Billings SWAT search of 89-year-old woman's home leaves frustration and questions

At 5:30 a.m. on Sept. 17, 89-year-old Eva Sigsworth woke up to the sounds of cannons.

In Sigsworth’s half-asleep state, she heard voices outside of her South Side house. In a rush, she grabbed her walker and didn’t bother to get dressed to move to the kitchen.

Outside of the kitchen window, she saw bright light streaming into her house mixing with lines of police lights lined along the street. She walked to her front door. And then all she could hear was an order to come out with her hands up.

She opened the door to five officers in full body armor at her doorstep.

“We have a warrant," Sigsworth remembers one telling her. "You come out with your hands up.”

“What for?" Sigsworth asked. "What did I do? What are you looking for?”

Never charged, Sigsworth didn’t get an answer for what prompted the search then nor for several days after, though she was left to deal with the aftermath of the operation.

In the end, the raid was to find illegal guns allegedly hidden on Sigsworth's property by her 39-year-old grandson, John Paul Schmieding. Law enforcement ended up finding and removing 48 firearms that day.

A Facebook post made in the aftermath of the search has gathered more than a thousand shares, prompting criticism all over social media in the days and weeks afterwards.

Those early morning cannon sounds Sigsworth heard were flash-bang grenades that put her in a state of shock. Lt. Samantha Puckett with the Billings Police Department confirmed usage of the equipment and said it's typical for high-risk warrant service.

Why flash-bang grenades were merited at the time of the search isn't clear. The search came after the Eastern Montana High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force had already searched and detained Schmieding, their primary suspect. It was the first of two search warrants served that day, according to court records.

Law enforcement had been surveilling Sigsworth’s home via posted camera for a week before the search began; police had been tipped off about potential stolen guns stored on Sigsworth’s property.

Despite rumors, ICE, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Border Patrol were not involved in the search, though local law enforcement including SWAT teams from the Yellowstone County Sheriff's Office and the Billings Police Department were.

Search

In the morning, police told Sigsworth and her 66-year-old son, with whom she lives, to leave the residence.

Sigsworth asked if she could get dressed, but she said the officers refused.

"Do you realize I'm 90 years old and half-crippled?" Sigsworth replied, but was told that she had to "get out of here while we search."

Puckett said in an emailed statement to the Gazette that police officers were “very respectful of the homeowners.” She said police officers retrieved clothes and shoes for the residents, allowed them to get dressed and retrieved Sigsworth’s walker.

But Sigsworth said she wasn’t allowed to retrieve clothes until hours later. The Gazette has filed a records request for body camera footage of the operation.

As Sigsworth and her son were being escorted to her car, she described seeing at least 40 vehicles alongside the two blocks near her residence with cars blocking entry onto the street. Police took Sigsworth to one of those unmarked cars and read out her Miranda Rights. Expressing concern, she declined to sign an acknowledgement of those rights. She was let go, but not before she was asked if she belonged to the Mexican cartel.

Sigsworth's son then drove her through the street's blockade. The 89-year-old, who was still in her underwear, was in tears and uncertain of where to go next. She got coffee that morning with a friend and sat for hours before returning to her home.

“The more I thought about it, the worse I felt,” Sigsworth said. “I got to the point where I didn't care whether they shot me. I told my son, 'Take me back home. This is enough.'”

She returned to a property and found it, in her words, "ransacked." Insulation had been torn off a trailer that she rents out, and police still weren't done with the hours-long search.

Sigsworth finally returned for good in the afternoon. The police had finished their search, but never notified her, adding to her frustration. She found a place filled with carnage and destruction.

In a Facebook post, Sigsworth said she couldn’t even walk through the renter’s trailer, as the police had ripped off a bedroom door from the wall, torn apart a heater, and removed the vehicle's insulation. In her barn, she said police destroyed antiques collected over decades, ripped insulation from the ceiling and walls and pulled an antique piano outside, leaving it in the yard. Behind that barn were garbage bags that had been ripped open, their contents strewn everywhere. A bus placed on the property owned by her grandson was destroyed.

“There is so much damage that it will never be repaired and will end up in a junk yard,” Sigsworth said. “All the paneling on the ceiling and sides were ripped off, insulation ripped out and wires cut. They tore off every single storage panel door.”

Asked about Sigsworth’s complaints about the damages to her property, Puckett said police were respectful of the property throughout their search, documenting the operation with before and after photographs.

During the operation, Puckett said police told her “some guns” were found during the search.

In all, 48 firearms were discovered, and 17 of them were confirmed stolen as of Monday, according to Puckett. Most of the guns, and likely all of the stolen firearms, were allegedly stored on the property by Sigsworth’s grandson, Schmieding.

Sigsworth described her relationship with Schmieding as “estranged.” The most he ever exchanged was a "‘Hi, Grandma, how are you,'” Sigsworth told the Gazette. She last touched a gun when her mother passed away in 2017 and she inherited a rifle. She had put that gun in the closet and forgot about it until the search.

Sigsworth’s son allowed Schmieding to hold guns in the cellar, which were likely sold to him in August, according to court records. KTVQ reported last week that Schmieding told his dad that none of the guns were illegal.

When police arrested Schmieding on Sept. 17 at his house in Worden, they found him outside of the bathroom, where he was suspected of trying to flush meth down the sink, according to court documents. He has since been charged with possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. Meth was found only in his residence in Worden where he was detained, according to court documents filed on Sept. 22.

Schmieding is currently being held in Yellowstone County Detention Facility, roughly a block away from Sigsworth’s property.

Aftermath

The local community has since rallied around Sigsworth, who has lived in Montana since she moved with her family near Hysham when she was 10. In 1976, Sigsworth and her mother opened the Mexican restaurant Mamacita’s at 304 N. 19th S., which was open until 2017.

Brenda Senga, a friend of Sigsworth who worked at Mamacita's, wrote the original viral Facebook post after she learned of the wreckage caused by the search.

“I don’t know if I have ever been this outraged in my entire life, but here I am. What is wrong with our world?” Segna wrote, attaching a few dozen photos of the damage after the search.

Segna’s post claimed that ICE was deployed because Sigsworth was Hispanic. Some in Billings’ community and an activist publication have described what happened two weeks ago as an ICE raid, happening amidst national fears and provocations about such operations in local communities.

After an inquiry by the Gazette, ICE referred questions to BPD. Puckett stated ICE was not part of the investigation.

“Eva never even said it was an ICE raid,” Segna told the Gazette this Monday. “She just said ICE is the one who questioned her.”

Segna told the Gazette that a contractor estimated around $30,000 for the cleanup of the damages. In the aftermath, she started a GoFundMe for Sigsworth that has since raised nearly $12,000 as of Oct. 1. The fundraiser’s description mentions around 100 officers involved including agents from ICE and the FBI.

The FBI also referred the Gazette to the BPD, and according to Puckett and an FBI spokesperson, those agencies weren’t involved.

The Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.

Nonetheless, Segna criticized how the early-morning search was handled after she learned they were recording Sigsworth’s property for a week.

“It’s not like they didn’t know what they were getting into,” Segna told the Gazette. “They knew exactly who was in that house.”

Over lunch at the South Side Senior Citizen's Center last Friday, which Sigsworth has attended for around a decade, she said she would have allowed the police to search the property if they just explained themselves better.

She concluded by describing how several dozen neighbors, friends and voluntary contractors all turned up for a day-long clean up of the leftover damages the Saturday after the search.

“Everybody was in an uproar about what had happened, knowing me and my character,” Sigsworth said. “I had gone through about four generations of people in my restaurant, and so the younger people came to me on Saturday to help clean, and said, ‘I remember when I was a little kid and I went to your restaurant, and we always liked you because you were so nice to us.’"

Sigsworth said the support and concern she has received has reminded that she’s not alone. The day she told her story she still hadn’t received an explanation from Yellowstone County Sheriff Mike Linder, who ate at her restaurant for years and who she considered a friend. While she spoke with the Gazette at the Senior Center, people regularly approached her, apologizing for what happened in the search and remembering her and her restaurant.

Touched by all the people who have reached out, even after the closure of Mamacita’s, Sigsworth said, “I didn’t realize how many people would remember me.”