Jury finds man not guilty in 2023 Sun River homicide case
A jury found Dalton Feeler not guilty of deliberate homicide, or mitigated deliberate homicide, on Feb. 11 after a three-day trial before Judge Elizabeth Best.
When the verdict was read in district court, Dalton Feeler jumped up from his seat and hugged one of his attorneys as his family audibly reacted and applauded.
Feeler shot and killed his father, Jason Feeler, at his father’s home in Sun River on Dec. 15, 2023, after his fiancé had given him an early Christmas gift, a positive pregnancy test with a note that there was an 80 percent change he might not be the father because Jason Feeler had raped her the Sunday after Thanksgiving, according to testimony throughout the trial.
Jason Feeler was 54 at the time and Dalton Feeler was 28, according to statements made during the trial.
Dalton Feeler drove from his home in Fairfield that day to his father’s house in Sun River to confront him about the alleged rape, taking his fiancé with him.
What followed was a physical altercation in a garage, broken up by Dalton Feeler’s sister and fiancé, then Jason Feeler taking Dalton Feeler’s gun and threatening to shoot himself and the trio in the garage with him. The men separated and Dalton Feeler called 911 to report the “sexual assault” and altercation.
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As a deputy was enroute, believing the weapon had been secured and it was a disturbance call, Dalton Feeler was in the front yard when Jason Feeler came out wielding a rusty sickle and challenging Dalton.
They again separated and believing Jason Feeler had gone into the house, Dalton Feeler said he went back to the garage to get away from his sister and fiancé who were fighting over information that the fiancé had been sending sexually explicit photos to Jason Feeler.
At the garage, he found his father locked inside, who came to open the door, at which point, Dalton Feeler pulled his gun and fired six shots, five of which struck Jason Feeler, who was pronounced dead on scene.
In his opening argument on Feb. 9, Dean Koffler, representing Dalton Feeler, said that “this ends tonight, it’s me or you” were some of last words uttered by Jason Feeler to Dalton Feeler, who was faced with “impossible choices” of saving himself or killing his father with seconds to decide.
Koffler said Dalton Feeler had been left to decide who to believe in regards to whether his father had raped his fiancé or it was a consensual relationship, but said the prosecution’s theories on whether it was a rape or an affair was “a distraction.”
Koffler said “Dalton shot Jason, we’re not going to say otherwise,” but it was a question of whether he had a choice.
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Koffler and the defense team argued throughout the trial that Dalton Feeler acted in self defense as Jason Feeler had threatened him throughout the series of three altercations that evening.
In his closing argument, Koffler argued that Dalton Feeler was aware of his father’s anger and attempted to argue that he was attempting suicide by cop, which was objected to by the prosecution and sustained by Best.
Koffler then called it “suicide by son,” and that whether it was rape or an affair, Jason Feeler had made a choice to do that to Dalton’s fiancé and she got pregnant, so Dalton Feeler deserved an answer, which he’d gone to his father’s house to get on Dec. 15, 2023.
Koffler said in the final seconds, in Dalton Feeler’s mind, his dad was going to kill him.
Throughout the three-day trial, the prosecution maintained that Dalton Feeler had gone to his father’s house angry, with a firearm and his fiancé seeking revenge and that he couldn’t argue self-defense after driving 16 miles to his father’s house to confront him.
Stephanie Fuller, one of the Cascade County deputy attorneys prosecuting the case, said that “it’s a case about revenge,” in her closing argument.
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She described the final altercation between Dalton and Jason Feeler in which Dalton went back to the garage, found the door locked and his jiggling it alerted Jason to his presence, who looked up and saw Dalton.
“I snickered, smiled, whatever you want to call it, grimaced,” Fuller quoted Dalton Feeler as saying to his father’s remarks as his father then walked toward the garage door to unlock it.
At that point, Dalton had backed up a few steps, then pulled his weapon and fired six shots at Jason, who fell backward into the garage as five bullets struck him, according to testimony.
Fuller said that Dalton Feeler drove to his father’s house with his fiancé, after she had told him she was pregnant and Jason Feeler had raped her, to confront his father.
Fuller said Dalton Feeler admitted to throwing the first punch in the first physical altercation in the garage.
On the 911 call, which was played multiple times throughout the trial, Fuller said that Dalton Feeler had told the dispatcher he’d come to his father’s house, confronted him, had a pistol with him and “I attacked him.”
She said the dispatcher told him to put the gun in his truck and leave it, and stay separated from his father until deputies arrived.
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“You’ve seen the evidence, Dalton didn’t do the things he said he was going to do,” Fuller said.
In the 11 minutes from the end of the 911 call to the first Cascade County Sheriff’s Office deputy arriving on scene, Jason Feeler had come out with a sickle antagonizing Dalton Feeler, but Dalton Feeler didn’t shoot him then.
Jason Feeler threw the sickle in the garbage and walked away, she said, and Dalton Feeler could have left the property or stayed separated, “but that’s not what he did.”
Instead, Fuller said, while standing with his fiancé and sister, he found out the rape might not have been a one time thing, but an eight time thing, and might have been a consensual relationship with his fiancé sending his father explicit pictures by text, and at that point, he went through the yard back to the garage and saw his father sitting inside through the glass panes.
Instead of leaving, Dalton Feeler tried to open the door and waited as Jason Feeler crossed about 28 feet to open the door.
“Dalton shot and killed his dad,” Fuller said, then walked by his body, took the magazine out of the gun and placed it on the table saw, then went to the front yard, kneeled down and waited for deputies.
“He did what he went there to do. He confronted Jason, his mission was complete,” Fuller said.
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On the second day of the trial, the defense called Dalton Feeler and his fiancé, Brooklynn Etzwiler, who said that when they pulled up to Jason Feeler’s house, Dalton Feeler went to the garage, told his sister to leave so they could have a conversation and handed her his gun. The two men started fighting and ended up on the ground.
Diamond Feeler, Dalton’s sister, heard the fight and came in to help break it up and Etzwiler said she’d put the gun on a table.
After the men were separated, Jason Feeler grabbed the gun and threatened Dalton and Diamond Feeler and Etzwiler said.
“Jason had eyes locked on Dalton like he was the target,” she said.
She went to the front yard finding Dalton on the phone and didn’t recall what she did with the gun at that point, she said.
Claire Lettow, an attorney for the defense, asked Etzwiler to demonstrate how Jason Feeler was holding the sickle, to which the prosecution objected and Judge Elizabeth Best said she was concerned about the safety issue of witnesses handling weapons in court, but allowed Lettow to demonstrate.
Lettow asked Etzwiler to demonstrate how fast she perceived Jason Feeler to move toward Dalton with the sickle during the second altercation of Dec. 15, 2023.
“He was very angry,” she said of Jason Feeler and that Dalton had backed up a few steps.
On cross examination, Ashlee Kummer, a Cascade County deputy attorney prosecuting the case, asked Etzwiler if she’d texted sexual things to Jason Feeler, to which she said yes, and that they’d discussed telling Dalton about the pregnancy via text.
Etzwiler testified that she had sent explicit text messages to Jason Feeler and after a brief sidebar amongst lawyers and the judge, Kummer asked Etzwiler to review some messages quietly to herself.
Kummer asked if those were true and accurate messages between Etzwiler and Jason Feeler, to which Etzwiler said she couldn’t recall but remembered sending similar messages.
As Etzwiler left the stand, the defense called Dalton Feeler.
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Koffler, Feeler’s defense attorney, asked if he’d driven to his father’s house that day to shoot him, to which Feeler replied, “no.”
Feeler recounted what had happened that day starting with Etzwiler giving him the positive pregnancy test and a note saying he might not be the father.
Dalton Feeler said he felt, “confusion, hurt,” and was wondering what she meant by it.
He testified that Etzwiler had told him that Jason Feeler had come to their house in Fairfield the Sunday after Thanksgiving and sexually assaulted her.
Dalton Feeler testified that upon hearing that information, he wanted to talk to his father about the “line between father and son that shouldn’t have been crossed or even walked on.”
He testified that it hadn’t crossed his mind at that point to call law enforcement about the alleged rape.
Koffler asked Dalton Feeler to describe specific incidents of his father’s past behavior and episodes of anger or violence and whether those incidents entered his mind while confronting his father on Dec. 15, 2023.
Feeler said he thought his father wouldn’t act that way with him, but he wanted some answers about Etzwiler’s allegations.
Feeler testified that when he entered the garage the first time to speak to his father, he handed his gun to Etzwiler so his father wouldn’t have access to it if something happened.
He said he was upset in that moment with “a lot of hurt in my heart.”
The men had a physical altercation in the garage that ended up on the floor, during which Dalton Feeler testified his father had his hands on his throat and started getting dizzy.
Dalton Feeler testified that he said let’s talk about it like adults but as they broke up, his father sprung up and grabbed the gun, chambered a round and said he was going to kill his son, daughter and Etzwiler.
Dalton Feeler testified that he left the garage, put his nephew in the house and went to the front yard to call 911.
Etzwiler brought the gun to him and the dispatcher asked Dalton Feeler to stay separated from his father.
He said he took a bullet out of the gun chamber and put it on the seat, but then thought that wasn’t a good idea if his father got to it, so he put the gun back in his waistband.
Then Jason Feeler came to the front yard with the sickle and Dalton Feeler testified that his father said something to the effect of where’s your gun, let’s play.
Dalton Feeler testified that his father came toward him and got about five or six feet away from him as he’d started backstepping and said, “I don’t want to shoot you dad.”
There was some discussion of the photos Etzwiler had sent to Jason Feeler, who walked away, Dalton Feeler testified.
He said he was confused and hurt and he thought he wanted to go home.
Diamond Feeler and Etzwiler were arguing, he testified, and he felt “lot of betrayal, lot of hurt, lot of mixed emotions.”
Koffler, his defense attorney, asked if he knew who to believe, to which Dalton Feeler said, “no.”
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Dalton Feeler said he’d been told his father was in the house, so he walked the garage to get his hat, found the door locked and then he noticed his father sitting inside.
He testified that he was thinking he shouldn’t be back there and should have stayed in the yard.
Dalton Feeler testified that his father asked if he wanted in, he shook his head no, and as Jason Feeler stood up and came toward the door, covering about 28 feet, he started backing away.
Dalton Feeler said that his father unlocked the door and was “very angry, very tense,” and he moved toward him.
Dalton Feeler “thought he was gonna come out there and kill me,” he testified, as his father moved toward him.
He testified that Jason Feeler said at that point, “this ends tonight it’s me or you I’m gonna kill you.”
The prosecution argued that those remarks had been made earlier in the series of incidents, as Dalton Feeler had told investigators in interviews.
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As his father opened the door, Dalton Feeler testified that he started shooting as his father started crossing the threshold.
He testified that he was feeling, “lot of fear, lot of is this real, lot of adrenaline.”
Dalton Feeler testified that after firing about six shots, his father had fallen backwards, and he walked into the garage, sat the gun down on a table saw, opened the garage bay door for his sister and walked out to the front yard, where he knelt and waited for law enforcement.
He testified that he didn’t say anything to his sister after the shooting and was in “shock, mixed emotions going through a lot of is this real can’t believe that just happened.”
Emotional on the stand, he said he loved his father “very much. I wish he was still here.”
Stephanie Fuller, a Cascade County deputy attorney, cross examined Dalton Feeler asking if he took Etzwiler to her alleged perpetrators house and armed himself to confront his father in rage.
Dalton Feeler said it was a force of habit and he always takes his gun with him, keeping it in the console of his truck, as a construction worker who travels often for work.
Fuller questioned discrepancies in several aspects of Dalton Feeler’s testimony in court, his statements during the 911 call and what he’d told a detective in an interview after the shooting.
On the first day of the trial, the prosecution called Diamond Feeler, Dalton’s sister and Jason’s daughter.
Ashlee Kummer, one of the Cascade County deputy attorneys prosecuting the case, asked her about what had happened that day.
Diamond Fuller said she was living in town then and that day had asked Jason Feeler to pick up her then five-year-old son from school.
She said that after work, she went to Jason Feeler’s house in Sun River to pick up her son and was hanging out with her dad in the garage and the two were sharing a beer and cigarette.
Diamond Feeler said Dalton Feeler and his fiancé, Brooklynn Etzweiler, had come through the house to the garage and Dalton told his sister to leave since he needed to have a serious conversation with his father.
She said Dalton Feeler was very angry and Etzwiler was crying.
“I knew something was off,” Diamond Feeler said.
She testified that she heard Etzwiler yelling at them to stop, looked in and saw the men fighting and yelling at each other, so she went in to break them apart.
She said she didn’t see who started it or know her brother had a gun, but they were threatening each other and saying they were going to kill each other.
Diamond Feeler said that Jason Feeler got her brother’s gun and was pointing it at Dalton, so she stood in the way because she didn’t think her father would shoot her.
She said that she saw her son standing at the door watching and told Dalton Feeler to put her son in the house and get out of the garage, while she stayed in the garage while Jason Feeler was threatening to kill himself.
Diamond Feeler testified that she was able to get the gun away from her father and gave it to Etzwiler.
She said she asked her father what was going on and he’d told her that Etzwiler had claimed he raped her, but Jason Feeler said it was consensual and she’d been sending him explicit photos.
Diamond Feeler said that she went out to talk to Dalton and told him what Jason had said about the photos when Jason came out with the sickle.
She testified that Jason was very mad and she didn’t remember exactly what was said but they were “hateful words.”
Dalton “felt betrayed” having just found out about the photos, Diamond Feeler testified, and said she was arguing with Etzwiler and didn’t see where her father or Dalton had walked off too, but shortly afterward, heard gunshots.
She said she’d never seen the look in her brother’s face before, “never seen him so angry.”
