Arts-Entertainment
Join us Saturday, June 7th from 11 am to 2 pm for an event with Clem C. Pellet, author of Murder on Montana’s Hi-Line.
About the Book
During an intense spring blizzard in 1951, affable Clarence Pellett picked up a teenaged hitchhiker along Montana’s Hi-Line. Soon, blood from seven bullet holes in Pellett’s back stained the snow-covered prairie. Following a brief manhunt and confession, a heated debate ensued over capital punishment as Communist attorneys swooped in “to save this poor friendless boy.”
Frank Dryman, twice sentenced to hang, escaped the noose when a sympathetic Montana Supreme Court stayed each execution. The “permanently insane and mentally deficient” killer was paroled into the custody of his brother in California after serving thirteen years of a life sentence. Eighteen months later, he vanished. Using a series of aliases, Dryman hid in plain sight for forty years despite state and federal warrants.
Clem Pellett recounts the enthralling twists and turns of his hunt for his grandfather’s absconded murderer—the longest in state history.
Currently, Dr. Pellett is part of the production team for the movie Pellett, based on this true story. The producers of Pellet hope their film will tap into the strength of the story of a central Montana murder that happened 67 years ago, and the decades long quest to return the killer to justice.
"It's going to be a Montana story that's told in Montana and with Montana help and resources," said Clem Pellett, grandson of Clarence Pellett, who died at the hand of Frank Dryman seven decades ago. "It's also about the McCarthy era, communism and how it was treated. It's about the death penalty, it's about the argument on both sides even from the 1950s perspective. You're going to really step into that era. We're going to put together that mindset on the decisions made back then, based upon what the culture and the situation was like at the time."
Of the book and the movie, Clem Pellet says, “I’m so excited to finally have the family story, finally told. Fifteen years in the making, doing the research, combing through FBI files, interviewing primary witnesses, collecting documents, letters, transcripts etc., it’s very satisfying.
The movie has been a long eight years in production. We had to get through Covid, historical Hollywood strikes and compete with other states for the movie tax credit. The production team was totally dedicated to filming this in Montana and to make it an authentic Montana story so dedicated to authenticity—we use the actual murder weapon as a prop in the movie. It is due to come out sometime this fall. By the way, making movies is hard work—12-hour day after 12-hour day.
My book and movie are completely complementary which is to say the movie is the main course. The book can be an appetizer or a dessert, but between the two you’ll get a total story of the true Montana Saga.”
About the Author
Montana native Dr. Clem C. Pellett received his undergraduate degree from Montana State University in Bozeman and a Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from Creighton University in Omaha and completed his residency at the Mayo Clinic’s Graduate School of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota. After nearly three decades, he changed careers. Inspired by his successful quest tracking down the murderer of his grandfather, he earned a certificate of private investigation from Boston University.