Bill Mercer, United States Attorney for the District of Montana, announced today that during a federal court session in Great Falls on June 5, 2008, before U.S. District Judge Sam E. Haddon, JONATHAN ANDREW MARTELL, a 31-year-old resident of Fort Peck, pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter. Sentencing is set for September 15, 2008. He is currently detained.

In an Offer of Proof filed by the United States, the government stated it would have proved at trial the following:

In the early morning hours of September 30, 2006, shortly after 2:45 a.m., the 911 dispatch center received a report of a disturbance at an apartment in Wolf Point. The apartment was registered to MARTELL and his live-in girlfriend.

When Fort Peck Tribal Police arrived at the scene a few minutes after the call, they found MARTELL, Kenneth Booth, MARTELL'S girlfriend and another adult female. They appeared to be intoxicated. Police removed MARTELL from the apartment. They took MARTELL to his mother's home to spend the night and "sleep it off."

At 4:02 a.m. that same morning, 911 received another report of a disturbance at the same apartment. The caller said that "JOHN MARTELL is out here and he is flipping out on his woman and some other guy. The guy is laying on the ground and he is covered in blood." Police were again dispatched to the motel.

When law enforcement officers arrived, they found Kenneth Booth lying in the motel's parking lot. Booth was covered in blood, his face was bloody and beaten, he was foaming at the mouth and having difficulty breathing. Witnesses told officers that they saw MARTELL drag Booth's lifeless body from the apartment.

Officers administered first aid to Booth. Booth's breathing was "faint and infrequent," he was unresponsive, and his pulse was weak. Booth was transported by ambulance to the hospital in Wolf Point, where he later died.

Officers found MARTELL and his girlfriend in the apartment. There was blood splattered throughout the room. The girlfriend had a welt on the side of her face and blood on her lip. The girlfriend told officers that MARTELL fought with Kenneth Booth and hit him because Booth made sexual advances toward her. She said that Booth's advances made MARTELL jealous. MARTELL was arrested and taken to the Roosevelt County jail.

As officers handcuffed MARTELL, they noticed that he had blood on his hands.

Officers swabbed MARTELL'S hands to collect samples of the blood.

The swabs from MARTELL'S hands and the motel were sent to the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia for DNA analysis. The FBI Laboratory later determined that the blood on MARTELL'S handsKenneth Booth.

An autopsy was conducted on Kenneth Booth on September 30, 2006.

Booth died as the result of blunt force injuries. The manner of death was listed as homicide.

MARTELL faces possible penalties of 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and 3 years supervised release.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard A. Hosley prosecuted the case for the United States.

The investigation was a cooperative effort between the Fort Peck Tribes Criminal Investigation Division and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.