At about 4:30 a.m. on March 20, 1987, an 8-year-old girl, identified as L.T., was attacked in her home in Billings, Montana. A man, who had entered through a window, stuffed a cloth belt in her mouth and threatened to kill her if she screamed. He then raped her and fled after stealing a purse and a jacket.
L.T. was taken to a hospital where a rape kit was collected. Police preserved her underwear and the bed sheets upon which the crime was committed. Semen was identified on her underwear and several hairs were collected from the bed sheets.
Based on L.T.’s description, police created a composite sketch of the attacker. A few months later, a police officer spotted 18-year-old Jimmy Ray Bromgard, who was in the Yellowstone County Jail serving a 20-day sentence after being convicted of a misdemeanor for getting into a fight at school. The officer thought Bromgard resembled the composite sketch.
Bromgard agreed to participate in a lineup, which was also videotaped. L.T. picked out Bromgard but was not sure that he was her attacker. She said she was “60 percent, 65 percent sure.”
On June 8, 1987, Bromgard was arrested and charged with three counts of sexual intercourse without consent.
In November 1987, Bromgard went to trial in Yellowstone County District Court. L.T. testified and identified him as her attacker. When asked to rate her confidence in the identification without percentages, she replied, “I am not too sure.”
In addition to L.T.’s identification, the prosecution's case relied upon Arnold Melnikoff, the chief of the Forensic Science Division in the Montana Department of Justice. The semen found on the victim’s underwear could not be typed, so the forensic evidence was the hairs found on the bed sheets. Melnikoff testified that the head and pubic hairs found on the sheets were indistinguishable from Bromgard’s hair. He further testified that there was less than a one in 10,000 chance that the hairs did not belong to Bromgard.
The only other physical evidence was a checkbook from the stolen purse that was found on the street where Bromgard lived.
Bromgard testified that he was at home asleep when the crime occurred. None of his fingerprints were found in the house, nor were any found on the checkbook.
His defense attorney did no investigation, hired no expert to challenge Melnikoff, filed no motions to suppress the identification by the victim, gave no opening statement, and did not prepare a closing statement.
On November 19, 1987, Bromgard was convicted of three counts of sexual intercourse without consent. In December 1987, he was sentenced to three 40-year terms in prison, to be served concurrently.
An attorney appointed to handle the appeal filed a notice of appeal, but never filed any briefs. The appeal was dismissed in 1988 for failure to prosecute the appeal.
In 1991, Bromgard, acting as his own lawyer, filed a post-conviction petition seeking relief based on ineffective assistance of his trial counsel. The petition was denied.
In 1992, Bromgard, represented by a new attorney, was allowed to file an out-of-time appeal. In November 1993, the Montana Supreme Court affirmed Bromgard’s convictions.
In 2000, the Innocence Project began working on Bromgard’s case. That same year he was denied parole, in part because he refused to participate in the sex offender program in prison.
With the agreement of the prosecution, the evidence was sent to a private laboratory for DNA testing. The results indicated that Bromgard was not the source of spermatozoa found on the victim’s underwear.
On October 1, 2002, Bromgard’s conviction was vacated, the case was dismissed and he was released.
Over the years, Melnikoff testified in hundreds of other cases in Montana and later in the state of Washington. A report by a peer-review committee of top forensic scientists was issued that characterized the statistical evidence he routinely gave as junk science and urged the Montana Attorney General to conduct an audit of Melnikoff's work in other cases. In 2004, Melnikoff was fired by the state of Washington for giving unsupported and inaccurate testimony there and in Montana.
In 2008, Bromgard settled a federal civil-rights lawsuit against the state of Montana for $3.5 million.
In December 2014, 53-year-old Ronald Dwight Tipton, of White Sulphur Springs, Montana, pled guilty to possession of marijuana and was required to provide a sample of his DNA. When his DNA profile was added to the FBI's Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), it was associated with the DNA profile obtained from the semen found on the victim’s clothing.
Tipton was not charged with the assault because the statute of limitations had expired.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 08-29-2011
Last Update Date: 07-10-2026
