Montana Inmate Dead in Apparent Suicide

A Montana inmate convicted of wounding a man over 20 years ago has died in an apparent suicide.

The Montana Department of Corrections said Monday that 66-year-old Gary James Thaut was found unresponsive in his cell at Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge on Saturday. An autopsy will be conducted to determine how he died.

Thaut was sentenced to 30 years in prison for shooting a former friend, Robert Myers, in the head as he waited for his wife outside the Little Brown Church in Bigfork in 1998. He was sentenced to another five years in 2012 for assaulting a prison guard.