Wyoming News Briefs

Woman tried to escape multiple times after domestic battery arrest

GILLETTE (WNE) – A 32-year-old woman who was arrested for domestic battery Sunday night also was charged with interference after trying several times to escape custody.

A 31-year-old man in Wright called 911, saying the woman had hit him in the face. He said he’d lived with the woman for two years, but they’ve been going through a breakup for the last two months after a prior assault in May, said Undersheriff Quentin Reynolds.

He left for work earlier in the evening and asked her to watch his 9-year-old daughter. A friend called him, saying the woman was not taking care of the girl. He left work to talk to her, and she met him on the front deck of the house, where she hit him.

She was arrested for domestic battery.

While she was being driven from Wright to Gillette, she was able to remove her handcuffs and unbuckle herself. When deputies put her back in restraints she tried to escape again, Reynolds said. She made more attempts at trying to unbuckle her seat belt and escape from the patrol car.

Due to her escape attempts, she had to be placed on a gurney and rolled into jail, Reynolds said. For her efforts she was charged with interference with a peace officer. At the jail she took a portable breath test, and her blood alcohol concentration was 0.11%, Reynolds said.

Woman wants her purse taken to jail; meth discovered inside

CODY (WNE) — When Kelsey Spencer was being arrested for breaking her probation, she demanded her purse go with her to the Park County Detention Center. Inside that purse lay an unused syringe and meth.

Spencer, 28, had been brought to the Detention Center on June 30 after the state submitted a petition to revoke her probation after failing to show up to two probation meetings and admitting to using meth twice.

Spencer had previously told authorities they would find no syringes in the purse.

When Powell Police Sgt. Dustin DelBiaggio searched the bag, he also came across an old pill bottle with its label peeling off. 

A test of the bottle found 22.5 grams of liquid meth.

When given a urine test, Spencer tested positive for meth and amphetamines.

She is being charged with possession of a felony amount of meth and being under the influence of meth.

Spencer has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is scheduled for a Sept. 9 pretrial conference and Oct. 13 jury trial in this case. She is currently serving a suspended 2-4 year sentence that could be reimposed if she violates her probation.

Spencer will be released from jail on Aug. 16 so that she can start attending Park County Drug Court immediately. Her attorney Sarah Miles said there is a strong likelihood she will also be recommended for inpatient treatment.

The state submitted a petition to revoke her probation in May for not showing up to two probation meetings and admitting to using meth twice. Spencer had sold .25 ounces of marijuana and 5.8 grams of mushrooms to an informant in May 2020.

Family alleges wrongful arrest by Park Co. officers

CASPER (WNE) — A Missouri family is suing law enforcement in Park County, alleging they were held at gunpoint by officers for more than an hour without cause while leaving Yellowstone National Park in 2017. 

Brett and Genalyn Hemry filed a complaint in federal court in July seeking damages for the incident. 

According to the lawsuit, Park Service rangers and Park County sheriff’s deputies allegedly pulled the Hemrys over while searching for a triple homicide suspect whose car was found in the Bridger-Teton National Forest about a week prior. 

Dispatch records cited in the complaint state rangers had flagged the family’s car, a white Toyota with Missouri plates, as the suspect’s potential vehicle.

Throughout the roughly hour and a half the suit states the family was held, the Hemrys allege they weren’t given any chance to identify themselves and weren’t told the reason for their detainment until being released. 

Brett and Genalyn Hemry were also traveling with an underage child, who according to the lawsuit was detained in the family’s car while the parents were reportedly handcuffed and put into sheriff’s patrol cars. 

The Hemrys are now making three claims against the rangers and sheriff’s deputies — alleging false arrest, excessive force and false imprisonment. They’re also calling for the matter and amount of damages to be decided by a jury.

Woman who shot estranged husband sentenced to prison

GILLETTE (WNE) — A Gillette woman who shot her estranged husband in November 2019 was sentenced to 20 to 28 years in prison Thursday afternoon.

At her sentencing hearing in District Judge Thomas W. Rumpke’s courtroom, Paulette Iliff, 56, said she had planned to shoot herself in front of him before she decided to shoot him instead.

Five days before the shooting, her husband of more than 30 years, Robert Iliff, told her that he’d met someone else and that he wanted a divorce.

Iliff said her “life was gone” when she got the news. In the days that followed, she made threats toward her husband, ruined his phone, followed him around town, stole money and valuable items from him and hid in his truck.

Early morning Nov. 11, 2019, she drove through snowy weather from Wheatland to Gillette, parked at the City Pool, walked to the house that the two of them lived in at the time, and waited for him to come home, said prosecuting attorney Nathan Henkes.

Robert got home at about 6:30 a.m. He changed into his work clothes and went to the kitchen to get his medication. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and when he turned around he saw Paulette standing in the hallway with a gun.

Before pulling the trigger, she said, “I hope you enjoyed your sleepover,” Gillette Police Cpl. Dan Stroup said at her preliminary hearing.

The bullet went through the left side of Robert’s chest and exited through his left armpit, Henkes said.

WYDOT to reduce speed limit on Teton Pass

JACKSON (WNE) — Pending internal approvals, the Wyoming Department of Transportation is set to reduce the speed limit on Teton Pass from 55 to 45 mph.

The proposed change is the result of a speed study that the Teton County Board of County Commissioners and Teton Backcountry Alliance requested from WYDOT in July 2020.

The impetus was concern about safety at the top of the pass where recreationists and motorists intersect, particularly in the winter when people park up high to ski.

WYDOT District Traffic Engineer Darin Kaufman said the speed study showed that people typically drive the upper elevations of the pass at lower speeds, and the department generally starts to set speed limits within 5 mph of how quickly 85% of people drive along a given byway.

But it also takes other factors into consideration. Kaufman said both applied on Teton Pass.

“People were driving that speed already, and also it’s a different environment,” he said. “The grade and the curves, they kind of control what’s going on regardless of anything else.”

On Teton Pass people were generally driving slower than the posted 55 mph speed limit at the top of the pass, the study showed.

The fastest that 85% of drivers rounded the summit was 49 mph in the summer and 42 mph in the winter.

That and road conditions like the grade and curvature on Teton Pass gave WYDOT the data needed to lower the speed.