BIA cop admits to raping teen on reservation, torching patrol car to stymie investigation

A former federal agent has admitted to raping an intoxicated teenage girl on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, then attempting to ward off an investigation after he possibly torched his own patrol vehicle.

Murrell Douglas Deela was on duty as a BIA police officer in 2024 when he apprehended a drunk teen in Lame Deer. He then drove the 14-year-old to a deserted park and coerced her into sex acts. The girl’s disclosure of the abuse led to criminal charges against Deela, who pleaded guilty Thursday at the federal courthouse in Billings to counts of sexual abuse and giving false statements.

Deela led the young girl to believe she could avoid jail time by having sex with him, said Taylor Payne, one of the federal prosecutors in the case against Deela.

“Then he warned her not to tell anyone what happened,” Payne said during Deela's change of plea hearing.

It’s not the first time Deela has been accused of wrongdoing while serving as a federal law enforcement officer on Northern Cheyenne tribal lands. It’s not even the first time Deela has been accused of assaulting a 14-year-old girl on the reservation or of raping a young teen.

Prior to Deela pleading guilty in U.S. District Court, he had already faced federal scrutiny when he shot and killed a Northern Cheyenne man in 2021 while on duty. Though Deela was never criminally charged for shooting 29-year-old Arlin Bordeaux twice in the back, Bordeaux’s family reached a settlement after filing a lawsuit against the U.S. government over his death.

A lawsuit currently being contested in federal court alleges that Deela pushed, kicked and punched a 14-year-old girl while on duty, breaking her orbital socket, on July 5, 2024.

And a lawsuit that is now working its way through the federal tort-claims process and is likely to be filed soon alleges that Deela raped another girl, age 15, who was in his custody on the Northern Cheyenne reservation, also in 2024, according to Timothy Bechtold.

Bechtold is a Missoula-based lawyer who, with John Heenan of Billings, is representing the plaintiffs in three ongoing civil legal actions against Deela over his treatment of teen girls on the reservation.

“​​Predators prey on the vulnerable,” Bechtold said, “and there's no question, (Deela) picked little girls who are vulnerable.”

‘Intentionally ignited’

Late on the night of Aug. 7, 2024, Deela was on patrol and responded to a report that someone was drunk at the gas station in Lame Deer known as the Depot.

When Deela and BIA Officer Jonathan Nestico arrived at the gas station in separate patrol vehicles, they found a 14-year-old girl under the influence of alcohol. When she tried running away, court documents said, Deela shouldered her to the ground and arrested her. Deela would later claim in his report of the arrest that the girl tripped and fell, according to court documents.

Deela put the girl in the back of his cruiser, reporting to dispatch that he would be taking the girl to her grandmother’s house in Lame Deer. Instead of taking the girl to her grandmother's, Deela drove to the People’s Park just south of Lame Deer.

Video footage eventually recovered from the interior of Deela’s patrol vehicle showed Deela reaching the park, getting out and opening the passenger door where the teen was seated. Footage then showed the teen sliding out of the cruiser and Deela starting to touch her. Deela and the girl then engaged in sexual acts while “outside the patrol vehicle and while laying down on the back seat of the patrol vehicle,” according to an FBI agent’s report that led to criminal charges against Deela.

Deela did eventually bring to the girl to her grandmother’s home that night. Once there, she reported the abuse to law enforcement. But federal authorities only pieced together that account after Deela went to great lengths to conceal it.

On Aug. 8, 2024, supervisors from the BIA’s Office of Justice Services notified Deela that the girl had accused him of sexual assault, court documents said.

In a report he wrote after learning the girl had disclosed his abusing her, Deela wrote that the girl was “crying hysterically and slurring her words,” court documents said. Deela wrote in his report that he gave the girl a breathalyzer test and that he took her home to her grandmother’s house.

“Officer Deela did not include in his report that he transported Victim One to People’s Park and engaged in sexual acts with Victim One while at People’s Park,” wrote the FBI agent who investigated Deela’s crime.

But Deela did more than falsify a report, court documents said. He also told the BIA-OJS chief of police in Lame Deer and an FBI agent he was “unable to download” footage from his camera footage from his patrol vehicle.

And after he was ordered to bring his patrol vehicle in so that a “BIA-OJS employee with the appropriate technical knowledge could download” the video, Deela called dispatch to report that “his patrol vehicle was on fire outside his house,” the FBI investigator wrote.

The camera system in the vehicle was "severely burned,” the FBI agent wrote, and a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigator determined the fire had been “intentionally ignited.”

But experts were able to recover video footage that showed Deela taking the girl to the park, rubbing her body, turning off his headlights and taking her “outside the view of patrol vehicle cameras,” court documents said.

While Deela “continued to deny engaging in any sexual conduct” with the survivor, court documents say that DNA analysis determined semen on her pants was almost certainly Deela’s.

Federal prosecutors charged Deela with sexual abuse and making false statements in October. After making his initial appearance in U.S. District Court, pleading not guilty to the accusations, Deela was released from custody.

Deela, a former Marine and deputy in his home state of Oklahoma, was living in Sheridan, Wyoming, and working for a fencing company leading up to his change of plea hearing Thursday.

In laying out the facts of the case in court, Taylor Payne was blunt in his description of the abuse. Deela, then a 29-year-old man, forced a 14-year-old intoxicated girl into oral and vaginal sex. Once Payne established those facts, U.S. District Court Judge William W. Mercer asked Deela if he agreed with the fact that he raped an underage girl.

“Yes, your honor,” said Deela, flanked by his defense attorney, Ryan Warner.

A negligent violation of procedure

With his admitting to sexual abuse, Deela faces up to life in prison, while the crime of making false statements comes with the possibility of up to eight years.

Deela’s defense and the prosecution discussed at length Thursday the possibility of him remaining out of custody until his sentencing. Warner argued that since his raping a 14-year-old and attempting to deceive federal investigators, Deela has not violated the conditions of his release and has shown no indication that he would be a flight risk.

Judge Mercer, citing federal statutes that, with few exceptions, require a defendant facing the possibility of a life sentence to be reprimanded, ordered Deela to be taken into custody until his sentencing in July. Deela’s wife and infant daughter, sitting the gallery, watched U.S. Marshals usher him out of the courtroom at the close of the hearing. By Thursday afternoon, Deela was an inmate at Yellowstone County Detention Facility.

The victim’s guardian has also filed a lawsuit against the federal government, alleging in part that Deela’s conduct “included negligent violation of law enforcement policies and procedures.”

A pretrial conference in that civil case is scheduled for May 7 in Missoula.

In 2018, Dana Michael Bullcoming was sentenced to three years in prison after he coerced a woman into sex, exploiting his position as a BIA officer assigned to the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation.

Bullcoming admitted in U.S. District Court to deprivation of rights under color of law. The survivor of Bullcoming’s abuse filed a lawsuit holding the BIA liable for his sexually assaulting her. In 2025, according to court records, a U.S. District Court judge sided with the woman and ordered the federal government to pay her seven figures in damages.

‘Our government is failing’

Deela’s legal troubles may not be over, Bechtold said.

While Deela did not face criminal charges for killing Bourdeaux, Bechtold said, “The FBI is aware of all these, obviously, and they will almost certainly prosecute for both the assault and the other rape.”

Keri Brehm Leggett, public affairs officer for the U.S. Justice Department in Montana, said her office “cannot confirm or deny whether investigations are pending into the alleged actions of Mr. Deela.”

At Deela’s change of plea hearing, Payne did acknowledge that an FBI investigation is currently underway into allegations that Deela assaulted a minor. Attorneys for Deela declined to comment on the numerous allegations against the former officer.

The BIA did not respond to emailed questions, including about when and where Deela was employed by the BIA and whether his conduct was the subject of any BIA Office of Justice Services internal investigations.

Bechtold, however, said that the BIA was slow to fire Deela.

After the 14-year-old alleged that Deela assaulted her and Deela’s patrol car caught fire, Bechtold said the Northern Cheyenne tribal council “sent a letter to the BIA and said, ‘Please get this guy off the rez.’”

While the BIA complied with that request, Bechtold said he was transferred to “desk duty in Billings” while the criminal investigation into Deela’s conduct continued.

It was only when he was indicted, Bechtold said, that the BIA took “him off the payroll.”

For Bechtold, Deela’s criminal actions as well as the allegations contained in the various lawsuits speak to a broader pattern within BIA policing.

“BIA proves itself over and over again how they should not be trusted,” Bechtold said. “And that's really the larger lesson. Our government is failing. The whole deal (with treaties) is you give up your rights, you give up your land, and we will provide medical care. We will provide law enforcement. We will provide food. That was the trade, and our government is not living up to their end of the bargain. And that's and that's really the long and the short of it.”

Efforts to reach the Northern Cheyenne Tribe for comment were not successful.

The bureau’s OJS, and the BIA at large, have consistently faced a chronic shortage in staffing. In 2021, BIA-OJS reported to Congress that the office required a workforce of about 29,500 full time employees to meet its obligations of law enforcement, detention centers and courts on tribal lands. That same report noted that federal legislation had only allocated enough funds to fill roughly 13% of the number of employees BIA-OJS needs.

Last year, with the Trump administration delivering on a campaign promise to cut federal spending, the Department of the Interior’s Indian Affairs offices lost some 11% of its workforce. That included the BIA, the Bureau of Indian Education and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Trust Funds Administration losing nearly 850 employees to hiring freezes and voluntary separations enacted during the first six months of Donald Trump returning to office.

Staffing for Rocky Mountain Region of the BIA, which encompasses Montana and Wyoming, dropped by 10%, according to a January report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Punching a girl

Just a month before committing this sexual assault, a lawsuit alleges that Deela physically assaulted a different 14-year-old girl who is identified in court documents by her initials.

It began, court documents said, when Deela arrived at a tribal powwow on July 5, 2024, and found a juvenile being detained by security.

That juvenile ran away, and the girl ran too, chasing after her friend, court documents said. When the girl stopped running, the lawsuit alleges that Deela began repeatedly shoving her against a car and accusing her of being drunk, which she denied.

After multiple shoves, the lawsuit states, the girl “dove on Deela’s legs and tackled him.”

“At the time of this incident, (the girl) weighed less than 90 pounds and did not present any physical threat to Officer Deela,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit alleges that Deela then “kicked (the girl) in the face” and “then punched (her) in her left eye with his right fist.”

“Officer Deela broke (the girl’s) orbital socket with his punch,” the lawsuit said. “Six weeks after the assault, (her) eye was still substantially bruised.”

A trial in the case is scheduled for Sept. 29 in Helena.

Killing a man

The events that led Deela to fatally shoot Arlin Bourdeaux on Dec. 3, 2021, began when a Northern Cheyenne resident called police to report the 29-year-old was possibly trespassing in her yard.

What ensued was a lengthy struggle in which Bordeaux resisted arrest by Deela and another officer, court documents said.

The two officers repeatedly tasered Bordeaux as he continued to evade apprehension. At one point, court documents said, the other officer “drew his baton and struck Arlin Bordeaux in the forehead with sufficient force to cause a 2 1/4 inch laceration and crack Arlin Bordeaux’s skull.”

In a legal filing, the plaintiffs stated that the struggle ended after the two officers “both stood up behind Arlin Bordeaux, who was laying on the ground on his belly. Officer Deela drew his firearm, said, ‘I will f—ing shoot you,’ and shot Bordeaux in the back. Officer Deela then cleared a round and shot Arlin Bordeaux again in the back.”

That filing stated that “Officer Deela claimed that his use of lethal force was justified because Arlin Bordeaux had gained access to Officer Deela’s Taser weapon which Officer Deela had failed to secure and dropped to the ground. Officer Deela testified that he was concerned Arlin Bordeaux would use the weapon against himself or (the other officer). This contention is objectively unreasonable. Arlin Bordeaux was unarmed, incapacitated, and in a prone position when Officer Deela shot him.”

Attorneys for the federal government, however, argued Deela and the other officer maintained a "disciplined observance of the use of force continuum” by using “verbal commands, taser deployments, baton deployments, OC spray, and takedown techniques, all preceding the eventual use of deadly force.”

This, government attorneys wrote, demonstrated the officers’ “reasonableness and adherence to the standard of care.”

The government ultimately settled the case for $800,000.

“I think we'd have got a lot more at trial,” Bechtold said. “But I can see why (Bourdeaux’s family) couldn't turn it down.”

In the U.S., law enforcement officers kill Indigenous people at rates higher than nearly any other ethnic group. Earlier this year, the National Academy of Science published an extensive 11-year study of fatal police violence against Native Americans. Of those 203 people killed in that timeframe, over 70% died on or near reservations. Roughly 63%, 128 people, were killed in the western United States.