Garry Seaman, an attorney and murderer, appears inset against an image of his former law firm in Kalispell, Mont. (Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office; Google Maps)
A Montana attorney admittedly tried to kill his longtime ex-girlfriend during a torrent of shotgun fire that did kill one of her old friends.
Garry Douglas Seaman, 64, was previously charged with one count each of deliberate homicide, attempted homicide, and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence over the May 2022 death of James Preston Freeman, 52, and the critical injuries inflicted on the mother of his child. He initially pleaded not guilty to all three charges.
Last week, in a plea deal reached with Lincoln County Attorney Marcia Boris, the lesser charge was dropped and Seaman accepted legal culpability for both homicide counts – in exchange for a sentence of 60 years in prison with the possibility of parole after 18 years.
Less than a month prior to the shooting, a judge in Flathead County denied the woman a protection order, according to the Flathead Beacon. She had just ended their 15-year-long relationship for good, the woman noted, and had been stalked by the heavily armed man to the point that she did “not feel safe anywhere near him.”
“He is a hot head and [a] very angry, jealous person that I feel will go to any length to potentially cause harm to me and our son,” she wrote. “And [he is] stalking and tracking me [and] trying to sabotage any potential home I may try to rent for my son and I. He has 100’s of guns and a ton of ammunition in his home, office and on him at all times.”
On April 25, Flathead County Justice of the Peace Paul Sullivan wrote in a denial notice that: “the information submitted does not support the conclusion that you are in danger and that the circumstances require the court to act without notice to the other party.”
On May 21, between five to seven blasts were fired into various parts of the woman’s body by her ex-boyfriend and employer.
“I have no doubt he’d finish the job,” Seaman’s former partner said at his August 2022 bail hearing, according to the Daily Inter Lake. “I was shot in the left hand, twice in the stomach, in the buttocks, my right breast. I have to wear a colostomy bag because of what the shrapnel did to my intestines. All my doctors said I shouldn’t have lived.”
The woman suggested the form of his rampage was hinted at before. She said Seaman once told her: “If you have to kill someone, use a shotgun and make sure you kill them, because dead men tell no tales.”
The woman began working for Seaman’s law firm in 1994, she reportedly said last year. They began dating in 2007 and had one child. She did not appear at last week’s hearing for the plea bargain.
While she survived, her friend of 30-some-odd years did not.
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“We didn’t tell anyone where we were going, but I told my son we were going camping,” the woman testified last year – after reportedly being helped into the courtroom with some help from family members. “It was the first weekend Garry would take him.”
Eventually, the two old friends, who had hoped their relationship was changing for the better, made their way to the Alexander Creek Campground near the Libby Dam and Lake Koocanusa Park.
“James and I were sitting at a picnic table when Garry drove in,” the woman reportedly testified during the bail hearing. “I believe my guns were in the glove box of my vehicle. He said, ‘It’s you, it’s you,’ and then started shooting. He shot James first, then me.”
Freeman was shot five times in his torso. The father of five was married when he died. His wife was unaware of the tryst.
“We were married for 16 years and we have five children,” Dawn Freeman reportedly testified at the 2022 hearing. “Four of the kids are still at home. On the morning of May 21, two police officers came to my home and told me he was deceased and there was a manhunt underway.”
A multi-agency search for Seaman was launched – he was ultimately arrested near his home the day after the shooting. His trial, since scuttled, was scheduled to begin this September.
Under the terms of the plea deal, both of the defendant’s counts will run concurrently – at the same time – and he will receive credit for time served in pretrial detention. In the future, Seaman will not be allowed to own or carry any kind of dangerous weapon and will be required to register with the state’s violent offender database.
A sentencing hearing is slated for the afternoon of Oct. 5, to determine the exact contours of Seaman’s punishment – including the amount of restitution he must pay to the victims of his crimes.
The defendant had been held on $25 million bail since the emotional 2022 hearing. He petitioned the Montana Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus and a determination that his bail was excessive and should be lowered. But the justices unanimously disagreed with him in an October 2022 ruling.
On Aug. 21, Missoula County District Judge Jason Marks accepted the plea deal and ordered Seaman held without bond until he is turned over to the Montana Department of Corrections.
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