Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of murder and assault. Readers’ discretion is advised.
Featuring the case of Mason Moore, the Dateline episode titled ‘On a Dark, Deserted Highway’ aired on February 3, 2023. It explores the story behind the murder of Moore and the conviction of Lloyd Barrus. The episode is now set to re-air on Dateline: Unforgettable on Oxygen on January 18, 2024, at 8 p.m. ET.
Mason Moore was a sheriff for the Broadwater County Sheriff’s Office and attempted to pull over a vehicle on a highway on May 16, 2017. When the driver did not comply, he reportedly began to chase the vehicle in a 160-mile pursuit that ended in another passenger from the car opening fire. The shot wounded him and caused him to lose control. He slid off the road and was repeatedly opened fire until he was shot twice in the head near Missoula.
Moore was heavily wounded and subsequently died of the gunshot. After the shooting, the Montana Highway Patrol went after the car and managed to stop the vehicle using deflation devices and identified the occupants. They were identified as Lloyd and Marshall Barrus, a father-son duo who shot Mason Moore 19 times, as reported by the U.S. Sun. In the chase that followed, officers shot and killed Marshall Barrus and arrested his father, Lloyd Barrus.
In May 2017, Mason Moore had been serving in the department for three years. However, he had been in law enforcement for fifteen years. Meanwhile, when Lloyd Barrus was convicted of Mason Moore’s murder, his anti-law enforcement views were reported to be fairly strong.
When was Lloyd Barrus convicted of Mason Moore’s murder?
NBC Montana reported that on September 21, 2021, Lloyd Barrus was convicted of three counts of deliberate homicide by accountability and two counts of attempted deliberate homicide. He was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences for the 2017 murder of Mason Moore in April 2022. Earlier, the defense presented Lloyd as mentally unfit to be tried owing to various disorders. The court agreed to this in 2018 but later found him healthy enough to stand trial.
Lloyd Barrus is currently serving his sentence at the Montana State Prison, and his jail sentence was determined in April 2022, nearly seven months after the conviction was made official. Dan Guzynski and Stephanie Robles, attorneys from the Montana Department of Justice, prosecuted the case. Lloyd Barrus and his son, Marshall Barrus, allegedly led the police on a 160-mile chase. The chase ended in a shootout that killed Marshall. The shootout allegedly occurred near Missoula.
Prosecutors claimed that Lloyd and Marshall expressed views resistant to law enforcement authorities. In fact, this wasn’t Lloyd’s first conflict with law enforcement. Authorities reportedly arrested Lloyd Barrus, along with his son Jeffrey, in California after a speedy chase in Death Valley National Park, according to Montana Free Press. Although no lives were lost in that incident, there was an accidental gunshot at a California Highway Patrol Helicopter, which forced the vehicle to land.
Dateline explored Mason Moore’s murder case on Dateline for the first time last year on February 3. Now, Dateline: Unforgettable will re-visit the case on Oxygen on January 18, 2024, at 8 p.m. ET.
