John Lordan had
excellent coverage of this case on his show BrainScratch, so I definitely recommend his video, as well as
this article which John also references.
What a confusing case—the number of people involved, the costumes, etc. Just for my own sanity in putting all this together to figure out what happened, I had to list the principal characters:
Dramatis Personae
Joel Lovelien
Travis Stay (The Lion)
James Wavra (The Hunter)
Jon Deziel (The Clown)
Bryce Larson (The Cowboy)
Mitchell Dahlen (The Gangsta)
Josh Deziel (The Construction Worker)
Here's what I think happened.
Aboard a party bus, in the parking lot of the Broken Drum Bar and Grill, Travis Stay (The Lion) got into a random fight with James Wavra (The Hunter). I think Travis is the kind of guy that gets belligerent when drunk (from what we learn later), but he loses this fight when James punches Travis in the face, injuring him below his left eye. After the fight is broken up, Bryce Larson (The Cowboy), who had organized the party bus, decides to kick Travis off the bus.
While this is happening, Joel leaves the bar, where he was celebrating Halloween with his fiancée, to take a call. Joel hears the commotion caused when Travis is kicked off the bus—I doubt it happened in silence. It's possible Joel walked over and spoke to Travis, who told him he'd just been kicked off, but I think it's more likely that Joel heard the exchange. Maybe Bryce and/or his friends yelled something like, "We're kicking you out!", and Travis yelled back, "You can't just leave me behind!"
Joel decides he wants to help, and to help Travis in particular when he sees Travis' injury.
He goes back into the bar and tells his girlfriend, "Somebody got left by the bus, [and I'm going] to go check on him." Now, by this comment, Joel didn't mean "the bus already left," as some have suggested. No, Joel just meant that someone got kicked off and was going to be left behind.
Travis is now off the bus, but he's probably still shouting at Bryce and his friends. This is when Bryce and two of his friends, Mitchell (The Gangsta) and Josh (The Construction Worker), decide to go out and "give [him] some grief." Josh probably had also planned to go into the bar to pick up his brother Jon (The Clown), who was still having a drink, and let him know the bus was about to leave.
But when Bryce, Mitchell, and Josh come out of the bus, they see Joel, this big guy dressed as a Fighting Sioux fan, standing there at Travis' defense. Whether he recognizes their faces and/or voices, Joel knows these are the guys who kicked Travis off, although I doubt Joel knew Travis himself was the reason for getting kicked off.
I feel like Joel spoke up first, something like, "What do you guys think you're doing?" Or, "Okay, that's enough, you leave him alone now!" I think Heather speculated that Joel might've been counting on his size to intimidate the guys. But would it intimidate three guys together? Joel, who was 38, may have also felt confident in handling these young kids in their early 20s.
Bryce counters with "
He's your problem now," as he testified in court. At this point, I think Mitchell, a Gophers fan, made a derogatory comment against Joel, who dressed as a fan of rivals the Fighting Sioux. This is Joel's favorite team, so of course he's not going to let that slide, and the two start to argue.
This is when Jon, Josh's brother, arrives from behind. According to surveillance footage, he exited the bar three and a half minutes after Joel. Jon hears the argument as he approaches and, seeing his brother, asks something like, "What's going on here?" This distracts Joel, who is not expecting anyone to be behind him. When Joel turns around, I think Mitchell decides to take a swing at him.
Joel instinctually fights back, and so Bryce and Josh decide to help their friend Mitchell, and Jon of course decides to help his brother, and this is how it becomes
four men against one. Or alternatively, one of the guys could've fought with Travis if Travis had joined the fight for whatever reason.
Now, why weren't there more witnesses? Because all this is happening
behind the bus, where people inside can't see. They might be able to hear, but I wonder if they had music on since this is, after all, a
party bus. They would've been talking loudly, probably getting more drinks etc. Hopefully the driver wasn't drinking, but he could've also been talking with the guests if he knew some of them. The point is, the fight happens out of range of sight and hearing, especially
due to the parking lot layout.
Although when written it seems like it's a lot, I feel like this could definitely happen within a matter of, say, five minutes (to account for the 3.5 minutes in between Joel's and Jon's separate departures from the bar). And I really feel that Bryce, Mitchell, Josh, and Jon did it for the following reasons:
• Jon, the last to arrive on the scene as per surveillance, was observed "visibly distraught," "crying on two occasions" after this, and "his hands were shaking," and saying, "I guess things got out of hand tonight." Why were his hands shaking? If it was Travis who attacked Joel, and not Jon and the guys, then it would've been Jon, Bryce, Mitchell, and Josh—four guys trying to separate two. And mind you, I doubt Joel was the type to have wanted to continue to fight as he was being separated, so it's really a matter of keeping Travis back. Does that sound so hard and emotionally draining enough that you'd cry about it a couple of times afterwards? No. In my opinion, the simpler explanation is that, in the heat of the moment, Jon joined the fight with the other three against Joel, and possibly Travis. Two guys throwing punches at you and your three friends, who themselves are throwing punches sounds more emotional and chaotic to me, than four guys trying to separate two.
• Bryce lied to police about his name and birthdate, and also lied about witnessing the fight between Travis and James on the bus, even though Bryce organized the party bus and actually kicked Travis off because of that fight. And
then, according to the police report, Bryce saw "a large guy wearing a UND Fighting Sioux jersey in the parking lot, [and] this guy had blood on his face. [Bryce] denied the subject had significant injuries." It sounds to me like, even at this early stage, Bryce was already starting to set up Travis as the fall guy. Of course, Bryce patently denies ever having said this because it conflicts with Mitchell's account that they were all laughing about the sports rivalry. There's no way Joel had a scuffle with Travis, and proceeded to have a light-hearted conversation with some other random guys while his face is bleeding and the guy who did it is standing right there.
• Mitchell, by process of elimination, I feel is the only one with the reason to have attacked Joel because of the sports rivalry. Bryce was clearly already done with Travis since he kicked him off the bus, so I don't think he cared who Travis went to. Travis was now Joel's problem, as far as Bryce was concerned. I don't know much about Josh's testimony, but it sounds like he went out as backup for the "grief" they were going to give
Travis, not a complete stranger. And I don't think Jon was present when the argument started behind the bus. That leaves only Mitchell. But since all four of them became directly involved after the first punch, they all decided to lie about it and say it was Travis.
And last but not least are Joel's actual injuries. I mean, the bones in his face had been broken, and there was blood everywhere—all of within the span of "
a few minutes," from when someone came back yelling "Call 9-1-1!" It's easier for me to believe that four men did those instead of just one—especially when that one was drunk enough to start two fights that night and lose each one.