I call Gerald Burtons x-wife, he was the one who gave the Deathbed confession to his sister in 1979. My sister had talked with her but we had never spoken before. Gerald had told his sister Linda that Russell Plum had taken a guy fishing on the Musselshell who owed him money and when he didn’t have it he killed him. I always assumed that Gerald witnessed this killing although I can’t be sure. The police couldn’t tell us everything but is seems to me that if witnessed a murder rather than hearing about it you would be more likely to want to get that off your chest if you were dying. If you weren’t there you couldn’t do anything to stop it. I’m leaning towards Dave being the victim but the danger in that is you tend to try and make the facts fit the case. I asked Gerald‘s X-wife how sick he would have been in August and September 1979. She said he was pretty sick in and out of the hospital but he was of sound mind if that’s what I was getting at. She said she was remarried at the time but they were still friends and he would stay at her house ounce and a while in 1979. Gerald was very close with his sister Linda she said and if he told her about a murder then she thought it is true.
I was trying to find out from her if Gerald would have been too sick to be on the river fishing and I never thought about if he was in his right mind from being sick. Linda must have believed the story and it must have been eating at her for her to tell her son about it 25 years later. From what little I know about cancer four months from the end you can have good and bad days. I would think good enough to go fishing.
I was trying to find out from her if Gerald would have been too sick to be on the river fishing and I never thought about if he was in his right mind from being sick. Linda must have believed the story and it must have been eating at her for her to tell her son about it 25 years later. From what little I know about cancer four months from the end you can have good and bad days. I would think good enough to go fishing.
