50 Shades of Evil: Montana - Michael Spell

In the early morning hours of January 7, 2012, beloved Sidney High School math teacher Sherry Arnold laced up her running shoes for a routine jog through her quiet Montana neighborhood. She never came home. What began as a desperate search for a missing wife, mother, and pillar of the community quickly spiraled into one of the most shocking crimes in northeast Montana’s history.

Two men from Colorado — Lester Waters and a young Michael Spell — had driven to the region chasing oilfield work during the height of the Bakken boom. High on crack cocaine and looking for trouble, they spotted Arnold running alone in the dark and made a split-second, horrific decision.

In this episode of 50 Shades of Evil, Jim Chapman breaks down the full story of Michael Spell’s Montana crimes: the random abduction, the violent struggle inside their Ford Explorer that ended Sherry Arnold’s life, the desperate attempt to hide her body across the state line in North Dakota, and the intense investigation that followed. We explore Spell’s troubling background, his significant intellectual disabilities, the lengthy competency battle that delayed justice, and his eventual guilty plea to deliberate homicide.

Jim examines the broader impact on the once-sleepy oil boom town of Sidney and the lingering questions about culpability, manipulation, and evil when drugs and damaged minds collide. Later, while serving his 100-year sentence inside Montana State Prison, Spell faced new criminal charges — including allegations tied to violence against another inmate and a 2024 incident involving a female corrections officer.

Chapters
07:12 Fatherhood and Addiction
09:10 Early Criminal Trouble
16:22 Sherry Arnold's Final Jog
22:17 Competency Battles
29:21 Prison Violence Continues
35:44 Spell's Grim Present

Michael Spell, Sherry Arnold murder, Sidney Montana, Bakken oil boom crime, Montana true crime, teacher abduction, crack cocaine murder, deliberate homicide