40-year cold case: Evidence in 1986 Mini Basket killings to get tested for DNA, sheriff says

There’s new hope in finding an answer to a pair of 40-year-old unsolved killings, Sheriff Leo Dutton announced Tuesday.

The cold case question revolves around the grisly killings of Richard and Carol Emineth in 1986 at the Mini Basket in the Helena Valley during an apparent robbery.

During a press conference with local media, Dutton announced his detectives, in coordination with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, recently submitted previously untested evidence for DNA analysis.

The evidence isn't new, but it's recently been determined that the evidence may have traces of the suspect's DNA. Officials were unwilling to share exactly what the evidence is.

"They're something that would have been touched by the suspect," said Mike McCarthy, an investigator with the sheriff's office.

“Our goal is simple: to seek justice, to provide answers and to finally bring closure to the families and to our community,” Dutton said.

On Jan. 19, 1986, someone entered the Mini Basket on Wylie Drive and gunned down store owners Richard and Carol Emineth. Area resident Thomas Ellison also was injured in the incident.

Mike McGrath, the Lewis and Clark County attorney at the time, ultimately charged Helena resident Jeffrey Franklin Stewart with two counts of deliberate homicide and one count of attempted homicide.

At trial that same year, Stewart’s attorney argued that Stewart was visiting friends in another area of town at the time the killings occurred, and thus could not have shot the couple.

A jury agreed with that assessment and acquitted Stewart of the crime.

“That case has never been solved and that is probably my biggest regret,” McGrath said in a 2001 Independent Record article as he prepared to take over as Montana’s attorney general.

Also in attendance at the press conference was Lori Ruttenbur, daughter of the Emineths. She spoke with reporters about how immense the grief has been and, worse, not knowing who killed her parents.

"Basically, I'm not a person of revenge," Ruttenbur said. "I'm one that just wants closure. I want answers, and if they could come forward and help me and my family resolve and close this, that is all I want."

Officials are asking anyone with information regarding the case to contact detective Josh Van Dyke with the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff's Office at 406-447-8286. To make an anonymous tip, people can contact Crime Stoppers at 406-443-2000.

Since the acquittal, numerous deputies and detectives have worked on the case, including collaborations with the Montana Department of Criminal Investigation and the FBI, which according to Dutton has moved the case along but not completely.

Dutton hopes the DNA analysis will do just that.

“This single act of violence shook the Helena community to its core and forever changed the lives of many families,” Dutton said.