Wyoming News Briefs

Supreme Court upholds decision to charge 14-year-old as adult

GILLETTE (WNE) —The state Supreme Court affirmed a ruling by a district judge that allowed a 14-year-old boy to be considered an adult after he took guns to Sage Valley Junior High with the intent of killing nine people in 2018.

The Monday court ruling said Judge John G. Fenn considered all aspects of the law when deciding that Dale L. Warner could be tried as an adult rather than have the case be transferred to juvenile court as his attorneys wanted.

His attorneys had claimed in appealing the decision that Fenn had abused its discretion because he had given undue weight to the seriousness of the crime.

Warner, then an eighth-grader at Sage Valley, took two guns into Sage Valley on Nov. 13, 2018, with the intent of killing six classmates, the principal, assistant principal, his teacher during that period and any others that he could.

The plan was thwarted because of the quick thinking of a classmate who warned then-Principal Terry Quinn after Warner had told him of his intentions during a chance encounter in the hallway. 

Warner was charged with nine counts of attempted first-degree murder.

It was the seriousness of the crime that Warner’s attorneys thought was unjustly weighed by Fenn in making his decision that Warner could be tried outside of juvenile court.

In the end, the nine counts of attempted first-degree murder were dismissed in a plea agreement. Instead, Warner pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of a deadly weapon with unlawful intent and was sentenced to 4.5 to five years on each count. He pleaded no contest to one count of aggravated assault and was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison. All the sentences were to run consecutively.

In historic tourism season statewide, Campbell County had solid year

GILLETTE (WNE) — Campbell County had a successful tourism season this year, although no records were broken.

Jessica Seders, executive director of the Campbell County Convention and Visitors Bureau, said that from Memorial Day to Labor Day, the visitors centers in Gillette and Wright saw more than 7,000 people. That was very close to the numbers seen in 2019, when the Pyrotechnics Guild International was in town.

While Gillette won’t ever be Yellowstone, it can be a place tourists stop in for a day or two on their way to Yellowstone, Seders said.

The healthy tourism numbers, combined with the increase in lodging tax that happened this spring, has led to a good year overall for the visitors center.

Campbell County’s 4% lodging tax began in April. It was a 100% increase from the 2% lodging tax that had been in place for years.

So far this fiscal year, which started July 1, the visitors center has collected about $480,000 in lodging tax, which is a 226% increase compared to last fiscal year up through the same point, Seders said.

And for the calendar year, $634,314 has been collected, is a 108% increase over 2020.

Seders attributed Wyoming’s record tourism season to the state having something for everyone, no matter how they felt about COVID-19.

People who were worried about the pandemic came to Wyoming because its wide open spaces and low population made it easier to social distance. And those who didn’t care about the pandemic appreciated that Wyoming had fewer restrictions than most other states, Seders said.

“I think Wyoming has proved itself and natural beauty,” Seders said. “I think we’re going to continue to see increases in tourism. I don’t believe this is going to be the end.”