Nila Lynn Dawson was 20 and a junior at Rocky Mountain College studying Biology and Psychology when she was killed in a violent ambush at her family home on Stillwater River Road between Absarokee and Nye. Friends and community members remembered Nila as kind and vibrant; she’d graduated Absarokee High School in 2022 and had been active in athletics and the Future Farmers of America. She planned to become a Physician Assistant.

In the early morning hours of December 8, 2025, prosecutors say Nila’s estranged boyfriend, Tyler Allen Turney, drove from Texas to Montana and ambushed the Dawson home. Charging documents allege Turney shot and killed Nila in the garage and also shot and killed her 60-year-old mother, Justine Lynn Dawson. Justine was a longtime school board member and had worked as a clinic nurse; she was remembered as giving, fair, and fiercely supportive of her daughter.

Two men were wounded in the attack. Nila’s father, Gregory B. Dawson, was shot in the back when he went to the garage and was hospitalized. A friend, Matthew Cale Osgood, was shot in the arm as he approached and was also hospitalized.

Can anyone who knew Nila or the Dawson family share memories or details that might help preserve their story?