Helena man sentenced to 100 years in prison for involvement in 2022 shooting after retrial

A Helena man was sentenced to 100 years in the Montana State Prison this week after being convicted of felony attempted deliberate homicide and other felonies in Lewis and Clark County District Court.

Jory Jerae Songer was found guilty by a jury for a second time on all four of the felony charges he faced, including two counts of attempted deliberate homicide and assault with a weapon, following an appeal to the Montana Supreme Court.

Songer was originally sentenced to 100 years in prison in 2023, but appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court, which remanded the case back to district court because of a procedural error prosecutors made during the original trial.

The end result remained the same for Songer this time around, as a jury convicted him on all four counts in February.

On the appeal, the Montana Supreme Court sent the case back to district court after finding the court abused its discretion by granting a video deposition motion.

During the initial trial, it was asked that testimony from a witness be conducted via video after the witness claimed they received threats from within the jail and said they would be unavailable in person due to scheduled methamphetamine addiction treatment in Billings.

Prosecutors did not provide adequate information on the record proving the witness's unavailability, the Supreme Court found.

Its September 2025 opinion states the district court did not err in denying a motion for new counsel despite Songer and his then-defense counsel Steven Scott agreeing their relationship was irreparable. The court also found the lower court did not err in suppressing information related to a backpack search.

Despite finding no issues with those procedures, the court found that "the state concede(d) reversible error under issue one."

In addition to the 100-year sentences Songer received for each of his attempted deliberate homicide charges, he also received 20-year sentences for each count of assault with a weapon. The sentences will run concurrently.

Songer will have to serve a minimum of 25 years in prison, according to state law, before making a case for release to probation and parole.

Songer was initially charged in September 2022 after being arrested in connection to a shooting in August of that year.

Around 1 a.m. on Aug. 18, officers responded to the 800 block of Abbey Street for a report of an assault with a weapon. Authorities discovered two males who had been shot and the suspect had fled the scene. The two victims were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, authorities said.

Documents filed in Lewis and Clark County District Court state video footage showed the suspect's vehicle, which had been reported stolen a few days before the shooting, stopping on the north side of the Stewart Homes apartment complex. Someone got out of the vehicle and walked toward the south end of the building, where the shooting occurred two minutes later.

The timing of the shooting and independent witness statements aligned with findings that Songer was the shooter on that night. At one point he told authorities the shooting “wasn’t planned” and admitted to using drugs that day.