Extremely weird experience I had while working in Hardin, Montana

Hi, I was the editor of the Big Horn County News in Hardin in the winter of 2022 and spring of 2023. This is just one of many weird experiences I had during that time:

I arrived back at the office after my lunch break one day and saw a new email from a concerned Hardin citizen. She said she witnessed a Hardin police officer run over a dog in his squad car on Hwy 313 outside of town. The officer then apparently got out of his car, shot the dog numerous times… and left it on the side of the road.

I got in my car and took Hwy 313 out of town to check it out. Sure enough, I came across the body of a dead dog on the side of the road. I pulled over and parked my car. Walking up to the dog, I could see blood and bullet wounds. It was a grisly sight, so I didn’t stay too long.

As I walked back to my vehicle, an old, beat-up car with tinted windows pulled over on the side of the road right behind me. I stood there for a second before walking up to the car’s window to see if they needed help.

I waved and stood by the driver’s side, expecting someone to get out and talk to me, but no one did. They just sat there behind the tinted windows and didn’t move.

I started to feel creeped out, so I quickly walked back to my car and got in. As I was throwing it in drive, I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw that a man had gotten out of the car and was approaching me.

I was on high alert so I rolled down my window a bit to see what the guy wanted. He said he was running low on gas and asked if I could give him some money to fill up. I offered to drive back into Hardin with him to go to the gas station.

He followed me back into town, and we pulled up to Town Pump. I paid for his gas and started talking to him while we filled up his car. I looked inside the car and saw another man completely slumped backward in the passenger seat. I don’t know if he was on drugs, dead, or sleeping, but he wasn’t moving at all.

I asked the guy if his friend was okay. He mumbled something I could barely hear and shrugged it off.

For the rest of the conversation, we talked about fishing. I don’t remember much else. We filled up 18 gallons in his car, which was almost the entire tank. Meaning this guy had been driving out on Hwy 313 basically into the wilderness with almost no gas left in the middle of winter. It was odd to say the least.

The dog’s body stayed on the side of the road. I was living outside of Hardin at the time, so I’d drive by the body every day on my way to and from work. It snowed one weekend, and the dog’s body was covered by snow and ice. No one was held accountable, nothing happened. I didn’t really know what to do, if anything, about it at the time.

Just an overall weird story that kind of sums up what it was like during my time there. Another notable event was a homeless man killed while sleeping outside the library. Had a rock dropped on his head…