Local murder leads to Alaska indictment

The same man who pleaded guilty in the shooting death of Lorraine Kay Morin in 2008 has been indicted by a grand jury in Alaska for a similar crime that occurred there in 1996.

Morin, who left behind six children, the youngest in elementary school, was shot in the face at her home on Montana 206 south of Columbia Falls.

Her boyfriend at the time, Robert Kowalski, fled to his Creston home on Montana 35, where he was arrested after a 31-hour standoff with law enforcement.

Flathead County prosecutors maintained that Kowalski and Morin had been arguing while drinking and that the shooting was not accidental. Kowalski pleaded guilty to mitigated deliberate homicide by way of Alford plea and was sentenced to 40 years in prison in April 2009.

Now, according to the Anchorage Daily News, a grand jury in Juneau, Alaska, has indicted Kowalski in the shooting death of Sandra Perry, a 38-year-old mother of three, while they were vacationing together at a resort in Yakutat, Alaska.

Kowalski, who was 35 at the time, maintained that the shotgun shooting was an accident. Kowalski's similar claim here in 2008 prompted Alaska prosecutors to re-open the Perry case, which initially was determined to be accidental.

Kowalski told Alaska investigators he grabbed a shotgun in response to hearing what he thought was a bear outside their room at the resort. He said he tripped on a bed, fell on Perry and the gun went off as he stood up.

In both cases, Kowalski shot the girlfriends in the mouth from close range and stayed with the bodies several hours before calling authorities, and both shootings apparently were preceded by domestic disturbances.

Kowalski, now 50, remains behind bars in Montana pending extradition to Alaska.