DARLINGTON — The 29-year-old mother accused of killing her grandmother-in-law will have her case heard under a new judge. On March 28, Lafayette County Circuit Court Judge Duane Jorgenson approved the request by Shannon Bussan’s attorney, Andrea Winder, to find a new home for the case.

Bussan, of Elizabeth, Ill., is accused of first degree intentional homicide in the Feb. 27 death of Lynne Montgomery, 83, Benton. In court 31 days after Montgomery’s death, Bussan was in orange and shackled, silent and seated next to Winder, her lawyer. Lafayette County District Attorney Jenna Gill represented the state. Jorgenson, among others, videoed in to the hearing.

Two detectives testified, and their witness testimonies added to court records. Rafael De La Rosa, a special agent for the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), said that once his office was called to investigate three days after the death, Bussan’s story had already begun to fall apart. Lafayette County Sheriff’s Detective Paul Klang (added to that) with digital archived information like photo geo-tagging, screenshots and pings on cell phone towers. 

Bussan initially told authorities that Montgomery, who she referred to as “Grandma”, had fallen while alone. Bussan found Montgomery between 3:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. that day and checked for signs of life, but found none. She called and texted her husband in a panic before ultimately calling 9-1-1 just after 4 p.m. 

The next day, family members alerted local authorities of disturbing handwritten notes, possibly suggesting foul play. 

An autopsy was performed, showing Montgomery’s bruising and injuries were likely not from a singular fall, but perhaps by blunt force trauma. It also showed that her death was not of a medical event, but by suffocation — possibly by the smothering of a pillow or by compression asphyxia.

Days later, Bussan was arrested on homicide charges and held on $1 million bond.

In sworn testimony, the two detectives contradicted several of Bussan’s initial claims of what happened to Montgomery.

There was also video surveillance from the village that placed Bussan’s vehicle in the village hours earlier than she claimed. The location services had also been turned off on her phone, but not on her watch.

When De La Rosa, a second DCI agent and a Jo Daviess (Ill.) Sheriff’s Deputy showed up at the Bussan’s home with warrants for cell phones and DNA for testing from both Shannon and her husband, Brandon. Shannon Bussan’s phone was in her bedroom closet on a shelf, under some clothes and turned off. Most of her text messages and FaceTime logs from Feb. 27 with her husband had been deleted, and her recent browser search history included a question on Quora on if police could recover deleted text messages.

Also of concern to authorities is the potential of a cover-up at the crime scene. A bed and chair had been moved, but their longstanding impressions were still left on bedroom carpets. Three notes written by Montgomery suggesting abuse by Shannon were all located in her bedroom — two in her nightstand found by the family and one in her personal bag located by authorities days later. Her cell phone, which was normally kept in the same bag, has still not been recovered.

A safe, normally kept in a spare bedroom closet, was oddly in the garage. By the time authorities treated the home as a crime scene more than a day later, the safe had been returned to the closet, with drag marks across the carpet of the bedroom and the linoleum floor of the kitchen. Those marks match a similar size of the safe.

Judge Jorgenson said he found it disturbing that even by Bussan’s testimony, she arrived at the home and found the lifeless Montgomery and still waited more than 20 minutes to call 9-1-1.

From the detective’s testimony, Bussan was at the home by 12:53 p.m., according to a geotagged 5-second video from her vehicle. At 3:37 p.m., a 15-year-old foreign exchange student that had been living with Montgomery was dropped off by the school bus, per security footage from the bus. 

Bussan greeted the student at the front door and introduced herself. The student then went into their private bedroom and emerged several minutes later. Bussan then sat the student down in the living room, telling them there was a problem with Montgomery, which the student didn’t really understand.

Bussan attempted to make contact with her husband multiple times during this time and called 9-1-1 just after 4 p.m.

Montgomery’s daughter told authorities that when she arrived at the home later that day, Bussan was “curled up in a ball” on the living room floor with her children. 

What transpired on Feb. 27 is in question

Bussan told authorities that Montgomery was trying to sell items from her home online and needed Bussan’s help to do so. Bussan had told family that she arrived at 11 a.m. but left because Bussan was headed out for a while. However, she told authorities she left her home at noon and first went to her mother’s in Hanover, Ill.

During the lunch hour, Montgomery ate at the local VFW hall, and witnesses that joined her said she lacked any bruising or physical impairments. There was phone contact attempted and made between Bussan and Montgomery during this time. Surveillance footage from the library and other locations around the village not only have Bussan’s vehicle in village limits between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., but following Montgomery at one point.

Bussan told authorities she didn’t get to Montgomery’s home until around 3:30 p.m., and when she first attempted to make contact at the home, there was no answer. She returned to her vehicle, which had three of her children in it, and changed the diaper of her then 6-month-old child. She collected all three children and entered the home through an unlocked front door, which other family members say was typically locked.

Bussan continued to call for Montgomery once inside the home, with no answer. She then left her children in the living room to search for Montgomery, eventually finding the victim on the floor of her bedroom. 

Detective Klang said there was no cell phone signal that ever placed her in Hanover that day, though her phone pinged off the Cuba City cell phone tower at around 12:47 p.m.

Klang also said there was a photograph taken of the safe in the garage at 6:11 p.m., something Bussan said her husband made her photograph because it was in an odd place. One of Montgomery’s notes said Bussan had attempted to get her to open the safe. 

“Shannon She knocked me down in the basement and dragged me upstairs threw me down tried to strangle me try to open my safe I don’t know what she will do next,” one of the index cards said. The others, all written in different ink, had different messages. “watch out for Shannon Help me” another said. 

There was also a screenshot on Bussan’s phone with a paragraph on a browser search of how to unlock a 3-number combination safe. The safe, which only Montgomery and her daughter had the combination to, allegedly contained guns, money and coins.

Bussan’s phone also had a Gmail draft timestamped at 7:28 p.m. that day, listing her timeline of events from that day, beginning at 11:15 a.m., with an 11:45 a.m. entry that she had talked to “Grandma”, 3:45 p.m. the foreign exchange student came home and at 4 p.m. the 9-1-1 call was placed.

When DCI agents spoke with Bussan days later, she had a bruise on her arm and a scratch on her thumb. She claimed she had fallen on ice days before. 

Was there a motive?

Detectives tried to determine what a motive might have been for Bussan to kill Montgomery but did not come to any strong conclusions.

Bussan and her husband own a landscaping business, but the winter months can be slow, De La Rosa testified. In the winter, the business makes money from plowing snow and hauling wood. On the day of the death, the business allegedly had a vehicle “in the shop and ready to be picked up” with a large bill.

Previously, the couple had been accused by a family member of embezzling money from the business.

Moving forward

Jorgenson said the evidence shows plausibility for the state’s case against Bussan. He said the evidence shows Bussan gave false statements of her whereabouts on that day, from the geotagging of the cell phone video to other digital timestamps and locations found by cell tower pings and village surveillance footage. 

The case matter is set over, and once a new judge is found, the next court date will be determined.