The notes Lynne Montgomery left hidden around her home, discovered as investigators tried to figure out how and why she died on Feb. 27 from apparent blunt force trauma injuries, appear to tell the story.
“Help Shannon is hurting me,” said one note in 83-year-old Montgomery’s handwriting, found on a notepad in the drawer of her nightstand at her home in the southwestern Wisconsin village of Benton, according to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday.
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On another page of the same notepad, the complaint states, a note appeared to read, “She dragged me from the basement to try and get in my safe ... Help!”
The person referenced in the notes is Shannon C. Bussan, 29, of Elizabeth, Illinois, the wife of one of Montgomery’s grandchildren. The notes are among the clues that led Lafayette County authorities on Wednesday to charge Bussan with first-degree intentional homicide for Montgomery’s death.
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In the complaint, investigators used video and cellphone data to conclude Bussan lied about her whereabouts on the day Montgomery died, including the time that she first arrived at Montgomery’s home on Carr Factory Road on Benton’s northern edge.
Bussan claimed she arrived shortly before 4 p.m. that day to find Montgomery badly injured and unresponsive in her bedroom, but the video and cellphone evidence put her there more than three hours earlier, according to the complaint.
“Based on this information, Shannon was the last person to speak to and see (Montgomery) before she sustained injuries and ultimately died,” the complaint concludes.
On Thursday, Lafayette County Sheriff Reg Gill said Bussan had been arrested the day before at the Jo Daviess County Sheriff’s Office in Galena, Illinois. Records indicate she was booked into the Lafayette County Jail on Thursday.
Bussan is scheduled to make an initial court appearance on Monday.
‘Watch out for Shannon’
The notes in the nightstand drawer were not the only ones that appeared to refer to Bussan, the complaint states. In a computer bag Montgomery used only when she traveled, her daughter told investigators, a small index card was discovered.
On one side was written, “Watch out for Shannon Help me.” On the other side, “Shannon she knocked me down in the basement dragged me upstairs threw me down tried to strangle me try to open my safe I don’t know what she will do next.”
According to the complaint:
Bussan called 911 at 4 p.m. on Feb. 27 to report she had found Montgomery face down on her bedroom floor after Montgomery didn’t come to the door as Bussan visited with her three children.
A deputy who was first at the scene said Montgomery was still warm to the touch. In her call to 911, Bussan said her grandmother-in-law was not warm. She speculated during the call that Montgomery had fallen.
An autopsy found bruising consistent with a physical assault, including multiple blunt force trauma injuries to the head and face, and her arms and legs. She also had rib fractures.
Dr. Robert Corliss said Montgomery’s death could have been caused by smothering, either by a pillow, having her face forced into a surface or a hand placed over her nose and mouth. Death could also have been caused by compression asphyxiation — a heavy object on her body preventing the movement of breathing, his autopsy found.
Montgomery’s family told investigators her home was usually neat and orderly, but when they arrived after her death, it was in an unusual state of disarray, with things found out of place.
‘Manic state’
Speaking with investigators, Bussan said she had plans that day to help Montgomery sell antiques online. She said she had left home around noon and went to her mother’s home in Hanover, Illinois, where she and the children stayed until around 2:45 p.m. Her mother was not at home then, she said.
Bussan said Montgomery was “acting kinda weird” when she called Bussan sometime before 1 p.m.
Four people who had lunch with Montgomery at the local VFW post that day told police she was pleasant and had no visible bruises, scratches or cuts. She had left the VFW sometime between 12:15 and 12:45 p.m.
After getting to Montgomery’s home, Bussan said, she did not get a response at the door so she went inside and found Montgomery on her bedroom floor. She claimed that because of poor cellular service, she didn’t call 911 right away and said she ran all over the house looking for a phone to use until she remembered that she had her own cellphone.
In the meantime, she said, she also called her husband. Her husband told investigators that Bussan was in a “manic state” when she called, enough that he feared for her safety. He said she had called him repeatedly, and throughout the calls she said things such as, “I don’t want to go to prison,” “I’m sorry about all of this,” and “I didn’t take things” and she told him to take their children “somewhere safe.”
At Montgomery’s home, investigators noticed that a heavy safe had been dragged into the garage. But the next day, family members said, someone had moved the safe back to a bedroom closet where it was normally kept.
As for the notes, Bussan said she doesn’t understand why she didn’t see them, since she had searched the nightstand as she looked for a phone. She admitted telling her husband she was going to prison but denied she did anything to Montgomery.
“I could never hurt anyone,” she said. “I won’t even kill a mouse at our house. Why would I hurt grandma?”
Investigators noted some injuries on Bussan’s hands, but she said they had happened days earlier from various causes.
‘I’m done’
In a second interview, this one with a state Division of Criminal Investigation agent, Bussan explained she had said she was going to prison “because, I just immediately thought that, OK, now they found this note. They say it’s me. Now I’m done. I’m done. Now there’s a note. I’m the one who finds grandma. How convenient. Now there’s a note the next day.”
But the timeline that Bussan had first explained to police appeared not to match the evidence gleaned from security cameras on Main Street in Benton or evidence from a search of Bussan’s cellphone.
Bussan called 911 at 4 p.m. and said she had only arrived at Montgomery’s home a few minutes earlier. While she claimed she was at her mother’s home in Illinois until around 2:45 p.m., video surveillance and cellphone location data put her in Benton starting around 11:13 a.m. that day.
Video, from outside the public library and a bank, showed Bussan driving a few vehicles behind Montgomery’s car as Montgomery headed home after lunch. Location data from Bussan’s cellphone put Bussan at Montgomery’s home by 12:52 p.m.
Recovered messages from her phone also showed Bussan had tried to contact her husband repeatedly for an “emergency” starting at 3:40 p.m. She did not call 911 for another 16 to 20 minutes.
