check to see if he was going to pasture. reporter: a nondescript little place out on the montana prairie. a bit worn around the edges. do you know where he shot himself? he doesn t know. is he still alive? there s blood everywhere. reporter: the sort of place a young vet could live cheap while he built his business. well, if you can have somebody go check and see if he s still alive. i have paged the ambulance. reporter: when the local sheriff s deputies arrived, they found the body in the middle of the kitchen floor lying on its back. blood had pooled under its head. on one foot was a shoe of the sort people wear in the water. the other was bare. a .357 magnum was on the floor not far from the dead man s left hand. marlene protsman saw all this, too, same time as the deputies. but she could tell right away, as apparently they could not, that she d been wrong on the 911 call. the man did not shoot himself. bryan had a cut on his nose.