A Libby man accused of strangling his wife during an argument over a birthday present for her son was sentenced Monday in Lincoln County Court.
John Travis Byrd, 45, was given a five-year suspended sentence by Judge Matt Cuffe. He was also ordered to pay $2,015.03 in restitution. Byrd was given a 15-day credit. He’s not in custody.
Lincoln County attorney Marcia Boris and public defender Keenan Gallagher both recommended a five-year suspended sentence.
Byrd, who appeared with Gallagher, was initially against paying refunds before changing his mind.
Boris questioned Byrd about his finances. He said he had about $2,700 in the bank and was making about $2,400-2,500 a month, but it fluctuated during the winter months. He also said he paid $400 a month in child support.
Byrd, who is employed by a local contractor, said he would pay any fines and refunds. He also expressed regret about the incident.
“My life has turned around,” Byrd said. “I’m in AA and counseling and I feel really bad about it.”
The victim in the incident, Byrd’s now ex-wife, requested and received a non-expiring protection order on June 28. He is not allowed to have contact with her, her three children and some of her friends.
In a request for the protection order, she wrote that “she is afraid of him because he contacted her after being ordered not to do so in a court order.” She also wrote that she fears he will try to physically harm “me, my children and/or friends”.
Byrd pleaded guilty to an amended criminal threat charge on June 6. He initially faced charges of strangulation, assault and tampering.
Byrd was arrested on October 22, 2021, after authorities responded to a call for domestic disturbances on US 2.
In the indictment paper, Deputy Derek Breiland of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office said he met a distraught and trembling woman at around 7:59 PM.
“[She] was shaking physically, and her voice was shaking and she was crying,” he wrote. “It was clear that [she] was confused about what had happened.”
The woman told Breiland that her husband was angry about an Xbox game console she had bought for her son. When she returned from dropping her son off at the roller skating rink earlier in the evening, Byrd began screaming, court documents said. He told her to get out of the house, she said.
Finally, Byrd grabbed the video game system from her vehicle and towed it to the back of the property. He started smashing it, court documents said. When she tried to intervene, he grabbed both ends of her scarf and pulled it tight around her neck.
The woman tried in vain to get away, according to the statement. She eventually got the scarf over her head, and that’s when Byrd started “grabbing her sweater,” Breiland wrote in the affidavit. The woman showed a “torn and damaged” sweater as evidence, court documents said.
After freeing herself, she ran back into the house. In the affidavit, Breiland wrote that none of the children in the household witnessed the incident. The woman developed a bit of redness around her neck, he reported. Still, she told investigators that Byrd did not interfere with her breathing during the alleged attack.
After the confrontation, Byrd ended up hitting the Xbox on rocks in the couple’s backyard. He tried to reenter the house but found the front door locked, the victim told Breiland. He then left, wearing only flip flops, shorts and a tank top.
Breiland asked her if Byrd had a history of violent behavior towards her, which she denied. But because the local police were unable to locate Byrd, they encouraged his wife and children to stay with a friend in the evenings. They told her to contact them if Byrd tried to communicate anything, Breiland recalled.
After another failed search for Byrd, Breiland and the other law enforcement officers returned to the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office. Then the victim called and reported that he had received text messages from Byrd.
In it, Byrd allegedly asked if she had called authorities and told her, “I loaded my gun.” According to court documents, he later wrote that he was not in prison for assault and asked if she would “cancel” law enforcement. At one point, he instructed her to tell law enforcement officers to stop pursuing charges against him.
Finally, Byrd called the sheriff’s office and spoke to Breiland. In the affidavit, the sheriff’s deputy said he asked Byrd to explain what had happened. Byrd allegedly told him he “may have burned an Xbox One, and” [defended] myself from the woman who beats me.” In Byrd’s version, his wife attacked and blocked her, court documents say.
When Breiland pointed out that objecting to the destruction of the game console was not an attack, Byrd reported that he suffered a cut to his lip during the exchange. He denied assaulting his wife, saying he stopped her, grabbed her shirt and later her scarf, but she ran away, according to court documents.
Byrd invited Breiland to inspect his injured lip, court documents say. Breiland declined the offer.
“Byrd first told 911 he didn’t want police in his house and I saw the text on… [his wife’s] phone saying Byrd had loaded a gun,” Breiland wrote. “I didn’t tell Byrd I saw that message, but it played a part in me not going back to the residence. There was no need at that time if [his wife] and her children were safe.”
Byrd reportedly told Breiland that he was hiding from police responding in the woods, fearing he would end up in jail that night on what he described as a false accusation. He invited Breiland again, as long as the deputy promised not to arrest him. Breiland, writing in the affidavit, said he could not make that promise.
The conversation grew more and more confused, Breiland recalled. He suspected Byrd was drunk because several of his statements were nonsensical, according to the affidavit. In the end, Breiland agreed to try and arrange a time to come over and photograph the busted lip. In his report, Breiland said the meeting never took place. Byrd is said to have ignored several calls over the next few days.
On October 24, Breiland spoke again with Byrd’s wife. According to court documents, she planned to return to the couple’s home to retrieve various items. But she ended up in the emergency room seeking treatment for the pain of her injuries, court documents said.
Breiland wrote that she sustained an injury to the larynx, a bruise on her arm and tension in her sternum and chest wall. She gave him copies of the medical records she had received during her visit to the ER.
“[She] was persistent the night we went to this outage that she didn’t want to go to the emergency room because she was a nurse and she would know if she should go,” Breiland wrote. “The fact that [she] went to the emergency room [Oct. 24] show me she must have been in severe pain or discomfort.”
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