In a bizarre twist that seems straight out of a novel, a romance writer faces allegations of a real-life murder involving a motel owner.
Kyle Ann Morrow, aged 73, has been indicted with deliberate homicide for the demise of Gene Gudmundson, according to a press announcement by the Meagher County Sheriff’s Office in Montana.
Morrow remains held at Broadwater County Detention Center under a $1 million bond, as per jail documents reviewed by Oxygen. Her plea status is undisclosed, and Oxygen reports inability to find her legal representative.
On the 12th of July, donned in a leopard-print sundress, cowboy hat, and leather gloves, Morrow allegedly entered the Spa Hot Springs Motel in the quaint town of White Sulphur Springs. She inquired about Gene and his wife, Andreluz Gudmundson, detailed in a probable cause affidavit seen by Oxygen.
Not long afterwards, Morrow purportedly proceeded past a swinging gate and fatally shot Gene.
“She said, ‘He is a son of a b—h, I shot him,’” an employee recalled in the affidavit. “I went to his office and saw him on the floor and blood.”
Later, when the Meagher County Undersheriff went to Morrow’s home, she allegedly refused to communicate and ignored seven attempts to reach her by phone, according to the affidavit.
“Sometime later, Kyle Morrow left the residence on her own, got into her Nissan Frontier, and began to leave her property,” the affidavit noted. “She was physically blocked by Montana Highway Patrol and Deputies, directed her out of the vehicle and she was taken into custody.”
In Morrow’s car, police found a partially filled bottle of Jameson and a handgun case, according to the affidavit. Multiple suicide notes, the affidavit revealed, were also uncovered in her home.
Morrow is a former motel employee with whom Meagher County Sheriff Jon Lopp said he’s had “mostly positive” exchanges.
“She was just Kyle,” Lopp told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. “We’ve seen her around; she rode her bike around a lot.”
After reading Fifty Shades of Grey, Morrow was inspired to become an author, penning three books—Belt Buckle Bunny, Black Iron Brandy and Two Crow Omen. To her, she created the “rodeo erotica” genre, with all her books including themes of romance and homicide.
“We knew that those were subjects that she wrote a lot in her books,” Lopp told the Chronicle. “But we got to look at everything, got to look at the whole picture.”
A review on Morrow’s website, by “Andreluz, Owner of Spa Hot Springs Hotel, Montana,” praised Black Iron Brandy as a page-turner.
“I’m hooked! Love it!,” Gene’s wife wrote. “Kyle, you’re amazingly funny!!!…thanks for the good read, my friend! Annie.”