At the last minute of September 21, 1996, search engines found the 15 -year -old body Danielle “Danni” Houchins In a swampy area along the Galtin River, a picturesque valley on the outskirts of Bozeman, Montana. Exactly what had happened to Danni, and how he had ended upside down in the mud, baffled his family, friends and researchers for decades.
The case, and its surprising conclusion, is investigated for “48 hours” and the correspondent Peter van Sant in “It’s About Danni”, which is broadcast on Saturday, February 8 at 10/9C in CBS and the transmission in Paramount+.
In 1996, Rachelle Schrute, now editor of Hunt and Fish in Gearjunkie, knew both Danni and his sister Stephanie. She recalled: “They were the simplest and most friendly people.” Stephanie Mollet told Van Sant that there had been a family argument that morning, and Danni went to the fishing access area of the Cameron bridge to escape. When Danni did not come home that afternoon, his mother prepared to find her. He found Danni’s truck parked in the lot, his keys and bottle of water along a nearby road, but there are no other Danni signs. The agents of the Gallatin County Sheriff’s office were called to help, but stopped looking after dusk. That night, friends of the family who knew the swampy area well, very wooded, also went to look for Danni. They found their body in the muddy weed, far from the path of walking.
Like the voice about what happened to Danni, some people in the city speculated that his death could have been a murder. The detectives began an investigation, collecting evidence of the crime scene and interviewing people near Danni, but no suspects were appointed. Schrute said around the community, “there were many other speculations … it simply caused fear.”
Stephanie Mollet
But, in a matter of days, the coroner ruled that Danni had drowned, and that his way of death was not a homicide, but rather “indeterminate.” Danni’s family says that officials told them that Danni’s death could have been an accident. “That she could have stumbled and falling,” Mollet said. “‘We really don’t know.'” Mollet found so difficult to believe. Danni was an active and outdoor teenager, he says, he felt comfortable fishing, walking and mountain climb. Danni’s case cooled, and when Mollet became adulthood, he promised to discover the truth. “I promised my sister,” Stephanie said. “I go for you, Danni.”
In 2020, Mollet connected with new detectives in the Gallatin County Sheriff’s office, and demanded that they fill their family in the investigation. They let Mollet read the autopsy report, and she learned that in 1996, officials knew that there were bruises in Danni’s body, even on the back of her neck. “Someone had kept their heads downwardly,” Mollet said. “There was (sic) Vaginal injuries … there were semen in her underwear … she had fought and scraped. “Now there was no doubt in Mollet’s mind that his sister had been raped and killed. The new researchers agreed and reopened the case of Danni. The new County of Gallatin County Sheriff then did something unusual.
ElfMont dedicated himself to Danni’s case. Knowing that great advances had been made in DNA technology, he was able to obtain a partial DNA profile of the semen found in Danni’s underpants. But they couldn’t find a game. Excavating deeper, Elfmont focused on four male hairs that had been found in Danni’s body. They were “without roots” hairs, without skin cells, which for a long time were considered almost impossible to obtain DNA. But not anymore. Through a state -of -the -art private laboratory, ElfMont was able to obtain a full suspicious DNA profile of one of those hairs. ElfMont shared that profile with a genetic genetic geneticist, who used family trees to look for relatives of the suspicious unknown. In May 2024, they obtained a name: Paul Hutchinson.
Elfmont learned that in 1996, Hutchinson had been a postgraduate student in the nearby Bozeman, and had a work study with the fish and wild life service “that would have put him on the river routes around Belgrade.” ElfMont said Hutchinson went on to work as a fishing biologist of the land management office. He had no criminal record and was married to two children. And was known in local hunting and fishing circles.
In July 2024, with a rolling body chamber, Eflmont and his partner went to the Hutchinson office to interview him. Elfmont said Hutchinson became visibly nervous, especially when asked about Danni’s case. But they didn’t ask Hutchinson directly if he had killed Danni. As Elfmont told Van Sant: “I didn’t need to do it.” They still didn’t have enough evidence to arrest him, but hours after the interview, Hutchinson took his life. Subsequently, it was confirmed that his DNA coincided with the evidence of Danni’s body.
Rachelle Schrute
When Gallatin County Sheriff announced that the case had been resolved after almost 30 years, there was shock everywhere. But for Mollet’s childhood friend, Schrute was even greater. When he listened to the name of the murderer announced, he realized that he had met him for almost 20 years. Schrute says he considered him a friend and had trusted him for years as a “resource of trust when it came to hunting and fishing.” Not only that, but for years they had made hunting and fishing trips together, sometimes only both. For someone who had always trusted his instinct, nature and men, Schrute says he never questioned his character.
When asked if she could have told her something after discovering that she had killed Danni, Schrute said strongly: “How do you dare to be a person in my life? How do you dare to exist and continue … a family And a career family, and all these things you had?
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