.
00:40:42
Like, how did they die, and why did Mike do this? Also, when medical examiners tried to put Phillip and Jody back together,
00:40:52
they found that several body parts were missing. So, where was Mike hiding the rest of them?
00:40:58
In an attempt to get answers to these questions, Mike Montana was taken to an interview room,
00:41:04
and interrogated. I know this isn't easy. I mean, there's a body found in your truck,
00:41:12
and I think you want to get it off your chest. What went down? And where it went down?
00:41:17
And how it went down? Honest to God, I don't know. I'm not bullshitting you. Honest to God, I don't think I fucking did it.
00:41:24
You don't think you killed him? No, I really, really don't. And we'll figure that out, okay?
00:41:31
In listening to Mike's interrogation, And it's obvious that he was a very desperate man,
00:41:37
looking for any way to deny responsibility for the body parts that the police had found in his truck.
00:41:44
One way he tried to do this was to point the police toward a potential suspect. You know who Shelby is?
00:41:51
Shelby, yeah. Shelby Warren for him. I know Shelby. You think she a good person Do I Yeah No I did Throughout Mike interrogation he continuously talked about Phillip girlfriend Shelby
00:42:08
Warren, and claimed that Shelby was an evil, manipulative sociopath who could have orchestrated
00:42:15
the killings of Phillip and Jody. I don't know, she's really worried around me. Worry around what?
00:42:21
Around me. Oh, okay. So they started tracking me, basically. Like, fucking literally tracking me.
00:42:26
Phillip would tell me about, I'd have a hint about it, which you could follow people that normally hadn't.
00:42:31
Who would? Phillip. Phillip? Yeah. I experienced them three while we were stuck on the hangout.
00:42:38
Them three, Shelby, Jody, and Phillip? Yeah. Like what? Um, the things they knew,
00:42:44
the things they were capable of, things that I thought were just bullshit, like tracking people.
00:42:48
According to Mike, he suspected that Shelby had been spying on him and tracking his movements for months.
00:42:55
Why she would do such a thing, Mike wasn't sure. But he believed that Philip and Jody knew all about what Shelby was up to.
00:43:05
Despite his suspicions, Mike maintained his relationships with them because he didn't want to feel lonely.
00:43:13
Oh, what a sad guy. I saw signs, you know, but I never fucking put it together. Yeah, because I'm tired of being by myself.
00:43:20
It's hard to go through life without nothing. I don't know. eventually a guy just starts to fucking lower his standards
00:43:25
and he shouldn't, but... Mike claimed that his friends were about to enact some sort of unknown
00:43:33
plot against him. Never mind, I don't want whatever these people are smoking. It makes you too paranoid, apparently.
00:43:40
Mike was obviously very paranoid. He didn't know what the hell the plot was, but he knew there was one
00:43:45
and he suspected that his girlfriend Kylie may have been in on it as well. Well, they're all fucking together, dude.
00:43:53
They're fucking with me mentally. They're just being real secret about everything that they're doing, okay?
00:43:59
Okay. Kylie was being secretive then, too? Well, she was acting like she didn't know shit or know people.
00:44:04
Just being... We're different. Yeah, and I don't want to think that it was Kylie,
00:44:08
but the only fucking way that they could have manipulated and did this the way they did
00:44:13
is if somebody was right there next to me that I fucking trusted and loved, right?
00:44:17
basically Mike's story was that in order for him to end up where he was namely having the body parts of two dead men in his truck
00:44:26
did I mention that? yeah he had been manipulated into that position because he would never have done this on his own of course
00:44:35
okay, okay, solid argument got it, got it other people clearly have been pulling the strings
00:44:43
and the only other people capable of pulling those strings were the people closest to him.
00:44:49
This included his girlfriend, Kylie. Speaking of Kylie, after Mike was arrested,
00:44:54
Kylie was quickly put on notice that it was time to come clean about what she knew.
00:45:00
So you know Mike's in some serious trouble, right? That's why I'm a doll see me around,
00:45:06
but I don't get what serious trouble, and I don't get it. Well, he's charged a first-degree murder.
00:45:11
What? Yes. That's why we're here today. What's first-degree? I don't know the differences between...
00:45:17
You killed somebody on purpose. And there's two guys missing. Right? Yeah. You know it's Philip and Jody.
00:45:25
So do you know anything about that? I don't. Do you know anything about Philip? I don't.
00:45:31
I don't. Today's the day if you know something to tell us. Okay. Okay? Because we've been talking to you and we're going to talk to a lot of people.
00:45:39
Okay? So if you know anything, however small you think it may be, you need to tell us.
00:45:46
Okay. Kylie maintained that she knew nothing. If Mike had killed Philip and Jody, she was completely unaware of it.
00:45:55
Mike, however, had already told these same detectives that Kylie knew everything.
00:46:01
According to Mike, after a night of drinking with Jody and Philip, Mike blacked out.
00:46:07
The next morning, he awoke to Kylie asking him what he had done. The reason why I woke up that morning was because Kylie came over to check on me out of nowhere.
00:46:15
Okay, she woke me up. Out of the trailer? Yep. Okay. What did she say? She just asked me what happened.
00:46:22
I was like, what do you mean? What happened? She went to the bathroom. Before she woke me up, she went straight to the bathroom.
00:46:29
And they were in there in the bathtub. Who's that? Philip and Jerry. Whole bodies.
00:46:36
Both of them in the tub? How are they in the tub? Just a problem on top of each other.
00:46:42
Seriously, I swear to God, no problem. No lies, no nothing. There was no blood anywhere in my fucking trailer.
00:46:46
Nothing, dude. Okay. What happened? Like I told you, I got fucking black the fuck out.
00:46:51
That is all true. Okay. Supposedly, Kylie was the first person to discover the dead bodies
00:46:58
piled in hers and Mike's bathtub. When Kylie was confronted with this accusation,
00:47:04
she didn't handle it very well. And what did you see? Oh, I was so angry. This is the time. This is your chance.
00:47:19
You understand why we have to know. I said why we need to know. You understand why we need to know.
00:47:28
I don't get this. I don't get it. No, I don't get what you guys are doing. I don't get it.
00:47:38
We're asking you what you saw. I don't. Because Mike's already telling people, and we don't want to just take his word for it.
00:47:46
What do you mean he's already telling me? He's told somebody that you walked in and saw him doing something.
00:47:52
What did he tell? What are you talking about? I want to know what you saw. I don't mean it was...
00:47:57
Oh, stop. No. Kylie, when you tell us, you're going to feel much better. I don't feel much better.
00:48:05
I don't feel much better. This is a trap. It's not a trap. What do you remember seeing?
00:48:11
No, no, no. Don't, don't, don't, don't. Please don't. You know what? Talking to us is a difference between seeing something and being involved in something.
00:48:23
Do you get what I'm saying? The detectives spelled it out for Kylie. She could either be a cooperating witness or an accessory to a double homicide.
00:48:34
What would you pick? So you want to tell us about it or you don't want to talk to us anymore?
00:48:39
I don't want to talk to him or something. A lawyer or something? I don't know. I don't think I need one. I just...
00:48:47
Sorry. I feel like I'm being trapped. I feel like you guys aren't going to be honest with me.
00:48:52
You guys are going to say whatever and twist whatever you want to make me say something, right?
00:48:56
Well, we're telling you what we know so far. But how do I know that you know that?
00:49:01
Because I know that. Because you know that we know it because you know it happened.
00:49:07
You know we know it because it's true. Because what you saw, we found some of that yesterday.
00:49:15
We've seen it too, and it's horrible. I mean, we understand why you're upset by having seen that.
00:49:23
But it's bad. for the most part the detectives approached kylie with kid gloves but that didn't sway her
00:49:31
kylie opted to deny involvement at least for now meanwhile mike continued to try and cast doubt on
00:49:41
the likelihood that he killed jody and philip i honestly could never hurt jody ever
00:49:47
that is the only reason why i don't think i did it okay there's two guys obviously deceased in
00:49:56
your tub what do you do fucking sat there half the day figuring out a way fucking
00:50:00
thinking of what to do debating on what to do right thing to do the wrong thing to do and then
00:50:05
kind of just getting freaked out you know and she's telling me hurry up and do something or
00:50:10
whatever my claim that he didn't know how jody and philip's dead bodies ended up in his bathtub
00:50:16
but after he became aware that they were there Kylie pressured him into doing something about it
00:50:22
fucking women am I right? they're always just yapping away just nagging about everything
00:50:27
they always want a clean bathroom no dead bodies blah blah blah and then what'd you do?
00:50:36
you want me to go into detail dude? I do I think I cut one of them in half with what?
00:50:42
a stupid little tiny fucking saw A handsaw or an electric saw? A handsaw. All right, so you cut one and a half.
00:50:50
Then what? And the toads that I had had were right there. Two of the toads were Jody's, I think.
00:50:57
And then what did you do with the other one? Did the same thing. I cut the other one up, too.
00:51:03
Did you saw their heads off? Yeah. And their arms? Yep. Okay. And you left their legs intact?
00:51:15
Or did you saw their legs off too? No, I think I cut one and a half. And it wouldn't fit or something like that.
00:51:21
So that's why I had to cut the arms off the other one. And then it just went the same way.
00:51:25
And the head? Yeah. Okay. And then Kylie came later and cleaned it again and shit like that.
00:51:32
Okay. So Lee to appease his girlfriend, and ladies, you know how much we do for you.
00:51:38
Mike used a small handsaw to dismember Philip and Mike's so-called best friend and brother, Jody.
00:51:48
According to the medical examiner, this had to be a very brutal and messy affair, not to mention outright disgusting.
00:51:57
Based on the state of the body parts, there was obvious aggression behind what Mike had done, especially when it came to Philip.
00:52:05
Did you hate Philip? No, I didn't hate Philip enough to fucking kill him. I mean, I didn't like him.
00:52:10
I didn't trust him. And I've made that clear to everybody that I didn't really like Philip.
00:52:14
I didn't care for him. I think that he fucking gets Jody into stupid bullshit. And he's always getting in fucking trouble and bragging, dragging, dragging everybody with him.
00:52:22
You know what I mean? Everybody knows that about Philip. Everybody does. And I fucking am telling you the truth.
00:52:26
Well, he's just, and the reason I ask is because he was cut up quite different than Jody.
00:52:33
Mike admitted to chopping up the bodies. That element of the crime was clear, but there was still a big question that needed to be answered.
00:52:42
The police only found some of Jody and Phillip in the back of Mike's truck, so where were the other body parts?
00:52:51
They should all be in the truck. There's two bodies in those two totes? There should be, huh.
00:52:55
Okay. All their parts are in there? Yeah. That's why I'm asking, because I don't think two...
00:53:03
I don't know, maybe they're in there, but... I don't know if two bodies can fit in those two totes.
00:53:10
You tell me. My storage unit. After some pushback and a few lies, Mike admitted that some of Jody and Phillip were inside a storage unit that he and Kylie shared.
00:53:23
In fact, this storage unit is where Mike had been keeping the body parts before moving some of them into his truck.
00:53:31
So I cut them up, put them in the totes, put them in the car, the totes, and everyone would show my car.
00:53:38
Yeah, I put the totes in my car and then went and put them in the storage and locked it up.
00:53:43
And from there, we just moved them there. And then, like, we'd drive and we'd fucking check on it, like, every day.
00:53:52
Yeah. Yeah. For nearly 40 days the body parts of Jody Fortuna and Philip Brewer rotted in a storage unit During this time Mike and Kylie made frequent trips to check on them and make sure that they weren discovered
00:54:09
Unsurprisingly, after only a day or so, things started to get pretty stinky. I would smell that smell everywhere I would go.
00:54:19
I still smell that smell. I'm a fucking... I still smell that smell. I've never smelled anything like that before.
00:54:28
It does not ever go away. I can smell it when I'm eating sometimes. I don't want to eat.
00:54:37
It's just a bit of a odor. To cover up the smell, Mike poured baking soda on the body parts,
00:54:43
and Kylie gave him a few bug bombs to keep the flies away. Still, they both knew that these were only temporary solutions,
00:54:52
and that they were both going to have to dispose of the evidence somehow. Kylie went and stole the body on board and got me that stuff too.
00:55:00
And it progressed from there and then it kept getting, I mean, she said that we needed to get rid of the bodies, right?
00:55:09
Mm-hmm. Mike and Kylie agreed that they wanted to dump the body parts out of state.
00:55:15
So they packed up Mike's truck with some of the body parts and drove to South Dakota.
00:55:21
Why they didn't take all of the body parts remains unclear. After arriving in South Dakota, Mike struggled to find a suitable and well-hidden place,
00:55:31
so he gave up, turned around, and went home. After returning from South Dakota, Mike parked his truck on the side of the road
00:55:39
near his mobile home and just left it there for days. Eventually, someone noticed the smell and alerted police.
00:55:49
She was with me driving around. In your truck? Yeah. You guys both loaded on that day or whatever?
00:55:54
Okay. I don't know. I came back and I parked my truck. And I just kept my truck parked.
00:56:01
Everything Mike had done was blatantly cruel and horrific. Yet he maintained that his actions weren't his fault.
00:56:10
If Mike had done anything wrong, it was because the people around him manipulated him into doing it.
00:56:16
Tommy's surprised for someone not having personal responsibility in this day and age.
00:56:23
I'm not a fucking evil, wicked person. I'm really, really not. For like two days, dude. Two days.
00:56:30
I didn't fucking do nothing to them. They just sat in there. Oh, well, that makes it better.
00:56:38
As long as you wait two days, it's fine to chop up some murder victims in your bathtub.
00:56:42
Anywho, again, Mike admitted to dismembering Philip and Jody, but he maintained that he wasn't capable of killing them.
00:56:53
When asked who might have done it, Mike was quick to offer up a theory. And Shelby's known to me with something before two in Sturgis.
00:57:01
And there's proof, because you can go and look at the fucking hospital where I said I was asked the fuck out and didn't know nothing.
00:57:05
I had one fucking drink, and I blacked out and didn't know shit until I woke up.
00:57:09
In Sturgis? Yeah. Okay. According to Mike, Shelby Warren had a known and provable history of spiking Mike's drink with drugs and causing him to black out.
00:57:20
People sure do like to do that to this guy, don't they? Mike suggested that Shelby planned and arranged the murders with the help of an unknown friend.
00:57:30
According to Mike, Shelby must have drugged Mike's drink, waited for him to pass out, and then murdered Phillip and Jody.
00:57:38
then she cleaned up the crime scene and put the dead bodies in mike's bathtub totally makes sense who who do you think may have killed him i think it's somebody that
00:57:53
shelby's friends with i swear to god because shelby had hinted about phil never coming back
00:57:58
and shit before you know i mean and how would they how or why would they put him in your bathtub
00:58:04
to make me look guilty. What was your thoughts of why you ended up going to cut him out instead of saying,
00:58:13
you know, if you don't think you did this, why don't you call for help or do something else besides cut him out?
00:58:19
Because I'm a felon. And to me, it just looks like, you know what I mean? And there's no way,
00:58:25
I've never gotten away with anything. Mike's theory about how Philip and Jody ended up dead
00:58:30
in his bathtub was obviously ridiculous. And cops knew that. They're not all dumb.
00:58:38
But that didn't necessarily mean that Shelby was off the hook. If you remember from her earlier police interview,
00:58:46
Shelby claimed that she drove by Mike's trailer after seeing Philip for the last time.
00:58:52
She claimed that when she saw Jody's car parked outside, she just left and went home,
00:58:57
but the cops weren't entirely sure she was being honest about that. In fact, when Shelby was questioned and before the details of the murder were released to the public, Shelby seemed to have a pretty solid theory about how everything happened.
00:59:12
It's possible that during her police interview, she accidentally let something slip.
00:59:19
He was going to shoot him as well. What do you mean as well? I just say as well because he shot Phil from Jody.
00:59:28
How do you know that? I guess I don't know for sure. I'm only assuming. Okay. How come you're assuming that?
00:59:37
Because they're dead and Mike, that's just my, I think he did it. You're here today.
00:59:44
You're telling me the truth because we're talking to a lot of people. Yeah. Okay.
00:59:50
So if you know more or you somehow know more things that we into then today the day Yeah Yeah I not I don know if they were into more like that how i remember it detectives didn suspect that shelby committed the murders but they did wonder if she
01:00:08
witnessed it happen at a minimum they clearly believed that shelby knew a lot more than she
01:00:14
was telling but if that was the case they could never prove it in fact when it came to the details
01:00:21
of the murders, police weren't able to prove much at all because, frankly, they didn't have much to work with.
01:00:29
All they had was Kylie's refusal to cooperate, Shelby's denials, and Mike's insane accusations.
01:00:36
So the police were never able to say with certainty when the murders happened or where.
01:00:44
The prominent theory among investigators is that Mike shot and killed Phillip first, and that he made Jody watch him commit that murder. Then he turned the gun on Jody.
01:00:58
They also believed that Kylie didn't witness this happen, but that she did discover the bodies
01:01:04
and helped Mike clean up the mess. Kylie knew, dude, and Kylie led, I mean, Kylie led the whole mission to chop it up and get away
01:01:16
The way she handled this was just, it gives me goosebumps just thinking about how she reacted.
01:01:21
She had no emotion? She had none whatsoever. Like, fucking, it was nothing to her.
01:01:25
Like, she's seen it before. You know what I mean? And I'm not trying to... That's why I asked Kylie, Kylie, Kylie, if she had no reaction.
01:01:32
And she had none. And she encouraged you to help her. She pretty much told me what to do, dude.
01:01:37
Cut him up. The way I think about Kylie right now, I don't fucking, I don't think I ever knew Kylie.
01:01:43
I didn't want to do this. I didn't want to do this. I did this because fucking Kylie told me I could or I should
01:01:51
and fucking that we'd be together happy forever after, and that's what I needed to do, and that's what I did.
01:01:56
I would never have done it if Kylie wouldn't have fucking said. You know what I mean?
01:02:00
I would never have chopped them up is what I had done. If Kylie wouldn't have said let's be together and let's work through this.
01:02:04
Let's get away with this. As for the dismemberment, Mike admitted to doing that,
01:02:09
but he directed the blame at Kylie. He claimed that he never would have chopped up the bodies had it not been for her encouragement.
01:02:21
And we all know that ladies love to encourage men to do things, and men are happy to do them, most of the time.
01:02:30
Obviously, even if that were the case, it wasn't going to mitigate Mike's responsibility.
01:02:36
but it did mean that kylie was culpable and she didn't do herself any favors by continuously lying
01:02:43
to the police so do you guys have a storage unit together or anything like that where you keep extra
01:02:48
stuff do you know if mike has a storage unit anywhere i don't know not that i know maybe i
01:02:54
don't know he wouldn't tell you if he did you guys have been together yeah i know we have yeah
01:03:00
Yes. Kylie lied about just about everything. And cops could prove it. When Kylie was called out for her lies, she did what she should have done right away.
01:03:12
She asked for a lawyer. But it was too late. The damage was already done, as it often is.
01:03:22
She'd already broken the law by lying and hindering the investigation of a double homicide.
01:03:28
I want to give you a minute to think about it, okay? No, I feel like I don't get it.
01:03:34
What don't you get? What part is confusing you? I don't think you're confused. You're not dumb.
01:03:45
I know I'm not dumb. You're a smart girl. You know exactly what's going on. You have to stop.
01:03:54
So you saw what Mike was doing, right? in that bathtub and you know who those people were, right?
01:04:03
And what you saw happening was found in that truck yesterday when we searched it, okay?
01:04:08
And we know you know what happened. So you can be a witness and or a suspect. Because I know
01:04:16
you're not the mastermind. It wasn't your plan to kill people or to chop them up
01:04:24
and put them in plastic totes and hide them. I'm going to get a lawyer then. Okay.
01:04:33
Fair enough. In the end, Kylie did admit to her role in helping to cover up the murders,
01:04:41
and she agreed to testify against Mike if his case ever went to trial. In exchange, Kylie did not face any accessory charges,
01:04:50
but she did face charges for misleading police. Ultimately, Kylie never had to testify because Mike didn't take his case to trial.
01:05:00
Montano's earlier pled no contest to killing 33-year-old Philip Brewer and 37-year-old Jody Fontuna, dismembering their bodies in an attempt to dispose of them.
01:05:10
Before he was sentenced, Montano apologized to Fortuna's mother. District Judge Michael Deegan sentenced Michael Montano on Wednesday to 60 years to life in prison.
01:05:19
And Montana's former girlfriend, 24-year-old Kaylee Collins, was also sentenced Tuesday to two years in jail for interfering with the police investigation after the men were reported missing.
01:05:30
After Mike and Kylie were sent off to prison, the Brewer and Fortuna families had no choice but to pick up the pieces of their lives and move on.
01:05:41
In an effort to do something good in her brother's name, Phillip's sister set out to have some of Wyoming's laws changed.
01:05:49
Once the memorial was over my husband and I started researching the charges that the defendants were accused of Two counts of second murder and two counts of post corpse mutilation for the first defendant When we looked up these penalties for corpse mutilation we were shocked that Wyoming only carries up to three years
01:06:09
Three years technically means that a person charged with this crime could ultimately receive probation.
01:06:16
I mean, I knew deep down that I had to do something. I walked into the house one day and told my husband that I was going to change the Wyoming state statute on corpse mutilation.
01:06:27
For the sake of her brother, Phillip's sister lobbied to change the penalties for corpse mutilation in Wyoming.
01:06:34
And after several years of fighting for that change, she was successful. because of her efforts anyone who dissects or mutilates a dead human body in wyoming now faces
01:06:46
a possible five-year prison sentence a much more fitting sentence i may say for such a horrendous
01:06:54
crime i finally was able to give back to do something extraordinary for my brother and his
01:07:01
legacy i was humbled i felt close to my brother and i know what how he'd want me to live my life
01:07:08
to the fullest. Even though he's the first thing on my mind when I wake up and the last thing when
01:07:13
I fall asleep, I feel comfort in knowing he's proud of what I've accomplished and how hard I've
01:07:17
pushed myself to be the best I can be. Throughout his police interviews, Mike Montano repeatedly
01:07:24
referred to Jody as his brother. He claimed that their bond meant so much to him that they were
01:07:31
practically siblings. When you compare those claims to the way that Philip's sister speaks
01:07:37
out about her brother and the things that she did to honor his life, Mike's claims about brotherhood
01:07:44
sure do come across pretty hollow. Mike shot and killed his so-called brother. Then he mutilated
01:07:52
and dismembered the body. A clear motive was never established in this case, but more than likely,
01:07:59
Mike was driven by some very darkened, deep-seated resentment and jealousy. I don't remember pulling the trigger.
01:08:07
I really don't remember pulling the trigger, Mr. I really don't. What led up to that?
01:08:13
Like, I don't know. I don't know, man. All the drugs, all the times they ripped me off, all the times.
01:08:19
This is what I would think. I mean, fucking lying about Kylie being a prostitute and shit with them.
01:08:25
I mean, just fucked up shit. Like, taking advantage of me and putting me down and fucking making me a joke to everybody
01:08:32
and just fucking stealing from me everything. They took everything in my life. Mike was fed up with being the joke among his friends.
01:08:41
He was angry about Jody's sleeping with Kylie, and he hated that Jody's friendship with Phillip
01:08:47
carried more mutual respect than his own friendship with Jody. So, in what was probably a drunken and drug-fueled rage,
01:08:57
he lashed out and shot both men to death. Then he chopped up their bodies in a lousy attempt to cover up the crime.
01:09:08
On top of being a pathetic psychopath who blames everyone else for his own actions,
01:09:14
Mike Montano is also pretty dim-witted. Most dim-witted people think that way. They think things belong to them that don't.
01:09:24
They think the whole world revolves around them. Something that was clearly lost on this idiot was a pretty basic and common sense understanding about family.
01:09:38
It's one thing to call someone a brother and claim to have some sort of family-like bond with them because you grew up together.
01:09:46
It's another thing entirely to actually live up to that claim. When Philip and Jodi went missing, Jodi's mom drove 500 miles from Montana to Wyoming to find her son.
01:10:01
That's what family is. She went out there to seek out whoever it was that had last spoken to Jodi and ask them a couple of questions.
01:10:12
After the body parts were discovered, Philip's sister worked her ass off to get the laws in Wyoming changed as a way to honor her brother's life and legacy.
01:10:24
Those are the kind of things that family members do for each other. They don't just sit around and talk about it while drinking beer.
01:10:32
Those are the kind of things that people do when they actually give a shit, when they care.
01:10:36
What they don't do is allow petty resentment to drive them to commit murder. and they certainly don't mutilate and dismember the people they love.
01:10:47
That goes without saying, I hope. Maybe after 60 years in a prison cell, Mike Montano will come to better understand that.
01:10:58
But I wouldn't hold my breath. so if you've been listening for a while why don't you head on over to our store and get
01:11:30
something nice for summer head to swordscale.com and stay safe so so Hey Mike, this is Pam Whitaker from Knoxville, Tennessee.
01:12:55
I recently had problems with my PLUS membership It was a glitch on my end not on your all But anyway I contacted customer support i Gertie and within 10 minutes she had me up and running on my Plus membership again Like you say she is the best Thank you again Gertie
01:13:28
Thank you. Bye.

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 90
    Most shocking
  • 90
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  • 90
    Biggest twist
  • 85
    Most heartbreaking

Episode Highlights

  • Sword and Scale Episode 266
    The episode kicks off with a darkly humorous introduction to true crime stories.
    “oh boy it's time for some more murder stories you sick fuck this is sword and scale episode 266”
    @ 00m 24s
    June 16, 2024
  • The Missing Men
    Two young men, Philip Brewer and Jody Fortuna, go missing under mysterious circumstances.
    “The reason that Kylie was being questioned was because about five weeks before this interview took place, two young men who were last seen i”
    @ 03m 52s
    June 16, 2024
  • Friendship Dynamics
    The complicated relationships between the friends add tension to the narrative.
    “But Mike and Phillip, they didn't like each other at all.”
    @ 08m 10s
    June 16, 2024
  • Gruesome Discovery
    On October 9, 2016, the bodies of Jody and Philip were found dismembered in a pickup truck.
    “There was indeed a very stinky pickup truck parked on the side of the road.”
    @ 29m 30s
    June 16, 2024
  • Mike's Arrest
    Mike Montano was arrested after dismembered body parts were found in his truck.
    “In mid-October of 2016, 37-year-old Mike Montano was arrested after several dismembered body parts were found in the bed of his pickup truck”
    @ 40m 04s
    June 16, 2024
  • Kylie's Denial
    Kylie Collins maintained her innocence despite being questioned about the murders.
    “I feel like I'm being trapped.”
    @ 48m 47s
    June 16, 2024
  • Mike's Dismemberment Confession
    Mike admitted to dismembering Jody and Philip, claiming he was pressured by Kylie.
    “I think I cut one of them in half”
    @ 50m 38s
    June 16, 2024
  • Mike's Lack of Responsibility
    Mike blamed others for his actions, claiming he wasn't capable of murder.
    “I'm not a fucking evil, wicked person. I'm really, really not.”
    @ 56m 23s
    June 16, 2024
  • Kylie's Role in the Crime
    Kylie encouraged Mike to dismember the bodies, showcasing her complicity.
    “Kylie led the whole mission to chop it up and get away”
    @ 01h 01m 16s
    June 16, 2024
  • Phillip's Sister's Fight for Justice
    Phillip's sister worked to change Wyoming's laws on corpse mutilation in her brother's honor.
    “I was humbled I felt close to my brother”
    @ 01h 07m 01s
    June 16, 2024
  • The True Meaning of Family
    The narrative contrasts Mike's betrayal with the loyalty shown by Phillip's family.
    “Those are the kind of things that family members do for each other.”
    @ 01h 10m 28s
    June 16, 2024

Episode Quotes

  • It's true crime for bedtime.
    Episode 266
  • They were like frenemies.
    Episode 266
  • I don't think I fucking did it.
    Episode 266
  • I feel like I'm being trapped.
    Episode 266
  • I would never have done it if Kylie wouldn't have said.
    Episode 266
  • I feel comfort in knowing he's proud of what I've accomplished.
    Episode 266

Key Moments

  • Murder Stories00:24
  • Last Seen17:11
  • Body Parts Found29:24
  • Kylie's Confusion45:03
  • Detectives' Pressure48:29
  • Dismemberment Confession50:38
  • Mike's Regret1:01:45
  • Fight for Justice1:07:01

Tension Over Time

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown