The murder of Pamela Dorrington

The case was solved by a confession, obtained decades after the crime from a man who had been a suspect since the beginning. Courtney Brooke Atlas was Pamela Dorrington's landlord when she disappeared on February 17, 1968, and authorities said he had always been a suspect but that there was no forensic evidence tying him to the crime. Part of her body was found in Holter Lake in June 1968, but no one was charged. In 1983 Atlas's wife, Donna, died in a house fire north of Helena. A jury convicted Atlas of deliberate homicide and arson, he was sentenced in August 1985 to 120 years with no parole, and the Montana Supreme Court affirmed the conviction in 1986. He denied killing his wife and appealed. In the week of December 1, 2021, Lewis and Clark County Sheriff's Office Detectives Jess Metcalf and James Ward interviewed Atlas, then 79, at Crossroads Correctional Center in Shelby. Detectives offered him a letter of immunity from prosecution in exchange for a confession; the sheriff said Dorrington's family was consulted first. Atlas then confessed, in detail, on Wednesday, December 1. He said he had called her on the morning of February 17, 1968 about a water leak in her apartment, entered it, strangled her and sexually assaulted her, put her body in a barrel and later threw the barrel off the York Bridge into the Missouri River. Deputies said he gave details only the killer could have known, such as the sash and knife that were used. Sheriff Leo Dutton said Atlas told investigators he had "found God" in prison and wanted to clear it off his conscience, and Detective Ward said Atlas also took responsibility for his wife's death. Because he was granted immunity, he was never charged, and his account has not been tested in court. Reports differ on some details of the confession.