8/30/1999
GRANITE FALLS, Minn. - Jurors are being selected this week for the Yellow Medicine County trial of Burr Crowsbreast III, who is accused of the gristly beating death of his former girlfriend, 21-year-old LaTisha Joy Brien. Crowsbreast, 23, is charged with six counts including first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree domestic abuse murder, second degree intentional murder, second degree felony murder, first degree assault and second degree assault. He pleaded not guilty to all counts.
"We're a small town and we haven't had a murder for 20 years," said Yellow Medicine County Attorney Thomas Kramer, who is prosecuting the case. "The community is still coming to grips with what has happened." According to a grand jury indictment, Brien, who was murdered on Jan. 15, near the Upper Sioux Reservation, argued with Crowsbreast the night before at a Maynard bar. A witness reported that Crowsbreast had slapped her.
It wasn't the first time he had attacked her. The year before he had been convicted of kicking her in the face and head. Two weeks prior to her murder, LaTisha received 20 stitches at the local emergency room after Crowsbreast assaulted her. Domestic violence charges were pending against him for that beating.
Those charges paint a grim portrait of the young woman's circumstances. "LaTisha Brien had no money, only the clothes on her back, no driver's license and no access to any vehicle," the report stated. "La Tisha Brien also had no friends locally where she would go and stay." One of the few positives in her life was a job as a gaming technician at the Firefly Creek Casino.
Hilka West, program coordinator and women's advocate for the Women's Rural Advocacy Program worked with her on that occasion, advising Brien that she could arrange safe housing locally for three days and then help her get out of the area. Yellow Medicine County has no long-term shelter. "She wasn't ready to leave," West said. "She told me she thought she would be safe. Her child was here and she didn't want to leave him."
Crowsbreast's mother Juanita had custody of their two-year-old son. West bumped into Brien at the grocery story on Jan 14, the day before the murder. "I told her we could help her with anything she needed," she said. "I could come and get her if she wanted me to, or we could meet somewhere if she was afraid of her boyfriend. I thought she might be uncomfortable talking with me so I gave LaTisha the name of a woman at Firefly Creek Casino where she worked. I thought maybe she at ease talking to her."
According to Alvina Night Walker, Brien's mother, LaTisha's supervisor was also concerned, calling her into his office on Jan. 14, for a two-hour talk. "He told me that he tried to talk her into getting out of the relationship and coming home to Montana," she said. "When she didn't show up for work, he thought she had taken his advice."
On Jan. 18 Larry Brien, LaTisha's uncle, reported her missing to the Sheriff's Department. As soon as West caught wind of the disappearance, she went to the Sheriff. "I had the feeling that something was wrong," she said. "I told him, 'You have to look for her.' I was horrified, sick to my stomach."
That afternoon Sheriff's deputies found LaTisha Brien's battered body hidden under chairs, a couch, a matress, bags of garbage, a railroad tie and a sheet of plywood in a junkpile on abandoned property belonging to Reginald LaBatte near the couple's home in rural Granite Falls. A pink blanket lay near the lifeless form.
Deputies with a search warrant found blood splattered on the walls, mattress and box spring in the couple's trailer. The mattress had been turned, authorities speculate, in an attempt to hide the blood. A search Crowsbreast's truck revealed blood, hair and pink fibers. It appeared an attempt had been made to clean the truck as well.
They didn't have far to look for Crowsbreast. He was already in jail. Police had found him on the evening of Jan. 15, blood-covered and unconscious in a room next to the body of 39-year old LaBatte, whom officers believe had been beaten to death with a wrought iron table. The two are thought to have spent the afternoon drinking in the victim's girlfriend's Granite Falls apartment.
Crowsbreast is charged with two counts of second-degree murder and one count of felony assault for the LaBatte murder. That trial will be held in Chippewa County.
Although Crowsbreast initially claimed LaTisha Brien had left the couple's trailer at three or four a.m. the morning of the 15th and had not returned, he changed his statement. Upon further questioning told deputies that the argument at the bar had continued back at the couples' rural home and that he had hit his girlfriend in the stomach. He said that, at the young woman's request he had called a neighbor to the trailer.
According to the indictment, Crowsbreast said that once the man arrived, Brien had threatened to put her boyfriend in jail for assaulting her and also threatened that she would have the neighbor thrown in jail for raping her in the past. Crowsbreast said the man told him that LaTisha "had to be killed."
He also alleged that the neighbor told him to find a weapon to kill her with that would not leave marks on his hands. He said he settled on a baseball bat and began beating her, stating to officers that when he saw her eyes roll back and heard her final gasps he stopped. He said that was told to dispose of the body in the junk pile and then burn it, but that he was unable to set fire to his former girlfriend. Crowsbreast was the only person charged with the murder.
West, whose domestic violence program serves six counties, encouraged law enforcement investigators to give weight to the domestic violence aspect of the crime. "At first they assumed it was just a jealousy thing," she said. "Once they looked at the records, they knew the truth."
She said that in the aftermath of the murder, the relationship between battered women and law enforcement officers has improved as well as communication between social service providers on the Upper Sioux Reservation and Granite Falls. "They've had meetings where the elders talked to the young men and women about what happened and are working toward getting a grant to start a domestic violence program on the reservation," she said.
"This was a terrible thing that happened," Thomas Kramer said. "It has opened the community's eyes to the problem of domestic violence."
Although jury selection is taking place at the small Yellow Medicine court house, the murder trial itself will be held in nearby Montevideo in order to accommodate those expected to attend. Crowsbreast's trial is expected to last three weeks.
John Holbrook, Crowsbreast's public defender, was unavailable for comment on the trial at press time.
Read Kay Porterfield's interview with Trisha Brein's mother.
Read her background piece on domestic violence in Indian Country.