BILLINGS — There are still many unanswered questions about a Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024, homicide of a 52-year-old woman at an apartment complex in the Billings Heights, but neighbors said she was a wonderful person who will be dearly missed.
One of the victim's neighbors, Katharine Love, knew something was wrong when she came home Saturday to a dozen cop cars.
"I've been shaking like a leaf. She didn't deserve this," Love said at the Red Fox apartment complex in the Billings Heights Sunday.
Love believes she was the last person to see her alive after giving her a ride to a nearby gas station on August 11.
"I always gave her rides all the time. I didn't have a problem. And then in the last weeks, nothing," said Love.
Brandon and Olivia Mclean live right next door to the victim. They also said they hadn't seen her for a couple of weeks.
"Then, all of a sudden, all the windows are wide open, the sliding glass doors are open," Brandon said. "My wife, she had come out earlier to throw something away in the garbage can, and she said she smelled something funny."
As an Army veteran, his gut feeling prompted him to call for a welfare check before heading out to dinner.
"And I had gotten a call from, on my wife's phone, from our neighbor, Kathy, And I could hear the sergeant, and he was like, "Yeah, we need him here now," said Brandon.
That sergeant delivered Brandon, Olivia, and Love with the crushing news of their neighbor's death.
“Shock, anger, disbelief," said Olivia tearfully.
Billings Police have since arrested 45-year-old Shane Roberts in connection to the homicide. The victim's neighbors said Roberts was initially her caretaker before he became her live-in boyfriend.
"They were together maybe eight, six, seven months before he started coming around the house and staying and stuff and everything a few years ago," Olivia said.
Olivia said her neighbor loved to garden, collect rocks, and was always thinking of others.
"She was friendly with all of us. For crying out loud, she found a Barbie house and brought it over for our daughter," said Olivia.
It's a devastating loss for this tight-knit community.
"I was going through a wrongful eviction earlier this year, having panic attacks left and right for days at a time...she literally had my back through all of that, and I honestly don't know if I would have been okay without her through that," Love said. “She was my friend, actually. She was very, very sweet."
"She didn't deserve that. She was an angel to us," said Olivia.
