Who is Rachel Bellesen? Montana woman who killed abusive ex, cleared of charges
KALISPELL, MONTANA: On Tuesday, May 25, a judge in Sanders County, Montana, dropped homicide charges against a woman who killed her abusive ex-husband. District Court Judge Amy Eddy ordered the charges dropped with prejudice. This means that prosecutors would not be able to bring them again at a later date.
The motion to dismiss the charge, without prejudice, was filed on April 9. Defense attorney Lance Jasper had said at the time that he had offered to turn over the entire defense case in exchange for a guarantee prosecutors would agree to drop the matter if charges had not been refiled within a year. That offer was refused, he said.
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Who is Rachel Bellesen?
On the evening of October 8, 2020, a 911 dispatcher in Sanders County, Montana, received a phone call from Bellesen, who was calling from a gas station in Hot Springs, a rural town located on the Flathead Indian Reservation. “I need the police,” she reportedly said. “I killed someone.”
She had shot and killed her former husband, Jacob Glace. Bellesen admitted to the shooting but said she did so because Glace, who had pleaded guilty to assaulting her years earlier, had attempted to rape her twice that night.
Bellesen, 38, the coordinator at the nearby Abbie Shelter for domestic violence survivors was a survivor of domestic violence herself. Growing up in Washington State, she lived with an alcoholic mother. One of her mother’s many boyfriends reportedly sexually abused her until she was 15.
She became pregnant by Glace, a local drug dealer, who lived down the street from her in Leavenworth, Washington, at the age of 16. Her mother moved to Montana and refused to take her pregnant daughter with her. She says her mother told her: “We’re not taking pregnant kids to Montana.”
Homeless, she moved in with Glace. She had her second child one year later. Bellesen has alleged that Glace was abusive. In 2004, a neighbor called 911 to report that Glace had dragged Bellesen out of her apartment by her hair and thrown her to the ground. Cops found Glace in an “extremely intoxicated” state.
Bellesen told officers she was trying to separate from Glace but that he wouldn’t leave her alone. Glace, following this incident, pleaded guilty to fourth-degree assault and the couple divorced later that year.
Unable to support her children without her husband and at the same time dealing with alcoholism, she lost custody of her two children. Glace, who then had full custody of the children, let Bellesen take the children and came to Whitefish, Montana, (where she had moved back in with her mother) to visit them. In 2009, he moved to Montana and, as per Bellesen's claims, continued to harass her, constantly threatening to take away the kids if she didn’t do what he wanted.
In 2012, Bellesen started volunteering at the Abbie Shelter and quickly found herself drawn to working with other domestic violence survivors. Despite being able to make several positive changes in her life, Glace continued to harass her. On the night of October 8, Bellesen agreed to meet with Glace outside of his home because of a threatening comment he had made about their son.
When she arrived, Glace allegedly attacked her and attempted to rape her, ripping her clothes and leaving scratches and bruises across her body. In the heat of the moment, she pulled out her handgun and shot him. Following the 911 call, when police arrived and took her to a nearby hospital, she told two nurses that her ex-husband had attempted to assault her. The next day, the county attorney charged Bellesen with deliberate homicide.
“I never thought I’d go in and have to argue and say a dismissal isn’t good enough,” Bellesen’s attorney said of the charges being dropped. “But gosh, it was great.” In a statement, Bellesen said, “Much like Jake tried so hard to do over the course of more than 20 years, the State of Montana again attempted to silence my voice.”
She said, “At the very start they declared me a murderer, claimed I executed an innocent man in cold blood. They took my life, the lives of my loved ones, ripped it all apart with their horrible claims, and then tried to just walk away when they realized that they had no case. It was eerily similar to when an abuser attacks you -- and then tries to serve a sad excuse of apology with a bouquet of flowers the next morning, expecting you to just take them in gratitude, say nothing, and go on about your day like nothing happened.”