State v. Gratzer

Karl Eric Gratzer appeals from his conviction of deliberate homicide in the District Court, Second Judicial District, Silver Bow County. He was charged in the shooting death of Tim Hull on April 14, 1982, which occurred in a parking lot near a dormitory of the Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology (Montana Tech).

Gratzer, born in Butte, the last of eight children, lived with his mother and stepfather. For most of the time between 1979 and the date of the shooting, he was engaged in an intense personal relationship with a young woman we identify as P.L. It appears that he and P.L.…