Jurors Are Deliberating in Montana Veteran’s Shooting Death

GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) — Jurors in north-central Montana are deliberating the case of a man charged with killing a disabled veteran, burying his body in the dirt floor of a barn near Great Falls, selling his pickup truck and stealing his disability benefits for several months.

During the five-day trial that wrapped up Tuesday in Great Falls, prosecutors presented evidence that Brandon Lee Craft confessed to shooting Adam Petzack in February 2016 and that he wrote letters to his grandmother and his father-in-law acknowledging he killed Petzack, 28. The letters said Craft’s wife had nothing to do with it.

However, Craft testified Tuesday that it was his now ex-wife, Katelyn Zdeb, who was responsible for Petzack’s death, the Great Falls Tribune reported.

Craft told investigators and his grandmother that he caught Petzack masturbating on the couch in the living room and found his 4-year-old daughter in her bedroom partially unclothed and uncovered.

“I snapped,” Craft told investigators in August 2016. “Adam went out the front door. I went to the back bedroom. I had my .22 rifle sitting by the back door. I opened the back door and he was almost to his room, and I shot him. I panicked, and I didn’t know what to do.”

He drew investigators a map of where they could find Petzack’s body.

“Then something changed,” Cascade County Attorney Josh Racki told jurors during opening statements on Nov. 13. “Katelyn (Craft) began seeing another man ... so the defendant sent another letter to his grandma, and he began to spin a new story.”

Racki said Craft instructed his grandmother to get rid of the previous letter.

Craft testified Tuesday that it was Zdeb, not he, who caught Petzack masturbating and that she shot Petzack and dragged his body to the barn.

He said he confessed because “I felt like this was all my fault, and I was trying to protect my family.”

Under questioning, Craft said his decision to accuse Zdeb had nothing to do with her not allowing his children to visit him in jail.

When asked about the discrepancies between his initial confession and his testimony, Craft said: “I told the detectives I did a lot of things in that interview that were not correct.”

The Crafts divorced in 2017.

Craft had been scheduled for trial in May for deliberate homicide, tampering with evidence and deceptive practices. But District Judge Elizabeth Best received an anonymous letter claiming Zdeb had confessed to three people that she had killed Petzack. All three denied those claims.