Alone with a killer in the Montana wilderness

Late on Sept. 21, 1996, searchers found the body of 15-year-old Danielle “Danni” Houchins in a swampy area along the Gallatin River, a scenic valley just outside Bozeman, Montana. Exactly what had happened to Danni — and how she had ended up face down in the mud — would mystify her family, friends and investigators for decades. 

The case, and its stunning conclusion, is investigated by “48 Hours” and correspondent Peter Van Sant in “It’s About Danni,” airing Saturday, Feb. 8  at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.

Back in 1996, Rachelle Schrute, now the Hunt & Fish editor at GearJunkie, knew both Danni and her sister Stephanie. She recalled, “They were the most down-to-earth, friendly people.”  Stephanie Mollet told Van Sant that there had been a family argument that morning, and Danni drove off to the Cameron Bridge Fishing Access area to get away. When Danni didn’t come home that afternoon, their mother set out to find her. She found Danni’s truck parked in the lot, her keys and water bottle along a nearby path, but no other signs of Danni. Deputies from the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office were called in to help but stopped searching after dark. That night, family friends who knew the marshy, heavily wooded area well, headed out to also look for Danni. They found her body in the muddy undergrowth, far back from the walking path.

As word about what happened to Danni spread, some people in town speculated her death could have been a murder. Detectives started an investigation, collecting evidence from the crime scene, and interviewing people close to Danni, but no suspects were named. Schrute said that around the community, “there was so much other speculation … It just caused fear.”

But, within days, the coroner ruled that Danni had drowned, and that her manner of death was not a homicide, but rather “undetermined.” Danni’s family says they were told by officials that Danni’s death could have been an accident. “That she ‘could have just tripped and fell,'” said Mollet. “‘We don’t really know.'” Mollet found that hard to believe. Danni was an active and outdoorsy teenager, she says, who was comfortable fishing, hiking, and mountain climbing. Danni’s case went cold, and as Mollet grew into adulthood, she vowed to find out the truth. “I promised my sister,” said Stephanie. “I’m coming for you, Danni.”

In 2020, Mollet connected with new detectives at the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office, and demanded they fill her family in on the investigation. They let Mollet read the autopsy report, and she learned that in 1996, officials knew that there were bruises on Danni’s body, including on the back of her neck. “Someone had held her head down forcefully,” said Mollet. “There was (sic) vaginal injuries … there was semen in her underwear … she had fought and scratched.” There was now no doubt in Mollet’s mind that her sister had been raped and murdered. The new investigators agreed, and re-opened Danni’s case. The new Gallatin County Sheriff then did something unusual. He reached outside his department, to a retired investigator living in the hills outside of Bozeman: Tom Elfmont. 

Elfmont dedicated himself to Danni’s case. Knowing that huge advances had been made in DNA technology, he was able to get a partial DNA profile from the semen found on Danni’s underpants. But they couldn’t find a match. Digging deeper, Elfmont focused in on four male hairs that had been found on Danni’s body. They were “rootless” hairs — without any skin cells — which for a long time were thought of as almost impossible to get DNA from. But not anymore. Through a state-of-the-art private lab, Elfmont was able to get a full suspect DNA profile from one of those hairs. Elfmont shared that profile with an investigative genetic genealogist, who used family trees to search for relatives of the unknown suspect. In May 2024, they got a name: Paul Hutchinson. 

Elfmont learned that in 1996, Hutchinson had been a graduate student in nearby Bozeman, and he had a work-study with the Fish and Wildlife Service “which would have put him on the waterways around Belgrade.” Elfmont said Hutchinson went on to work as a fisheries biologist for the Bureau of Land Management. He had no criminal record and was married with two children. And he was well-known in local hunting and fishing circles.

In July, 2024, with a body camera rolling, Eflmont and his partner went to Hutchinson’s office to interview him. Elfmont said Hutchinson became visibly nervous, especially when asked about Danni’s case. But they didn’t directly ask Hutchinson if he had killed Danni. As Elfmont told Van Sant, “Didn’t need to.” They didn’t yet have enough evidence to arrest him, but hours after the interview, Hutchinson took his own life. Afterwards, his DNA was confirmed to match the evidence from Danni’s body.

When the Gallatin County sheriff announced the case had been solved after nearly 30 years, there was shock all around. But for Mollet’s childhood friend, Schrute, it was even greater. As she heard the killer’s name announced, she realized she had known him for almost 20 years. Schrute says she considered him a friend and had relied on him for years as a “trusted resource when it came to hunting and fishing.”  Not only that, but for years they had gone on hunting and fishing trips together — sometimes just the two of them. For someone who had always trusted her gut — in the wild, and around men — Schrute says she never once questioned his character.

When asked if she could have said something to him after finding out he had killed Danni, Schrute said strongly, “How dare you just be a person in my life? How dare you just exist and go on to have … a family, and a career, and all of these things that you had? How dare you when you all along, you knew.”