Hot water

The Spa Hot Springs Motel in White Sulphur Springs.

BRETT FRENCH, Billings Gazette

Law enforcement officers arrested a 73-year-old White Sulphur Springs woman earlier this week on a deliberate homicide charge who subsequently admitted to shooting and killing the longtime owner of the Spa Hot Springs Motel over the weekend, according to court documents.

The shooting happened at the hot springs motel on West Main Street in White Sulphur Springs just before 2 p.m. on Sunday and left owner Gene Gudmundson dead of a single gunshot wound, according to a probable cause affidavit and the Meagher County Sheriff’s Office.

According to the affidavit, which was written by a Montana Division of Criminal Investigation officer, a person called dispatch at 1:56 p.m. on Sunday to report a shooting and that the suspect was a woman driving a white Nissan pickup.

The county undersheriff recalled that Kyle Ann Morrow, 73, drove a pickup with a similar plate number as the partial one that was relayed and went to her home on East Washington Street, where he found the vehicle but could not get Morrow to respond to demands or phone calls, according to the affidavit.

It also says deputies knew Morrow previously worked at the motel.

At some point later in the day, the document states, Morrow left her home, got into her pickup and tried to leave the property, but she was blocked by Montana Highway Patrol and Meagher County sheriff’s deputies, then arrested.

Inside the truck, law enforcement allegedly found a bottle of whiskey that had been partially drank, a handgun case, cigarettes and a lighter, according to the affidavit.

A deputy spoke with the employee at the front desk of the hot springs that day who described an older woman coming in, asking for owner Gene Gudmundson, then leaving. Minutes later, she came back through the front door, walked through a gate, and allegedly shot Gudmundson, according to the affidavit. She also allegedly called him a curse word and admitted she shot him in front of the employee, the document states.

Another employee confirmed a similar account, as did video surveillance captured at the hot springs.

The affidavit states that after she was detained, Morrow “made several unsolicited statements that she shot the victim.”

When law enforcement executed a search warrant at her home, they found a small .38-caliber revolver and gloves and a cowboy hat she was seen wearing on video at the scene of the shooting, the affidavit states. It also alleged investigators found several suicide notes in which Morrow admitted to killing Gudmundson.

Morrow was arraigned in Meagher County Justice Court on Monday on one count of deliberate homicide; during the hearing, a judge set her bond at $1 million. The case now heads to Meagher County District Court.

The sheriff’s office continues to ask anyone with more information about the crime to contact them at 406-547-3397.

Blair Miller is the managing editor of the Helena Independent Record and Montana Standard. Prior to that, he was the editor of the Montana State News Bureau, a reporter at the Daily Montanan and reporter, editor and photojournalist at news outlets in Denver, Albuquerque and mid-Missouri.