Motel Murder Accomplice Sentenced to 50 Years in Prison
20 year-old Preston Rossbach was sentenced on Friday for his role in the deaths of two people and the stabbing of a third victim.
Megan McLaughlin and Jason Flink were shot and stabbed to death at the Mountain Valley Inn Motel on October 18, 2018. Another man, Kaleb Williams, was also shot and stabbed.
Prosecuting Attorney Jordan Kilby provided a brief history of the legal proceedings surrounding the drug related killings..
“He was charged with two counts of deliberate homicide by felony murder, which means that he participated in a robbery, and during the course of that robbery, two people were killed,” said Kilby. “He was also charged with assault with a weapon for assaulting another individual with a knife. He was charged with tampering with evidence, as well as two counts of intimidation or threatening witnesses after the homicides.”
Kilby explained the length of time it took to try, convict and sentence Rossbach, since the crime took place nearly two years ago.
“We did a trial in March of 2020, and prior to that there was a lot of litigation in this case,” she said. “The defense moved for a transfer hearing, which means that they were asking that he be tried as a juvenile and so we had to litigate that, and that took some time. Additionally, with COVID, the sentencing hearing got pushed out for a while because of the logistics of organizing evaluations for someone in the jail during a pandemic.”
Following the sentencing hearing, Kilby briefly outlined the sentence for Preston Rossbach.
“Yesterday, Preston Rossbach was sentenced to 60 years at the Montana State Prison with 10 of those years suspended,” she said.
His accomplice in the murders, Jonathan Whitworth, will be sentenced for his role in the murders on Tuesday, October 13, just five days short of the second anniversary of the crimes.
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