Western Montana man headed back to prison

A Western Montana man convicted of rape and who disappeared from a Sanders County campsite on Memorial Day 2020 is still serving time on his original conviction.

At the time, James Todd Whitmarsh, 51, was reported missing from a campsite on the morning of Monday, May 25, near the mouth of the Thompson River near Montana 200.

There was considerable reaction from the social media community. Some commenters didn’t believe enough was being done by local law enforcement officers to find the man.

While some believed Whitmarsh drowned in the Clark Fork River, he later turned up very much alive at a Spokane motel. On May 22 Whitmarsh refused to respond to phone calls and messages from his parole officer. Three days later he was reported missing and on May 31 he checked into a motel in Spokane, according to court documents.

Whitmarsh pleaded guilty to raping a 14-year-old girl in Flathead County in 2006. He received an 18-year sentence to the Montana State Prison, with nine years suspended. Whitmarsh served five years and completed sex offender treatment in prison.

Whitmarsh was paroled in 2011 and lived in Missoula. As conditions of his parole he had to get permission from his probation and parole officer if he wanted to leave the Missoula area. But Whitmarsh never received permission to leave Missoula and it was just one of the reasons he was back in Flathead District Court Jan. 7, 2021, for a revocation hearing.

According to court filings by the parole officer, on March 7, 2020, Whitmarsh tested positive for methamphetamine. He also failed to take mandatory drug tests on three occasions in May, just days before he went missing. It resulted in Whitmarsh being removed from a treatment program.

Then he was fired on June 3 for not showing up at work at a local business in Missoula. Soon after, he was booked into the Missoula County Jail.

When District Judge Robert Allison asked Whitmarsh and his attorney Lane Bennett how he wished to address the allegations of violating his parole, the response was “general denials.”

Bennett did ask the judge to delay the hearing because Whitmarsh was entering drug rehabilitation. Allison granted the request and the hearing was scheduled for Sept. 7. Whitmarsh admitted violating certain conditions of his sentence and Allison revoked his parole.

Then, on Jan. 7, 2021, Allison ruled Whitmarsh should be committed to the Department of Corrections for nine years. But Whitmarsh was given credit for 3,138 days while on probation and actually he must serve a little more than two months in the Flathead County Detention Center before his release, according to Bennett.

Whitmarsh also has three DUI convictions dating back to 1989. A 2005 DUI charge against Whitmarsh was dismissed in exchange for him pleading guilty to the 2006 rape charge.