A Fugitive Truth
Missoula Independent Web Article
State case - Montana articles after 2006
Jun 14, 2007 {ID: 2230} {Class: State (Criminal) | Sub-Class: Media}

This article, from the Missoula Independent website, is dated June 14, 2007. There are many questionable comments in the article below about our elopement, including several references to Sheriff Dupont's conduct and speculations for the next twenty-four years that followed, but one point in particular is so absurd that it needs to be clarified.

Sheriff Dupont tells the reporter that he met with me several weeks after my initial arrest and tried to talk to me about the accident. But the truth is, there was no meeting between us, other then his brief appearance during my attorney visit the day after I arrived in Kalispell, Montana. That ten minute chit-chat between the three of us was a way for him to quench his curiosity, being that I was still his only unsolved case. He asked a couple of questions and I answered respectively, but that was the first and last time I would meet Sheriff Dupont in person.

What is disturbing is that in the article Sheriff Dupont goes out of his way to make his story plausible, reciting how I didn't want to talk to him and only discussed my dissatisfaction with my cell.

How can a Sheriff like Jim Dupont be so respected in Flathead County, elevate himself from a deputy detective to a Sheriff over the years, and yet still be able to lie about something as trivial as a meeting with me in my cell? I know he ran the detention facility, but wouldn't there be proof and witnesses to our meeting? Where is the recording tape that he made of our conversation? Either Sheriff Dupont had an extreme case of dementia or he is simply a compulsive liar!

Unfortunately, this is what I had to deal with during my stay at the Flathead County Detention Center.

NOTE: For more information see 'More Related Details/Facts' below...

MORE RELATED DETAILS / FACTS

"The couple spent the night in Okanagan Beach" comment: We were never in—and never spent the night in—Okanagan Beach, British Columbia. Not sure where this information is coming from.

"Dupont isn't sure why Ambrozuk would have taken the gust lock from the plane" comment: That's where a little detective work would come in handy. It's quite logical, really.

"Ambrozuk's story checked out but Dupont wondered why he left Babcock to drown" comment: Ambrozuk never left Babcock to drown. It was up to detective Jim Dupont to put the pieces together, but he never could.

"Dupont believes Ambrozuk flew to New York" comment: Seriously? I was cut-up, bruised, and scarred. Wouldn't that stand out in an airport? Even in my current state of mind at the time, I never considered getting on a plane in a public place, but Sheriff Dupont sees things differently.

"The landing gear hit the water first" comment: Everything happened in a split second so who knows what hit the water first—the landing gear, or the tail as we neared the water in a nose-up stall glide. But one thing is for sure, once the wheels did hit the water, the plane simply tumbled forward, flipping up-side down.

Excerpts from the taped conversation between Tom and I: Read the complete transcript to put the events and my state of mind into perspective.

"The key to Dupont's view is that he believes that Ambrozuk's plane landed right side up" comment: This is not the only—but definitely the primary—reason for Sheriff Dupont's logic flaw. You would think that clues like the damage to the top of the aircraft tail fin, the shoulder harness and the seat belt sticking out of the window, and the easily obtainable avionics information about landing a fixed-landing gear aircraft on water would be subtle hints for a Flathead County detective at the time to pick up on and draw a more logical conclusion.

"I tried like hell to get the Sheriff to let me go to Texas" comment: Really? Because if detective Dupont would have actually looked at, and read the evidence, he could have apprehended me in Dallas without having to go to Texas. The locations of the phone booths I used to call Tom were all identified in the evidence, so all he had to do was read the evidence to pinpoint my whereabouts.

"She found the profile on 'America's Most Wanted' website" comment: That is an embellishment of Sheriff Dupont. After telling Genea about my past, she Googled me and found the only article on the Internet from the Daily Inter Lake that talked about my case. There was nothing on America's Most Wanted website at the time.

"Dupont on Dr. Robert Hare test, the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised" comment: Such nonsense, BUT for the record, I did take a similar test (the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory 2, or MMPI-2 test) through Dr. Trontel and passed with flying colors. Perhaps the same test could also be given to, lets say, a County Investigator, or a Sheriff, to see how they measure up?

"This guy is a sociopath" Sheriff Dupont comment: Such high level of professionalism and an astute observation by a Sheriff who believes himself to be a clinical psychologist. More about his "exciting" comments, character, and our interaction in the book.