Man facing murder charges after fight in Hill County jail

An inmate of the Hill County Detention Center was being held this morning to face charges he murdered another inmate, Gordon Cochran.

Jesse Shane Valdez, 24, was being held on $500,000 bond on an accusation of deliberate homicide.

Valdez was being held in the detention center on $20,000 bond after he was arrested Nov. 13, on charges of burglary, criminal mischief vandalism and trespassing.

The alleged victim, Gordon Cochran of Chinook, 54, was arrested in Havre Saturday on two charges of disorderly conduct and one of resisting arrest.

According to a court document, Sunday at about 6:38 p.m. Hill County Dispatch received a call from the detention center requesting assistance in one of the center's holding pods.

A detention center officer told Havre police he ordered a lockdown on the pod and when he unlocked the door to the only cell occupied in the pod, he saw Valdez lying on the floor with his hands behind his head, saying he was not going to fight him, the document said.

It said Valdez indicated a man lying face down in the cell and said "He's the guy that killed my relative."

Detention center staff placed Valdez in handcuffs and rolled the man lying face down over and saw the man, whom they identified as Cochran, was bleeding from a head wound.

A detention center officer could not detect a pulse on Cochran and began chest compressions and called for emergency medical technicians, the report said.

EMTs arrived and began working on Cochran and ultimately took him to Northern Montana Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the report said.

Other inmates told officers that Valdez and Cochran had gotten into a fight earlier in the day, and later they heard banging going on. When they went to the cell containing Valdez and Cochran, the door was locked and they saw Valdez inside smiling and Cochran on the floor.

Valdez told officers he went to try to make up with Cochran, and Cochran started insulting him and punched him first, the document said. He said he was defending himself.

Valdez told the officers ended up stomping his foot on Cochran's neck while he was on the ground and then picked him up and threw him into a wall, which the officer said is made of concrete. He said Cochran also could have hit his head on metal frames of a desk or the bunks in the cell, and that he threw Cochran's head against the floor a few times and into the wall a few times.