A Clinton man pleaded not guilty Thursday to murdering two elderly women at a Missoula nursing home in 1990, a cold case reopened last year following new DNA analysis.
Nickie Dean Gardiner, 69, appeared virtually from the Missoula County Detention Center before District Court Judge Shane Vannatta, who appointed him a public defender, took his plea and set a preliminary hearing for August 20. Gardiner was arrested on a $5 million warrant, and Vannatta continued his bail at that amount.
Gardiner was arrested and charged with two counts of deliberate homicide earlier this month following new DNA analysis of evidence collected at the time of the murders, according to a press release from the Missoula County Attorney’s Office. No suspect had been charged until now.
“These crimes devastated families and shook our community more than three decades ago,” said Mac Bloom, Missoula County’s chief criminal deputy county attorney, in a statement. “Thanks to advances in DNA technology and the perseverance of investigators, we are now able to take meaningful action to seek justice for the victims.”
In May 1990, Bertha Scott, an 85-year-old with dementia, was found dead in her room at Riverside Health Care Center, now known as Riverside Health and Rehabilitation. Employees noticed some faint bruising on her neck but didn’t find her death particularly suspicious and did not alert law enforcement, according to information from police reports outlined in the charging documents. The employees also discovered a cut and removed window screen in the physical therapy room, but did not initially connect it with Scott’s death, the report said.
Two months later, when trying to check on resident Nancy Lagerquist, a bedridden 88-year-old with dementia, an employee found her door had been barricaded shut from the inside with a chair, according to charging documents. The employee forced her way into the room and found it empty. Soon after, law enforcement found Lagerquist’s body nearby in the Clark Fork River. After an autopsy, her death was classified as a homicide. Investigators concluded Lagerquist had been removed through her window, sexually assaulted and killed, according to the court documents. Her window screen, as well as several others, had been cut to allow entry from outside, investigators found.
Riverside employees told law enforcement about the circumstances of Scott’s death, and her body was eventually exhumed, and an autopsy was performed. The autopsy revealed that she had been raped and strangled.
During the autopsies, DNA samples were collected from both women, but law enforcement did not have the technology to fully analyze the evidence, according to prosecutors. Multiple people were interviewed as potential suspects over the years, but no charges were filed in either murder.
The Missoula County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Unit began investigating the case in 2019. The Montana State Crime Lab in April 2025 prepared a report identifying a possible suspect in Scott’s murder after using improved DNA technology to develop a partial DNA profile from sperm cells collected during the autopsy, according to charging documents. That profile was “preliminarily associated” with Gardiner’s DNA profile, collected following his conviction of an unrelated crime.
In December 2025, investigators collected a DNA swab and fingerprints from Gardiner and released him. The Montana Crime Lab sent the samples to Bode Technology, which found that Gardiner’s DNA is strongly associated with samples collected from both victims’ bodies, according to the county attorney’s office.
Gardiner has lived in Montana most, if not all, of his adult life, primarily in the East Missoula, Milltown and Clinton areas east of Missoula. Gardiner was previously convicted of several crimes, including burglary, DUI and domestic abuse, according to the charging documents. He has no known ties to either Scott nor Lagerquist. Investigators found no explanation other than criminal activity for the presence of Gardiner’s DNA on both victims, according to the county attorney’s office.
On June 5, the Missoula County Attorney’s Office charged Gardiner with two counts of deliberate homicide and requested a $5 million warrant. He was booked in the Missoula jail June 8.
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