Olsen v. State4/14/2003
On the night of January 20, 1997, sometime between 11:00 p.m. and midnight, Olsen entered the Little Chief Bar in Worland. He instructed two patrons to lie down on the floor and robbed the bar. After having the bartender also lay face down on the floor, he shot all three in the back of the head, firing a fourth shot seconds later when it appeared that one victim was not dead. He left the bar, went to a convenience store and pumped gas into his pickup. He chatted with the store clerk until asked if he knew why the police were active in the area. At this question, he became agitated, left, and went home and packed. Before he left his home, he confessed the murders to his mother and then fled in his vehicle. After he left, his mother called the police, told them Olsen was involved, and within a few hours, Olsen was apprehended. He was advised of his rights, and spent much of the rest of the day confessing the murders to police. Several of these confessions were recorded on audiotape and videotape.
II. Events Leading Up To and Subsequent To the Murders
[ ] At approximately 4:15 p.m. on the day of the murder, Olsen's mother contacted him at RJ's Saloon where he had been drinking and requested he return home. Olsen left the bar, went home, had dinner, and left home again at 6:30 p.m. to play dart games for a dart league team. Between 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., Olsen and three others played darts at the American Legion where he consumed five or six beers. The group moved on to the Rendezvous for an hour and drank at least two more beers. By 10:00 p.m., Olsen was back at RJ's playing pool and continuing to drink. He was seen leaving RJ's around 11:30 p.m. A few minutes before midnight, Olsen pumped gas into his truck at a convenience store, paid for snacks and a coke with a fifty-dollar bill, and conducted a friendly conversation with the store clerk for several minutes, telling her that he was going to Colorado where the temperature was 56 degrees. A register receipt from that store indicated the purchase occurred at 11:54 p.m. The clerk could smell alcohol on his breath, but did not notice any drunken behavior, until, after seeing numerous police cars driving by during the evening, she asked Olsen if he knew what the cops were doing. The clerk testified that at that point, Olsen "couldn't say 56 degrees" and he then went to the door, apparently agitated, turned around, said "Yes, I have been drinking," and walked out the door. Olsen went home at a few minutes after midnight, parked in the alley, and entered a doorway that opened directly to his room and locked the door that opened to the rest of the house.
[ ] Testifying as a wi tness for the State, Olsen's mother described the following events. Hearing him return and lock his door, his mother became concerned, and knocked on his bedroom door. He joined her in another part of the house, and the two talked until about 12:35 a.m. She returned to bed, but became aware that Olsen was packing, and arose to confront him. She saw a gun and, at that point, Olsen confessed to her he had killed three people, claiming that years earlier, while in the Marine Corps, he had accumulated a $70,000 gambling debt and still owed $17,000. He claimed that over the years, he had been constantly harassed for the money and, several years before, his fiancé had been killed because of the debt. He further claimed that he believed he had seen the man sent to collect the gambling debt in town and followed him into the Little Chief Bar, shot him, and shot what he described as two innocent people. Olsen told his mother that this man was involved in the death of his fiancé and Olsen believed that the man would try to kill Olsen's ex-wife and daughter. Olsen finished packing, loaded h
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