Suspect

My Guest Author is Ed Brannin who tells about a true life incident

In the mid 70’s I was working for the Sweetgrass County Sheriffs Office. There had been a theft of saddles and tack in Fergus County. A suspect in the theft allegedly lived in Sweetgrass County and the investigation lead to a search warrant. When the search warrant was executed none of the stolen saddles were found. This resulted in the Sheriff’s office being accused of fabricating the story about the theft. 

About this time Uncle Sid had been visiting with his sister Anita. During his visit he had picked up an old saddle that he was going to take home to Washington. The night he was leaving I was working patrol. I saw Sid standing outside the bus depot getting ready to leave. He had the old saddle with him. I decided to stop and say goodbye. When I got out of the patrol car, Sid threw his hands in the air and hollered that he gives up. After this the word spread that the investigation into the saddle thefts must have been legit since the Sheriff’s office had spoken to a suspect with a saddle.

Uncle Sid at the rodeo at Big Timber, Montana
Uncle Sid with Jughead
Uncle Sid on Butterfly at Harlo rodeo 1924

Note: I’m sure Uncle Sid got a big kick out of that! He was such a jokester! Come to think of it, he did have a large collection of saddles…….

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