When the Montana Innocence Project took on Bradley Hillious as a client, it wasn’t because his story was simple.
It was because the questions surrounding his conviction were too significant to ignore.
Bradley is currently serving a 100-year sentence for the death of his wife, Amanda, following a 2022 Flathead County conviction for deliberate homicide. Throughout the investigation, trial, appeal, and years of incarceration that followed, Bradley has maintained his innocence.
On June 17, MTIP filed a petition for post-conviction relief, arguing that serious constitutional concerns prevented Bradley from receiving a fair trial.
How the Montana Innocence Project Learned About the Case
MTIP first became aware of Bradley’s case after the Montana Supreme Court denied his direct appeal in 2025.
That appeal focused on a jury selection issue that Bradley’s attorneys argued deprived him of a fair trial. Although the Montana Supreme Court ultimately denied relief, the case caught the attention of MTIP’s legal team.
As our legal team reviewed the case, one fact immediately stood out: shortly after investigators informed Bradley and his father, Scott, that Amanda’s death was being investigated as a homicide, Scott died by suicide.
That fact prompted a deeper review of the case and ultimately led MTIP to accept Bradley as a client.
A Morning That Changed Everything
On the morning of December 15, 2020, Bradley’s family was beginning a typical day at home.
Inside the house were Bradley, his wife Amanda, their four young children, and Bradley’s father Scott, who was living with the family following a heart attack ten months earlier.
Amanda suffered a devastating fall down a staircase. Bradley immediately began performing CPR. Paramedics arrived and transported Amanda to the hospital, where she died from her injuries four days later.
Initially treated as a tragic accident, the case took a turn when an autopsy concluded that Amanda’s death was a homicide. Medical experts determined that her cause of death was strangulation associated with a fractured hyoid bone rather than blunt force trauma from a fall down the stairs.
At that point, investigators focused on two potential suspects: the only two adults in the house that morning, Bradley and Scott.
On December 24, investigators contacted both men and requested that they come in for additional questioning. According to Bradley, after learning that law enforcement wanted to question them about Amanda’s death, Scott told him:
“I can’t do this anymore. This is bullshit, I’m not going to jail. I love you, son.”
Scott also told Bradley that everything would be okay, asked whether Bradley still loved him, and instructed another person present not to leave Bradley because “he’s going to need you.”
Immediately afterward, Scott wrote goodbye letters to the children, went to the family’s barn, and died by suicide.
For MTIP, what happened next raises significant concerns. We believe Scott’s statements, actions, and death should have been more thoroughly investigated and presented to the jury as evidence pointing to a viable alternative suspect.
Watch: Legal Team Explains Key Facts About the Death and Investigation
The Danger of Tunnel Vision
One of the most common contributors to wrongful convictions is a phenomenon known as tunnel vision — when investigators become attached to a particular theory and begin interpreting evidence through that lens.
Once tunnel vision sets in, investigators may focus on evidence that supports their theory while discounting or overlooking evidence that points in another direction. This problem is often compounded by pressure to solve a case and hold someone accountable.
As MTIP reviewed Bradley’s case, we became concerned that investigators focused almost exclusively on Bradley while failing to fully consider evidence pointing elsewhere. Because Scott was deceased, he could no longer be arrested, questioned, or prosecuted. Yet many of the facts surrounding his actions remained highly relevant to understanding what may have happened in the Hillious home.
The concern is not simply whether investigators reached the wrong conclusion. It is also whether the process itself allowed jurors to hear all relevant evidence before deciding Bradley’s fate.
Even setting aside Scott’s alleged statement, MTIP believes his actions warranted greater scrutiny. The same day that investigators determined Amanda’s death was a homicide and asked the two adults present to come in for questioning, one of those adults died by suicide.
Yet from that point forward, the investigation focused almost exclusively on Bradley, and he was charged with Amanda’s murder.
Questions About a Fair Trial
At trial, prosecutors argued that Amanda’s death was intentional and pointed to circumstantial evidence involving Bradley’s marriage, an extramarital affair, and testimony from two of the children.
By the time of the trial, the children testified that Bradley had argued with Amanda on the morning of her death and was responsible for killing her. However, MTIP notes that the children’s earliest statements were far less clear. Initially, they reported hearing “Dad” and Amanda arguing, but did not witness what happened.
Adding to the confusion, the children referred to both Bradley and Scott as “Dad.” In their earliest statements, they described hearing “Dad” downstairs while simultaneously hearing “Dad” upstairs. Those statements did not clearly identify whether Bradley or Scott was the “Dad” upstairs arguing with Amanda.
The children’s statements evolved significantly after they were placed with Amanda’s mother. By the time of the trial, those statements had become far more accusatory toward Bradley.
While ample evidence was presented at trial to show the jury how Amanda died and that it was not accidental, none of this evidence implicated Bradley.
According to MTIP, one of the most troubling aspects of the case involves restrictions placed on the defense’s ability to argue that Scott may have been responsible.
The defense entered trial intending to present Scott as an alternative suspect. Their theory was that Scott had killed Amanda and that his subsequent suicide amounted to consciousness of guilt and, according to Bradley’s account, a possible confession.
However, a series of pretrial rulings altered the course of the case.
Before the trial, prosecutors sought permission to argue that Scott’s death may not have been a suicide at all and that Bradley possibly killed Scott.
MTIP notes that law enforcement and the coroner had already officially concluded that Scott died by suicide.
The trial judge ruled that if the defense argued Scott’s suicide was evidence that he killed Amanda, prosecutors would be permitted to suggest Bradley may have been responsible for Scott’s death.
Faced with the prospect of defending Bradley against a second homicide theory, defense counsel abandoned the alternative-suspect defense and instead focused on arguing that Amanda’s death was an accident.
Because of the judge’s ruling, jurors were told that Scott died by suicide, but they did not hear the defense’s argument that Scott may have been responsible for the crime, nor did they hear expert testimony about why he may have taken his own life.
After the conviction, during sentencing proceedings, defense counsel argued that the ruling had effectively prevented them from presenting their strongest defense.
The judge replied from the bench, saying:
“This is not something you generally want a judge to have to say about their own ruling,” said Charlie McWeeny, MTIP’s Intake and Pro Bono Coordinator.
That exchange revealed what MTIP believes was a fundamental misunderstanding that may have altered the entire defense strategy.
Our post-conviction petition argues that these circumstances raise serious constitutional questions as to whether Bradley’s rights to the effective assistance of counsel and a fair trial were violated.
The petition does not ask the court to exonerate Bradley immediately. Rather, it argues that the circumstances prevented Bradley from receiving a fair trial as guaranteed by the Constitution and requests a new trial.
Watch: Legal Team Explains the Key Issue in the Bradley Hillious Case
A Complicated Client
MTIP does not take cases because a person is perfect.
In fact, many of the people who come to us have lived complicated lives, experienced trauma, made mistakes, or struggled in their relationships. Bradley is no exception.
At trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Bradley was having an extramarital affair and argued that tensions in his marriage provided a motive for murder. The jury also heard about a prior temporary order of protection that Amanda had sought against both Bradley and Scott.
These facts can be difficult, uncomfortable, and important to acknowledge.
But innocence work is not about deciding whether someone has an easy story to tell. It is about determining whether they committed the crime for which they were convicted and whether the constitutional process designed to protect all of us functioned as it should.
“I think that it’s easy for people to write off people with less perfect pasts, and it’s easy to say that it does make them more likely to have committed a crime or that they shouldn’t have the same constitutional rights as everyone else,” said MTIP Legal Director Brady Minow Smith. “But that’s not how our constitution works. Everyone has the same right to a fair trial, no matter what they’ve done or whether we agree with what they’ve done.”
As MTIP reviewed Bradley’s case, we found no direct physical evidence tying him to Amanda’s death. We found significant questions about how alternative suspects were investigated, whether key evidence was fully explored, and whether the defense was permitted to present its strongest arguments to the jury.
We also found a man whose life story is more complicated than the version presented at trial.
Bradley grew up in a home marked by violence and instability. Scott had a history of violent behavior that extended long before Amanda’s death. Bradley has spoken openly with MTIP about experiencing physical abuse at his father’s hands and about the complicated relationship that existed between them.
“We can’t demand our clients to be perfect,” Charlie said. “We almost always work with people who have been hurt in the past or who have been broken. Brad isn’t perfect. But that doesn’t mean he killed his wife, and it doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the same right to a fair trial as anyone else does.”
The justice system cannot convict people because they are flawed or because they failed to live up to our expectations. It can only convict them when the evidence proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and when the process used to reach that verdict is fair.
That is why MTIP is involved in this case.
Watch: Meet Bradley
The Person Behind the Case
A former wildland firefighter and emergency medical technician, Bradley spent much of his adult life responding to emergencies and helping others. Before his incarceration, Bradley said his life revolved around his children.
“My job kept me on the road a lot,” Bradley said. “When I was home, I was dad. I was running the doctor’s appointments. I was taking the kids to and from and doing what needed to be done. I was cooking meals, being the jungle gym, and really enjoyed that.”
Since entering prison, Bradley has maintained clear conduct, worked consistently, participated in educational and trauma-recovery programs, and become deeply involved in faith-based programming.
He leads a weekly Bible study, is pursuing Bible college coursework, and is training to facilitate the Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP), a nationally recognized peer-support program.
He describes prison as a place that has tested his resilience but not broken it.
“I choose joy. I choose hope. I choose faith,” Bradley said. “No matter how bad things may look, I’m going to be happy. They can’t take that from me.”
When asked how he felt when MTIP accepted his case, Bradley said:
“There’s no skipping in prison. But if I could skip, I was skipping.”
He added:
“When you have hope of that restoration, of not being in prison anymore, of this tide turning and being free again, this is just a drop in the bucket compared to the value I’m going to have in the simplest of things.”
Fellow incarcerated people have become some of his strongest supporters. Several have written letters on his behalf without his knowledge, encouraging MTIP to review his case because they believe he does not belong in prison.
For Bradley, those acts of support have become a source of hope while he continues to fight for a new trial.
Next Steps
The petition seeks a new trial—an opportunity for the evidence, arguments, and unresolved questions to be fully considered. We have seen the timeline in these cases take years, so it is unlikely we will have an answer soon. But be sure to follow us on social media @BigSkyInnocence for the latest.
Listen to our newest podcast episode to learn more about Bradley’s case. Hear directly from Bradley as he shares his story, alongside our legal team as they break down the facts of the case, the investigation, and why we’re fighting for a new trial.
Click here to listen to the full episode.
