A Montana sheriff was killed over the weekend in a head-on collision with a tractor-trailer.
Big Horn County Sheriff Darrell King was traveling along Highway 212 near the Little Bighorn Battlefield Monument at around 5 p.m. Sunday when the crash happened, KTVQ-TV reports. King, 55, was driving a private vehicle and not a cruiser at the time of the collision.
The incident is under investigation, but authorities do not believe alcohol or speed played a part in it. Undersheriff Jeromie Middlestead was appointed interim sheriff Monday.
“You couldn’t ask for a better son, a better brother, a better father," said Mark Denny, King's brother. "He was one of the greatest men I ever had the privilege of knowing."
King was elected to sheriff last year, and his term began in January, according to KPAX-TV. He was a Marine who served in Operation Desert Storm, and he was a prosecutor in Lame Deer and worked with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the La Paz County Sheriff's Office in Arizona.
“He didn’t make friends, he made family," said Denny. "So everyone that got to know him eventually became a brother, sister, mother, and father,."
