19 year-old Preston Rossbach Found Guilty on All Counts

After deliberating for several days, a Missoula District Court jury found 19 year-old Preston Rossbach guilty on all counts late Tuesday afternoon.

Deputy County Attorney Jordan Kilby said that Rossbach was found guilty of felony murder, assault with a weapon, intimidation and tampering with witnesses and informants.

Megan McLaughlin and Jason Flink were shot and stabbed to death at the Mountain Valley Inn Motel on October 18, 2018. Another man, Kaleb Williams, was also shot and stabbed, but he survived and testified at the trial.

“The defendant was charged with deliberate homicide by way of felony murder,” said Kilby. “It’s a complicated statute, so there was a lot of explanation about the law and we had almost two weeks of testimony, so we had a lot of evidence to go through and that’s what took so long. I argued that he was guilty of robbery and in the course of that robbery someone legally accountable for the robbery caused the death of two other people. We also had to address the assault with a weapon charge, the tampering charge and the two counts of intimidation.”

Kilby laid out the possible sentences for Rossbach.

“The felony murder charge is the same as deliberate homicide, so that’s 100 years to life,” she said. “The assault with a weapon charge is 20 years, the tampering charge carries a 10 year sentence and the intimidation charges carry 10 years each and there are two of those.”

Kilby said the entire case was 'a tragedy'.

"I can't speak for them (the families of the victims), but I imagine it must have been very difficult to sit through the testimony and rehash all the worst things that have happened," she said. "For me, I was honored to be able to do this job for them."

The trial for Rossbach’s accomplice Jonathan Whitworth, accused of shooting the victims over a drug dispute, is set for June 1.

Kilby said sentencing for Rossbach is set for July 10.