Wyoming News Briefs

Man stuck in the snow gets federal prison on drug and gun charges

GILLETTE (WNE) — A Campbell County man who was arrested after driving his truck into a snowbank last spring has been sentenced to more than 13 years in federal prison on drug and gun charges.

Jesse Walthers, 40, appeared before U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson in Cheyenne on Jan. 12. Johnson gave Walthers a 100-month sentence for possession with intent to distribute meth and a 60-month sentence for possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, set to run consecutive to each other. After serving his prison time, Walthers will begin three years of supervised release.

Troopers responded April 7 when someone reported seeing a white GMC Sierra pickup truck stuck in a snowbank off of Highway 50 in Campbell County south of Gillette. Tracks were seen leading to a damaged barbed wire fence. 

Walthers told the trooper that he had swerved to avoid hitting a deer and ran off the road, crashing into the fence.

During the crash investigation, a Ford Flex with Campbell County plates also pulled up to the crash site, and Walthers moved a large lock box from his truck to the Ford, according to court documents.

At that time, a sheriff’s office investigator told the trooper that local law enforcement had been briefed by Wyoming DCI about Walthers and suspected him of selling large amounts of meth and fentanyl throughout the state. The investigator was told by a Wyoming DCI agent that Walthers typically traveled with a lock box that held drugs he sold, according to court documents.

Inside Walthers’ truck, a storage container was found with two padlocks on the outside. Inside the box were two pistols, a plastic bag with an unspecified felony amount of meth, a digital scale with meth residue and five containers with about 100 “M30” pills each, suspected to contain fentanyl, according to court documents.

Most charges dropped against local man accused of illegally keeping wildlife parts

CODY (WNE) — A Powell man pleaded guilty to three of 18 charges for allegedly taking two grizzly bears without the proper license, imported wildlife parts illegally into the state and shipped several game animals illegally out of state.

Grant Cadwallader, 46, pleaded guilty to one count of knowingly importing golden eagle talons into Wyoming from another state, and to two counts of shipping a brown bear and bighorn sheep skull within Wyoming without a game tag or an interstate game tag.

He will be suspended from hunting from January 2024 to January 21, 2030, and must pay $2,160 in fines by February 23, 2024. He will face no jail time but will serve one year of unsupervised probation.

All other 15 charges against him were dismissed by Ed Luhm, Park County Circuit Court Judge.

“He is prohibited from purchasing any hunting or trapping items or purchasing any performer point during suspension in any state entered into the Wildlife violation compact,” according to the sentencing order. He is “prohibited from taking any species designated [as a] predatory animal, game bird or non game animal for which a license is not registered.”

Casper animal shelter pauses adoptions, surrenders

CASPER (WNE) — Metro Animal Services is temporarily pausing the dog adoptions after identifying “multiple stray dogs” with parvovirus in Casper. 

“Metro Animal Services Officers and Kennel Staff identified symptoms of the disease after bringing a stray dog into the shelter for protective services and confirmed another positive case in a stray pickup this week. Kennel staff have, and will continue to, work diligently to ensure the health of the animals in their care,” the shelter said in a press release sent on Tuesday. 

The shelter has immunized all of its dogs against the canine parvovirus, which affects the gastrointestinal tract of dogs, and sometimes, in small puppies, can cause issues with the heart muscles. 

Metro immunizes all dogs brought into its facilities, the release said. 

In addition to adoptions, the shelter has also stopped all dog visits and surrenders for the time being. 

The shelter is also currently over its capacity, according to Councilor Kyle Gamroth, who noted at Tuesday’s work session meeting that a hoarding case rescue has brought multiple animals to the shelter at once. 

“We confiscated thirteen dogs, seven cats, a rabbit and a chicken,” he said. “As it often occurs when we’ve got a big hoarding case and somebody’s got dozens and dozens of animals, it totally overwhelms the shelter.” 

Board of Geographic Names approves ‘Knight Lake’

LARAMIE (WNE) — The Wyoming Board of Geographic Names approved the renaming of Medicine Bow’s Swastika Lake to Knight Lake on Jan. 11 following a proposal first brought forward by a California resident last spring.

The original proposal suggested the name Fortune Lake to reflect the original meaning of the symbol. The Albany County Historical Society also suggested Knight Lake, which ultimately had the greatest support.

“The original proponent that had suggested Fortune Lake deferred to the historical society. She just wanted the name changed,” said Shelley Messer, Natural Resource Analyst with the Wyoming Board of Geographic Names (BGN), which is housed with the State Engineer’s Office. “So she withdrew her proposal, and so the only proposal on the table was for Knight Lake.”

Kim Viner, former secretary for Albany County Historical Society, shared the name was proposed in honor of Samuel H. Knight, University of Wyoming professor and curator of the UW Geological Museum.

“When the Albany County Historical Society was notified of this, we decided that if the name was to be changed it should be related to the history of Albany County,” Viner wrote in an email to the Laramie Boomerang. “Knight Lake was chosen to honor the contributions of Professor Knight to the history of the county and the University of Wyoming.”

Though the proposed change faced controversy, including County Commissioner Terri Jones making national headlines for her opposition to the proposal, Viner shared it was a necessary change for Albany County.

“We concurred with the party from California that the term swastika was indeed very closely related to Nazi Germany and neo-Nazis today and its appearance on maps in Albany County not appropriate. We also noted that the symbol is no longer used by Native Americans because of its negative connotation,” he wrote. 

Campbell County suicide count stays high through 2023

GILLETTE (WNE) — Campbell County followed its record year for suicides with its second-highest tally in 2023, marking back-to-back years of the highest suicide totals since the county began its tracking.

The 19 suicides in Campbell County throughout 2023 fell short of the 21 suicides the county experienced the year prior, but still marked its second-highest count, according to suicide data from the Campbell County Prevention Council.

The county had six suicides in all of 2019, followed by 13 in 2020. The county dropped to eight suicides in 2021, before setting its record-high in 2022.

Prior to 2022, the year-high in Campbell County had been 15 suicides.

“We’re seeing interpersonal relationship issues, whether that be an argument with a spouse, a sibling, a child, a parent — we’re seeing that same thing,” said Ashley McRae, suicide prevention specialist for Campbell County, of the trends in recent years.

Incidents involving alcohol and substance abuse, as well as access to firearms, have also remained common trends, she said.

Statewide, Wyoming saw a decrease in suicides, from 190 suicides in 2021 to 155 recorded in 2022, according to the Wyoming Department of Health.

The number of suicides in Wyoming for 2023 is not yet available, said Kim Deti, spokesperson for the state department of health.

Wyoming unemployment unchanged at 3.0% in December

CHEYENNE (WNE) — The Research and Planning Section of the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services reported Wednesday that the state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained unchanged from November to December at 3%.

Wyoming’s unemployment rate was considerably lower than its December 2022 level of 3.9% and lower than the current U.S. unemployment rate of 3.7%.

From November to December, unemployment rates decreased in every county. It is somewhat unusual to see county unemployment rates fall in December. The largest decreases occurred in Teton (down from 3.7% to 2%), Hot Springs (down from 2.9% to 2.2%), Uinta (down from 3.4% to 2.8%), Goshen (down from 2.8% to 2.2%) and Albany (down from 2.7% to 2.1%) counties.

From December 2022 to December 2023, unemployment rates fell in every county, suggesting that the state’s labor market continues to tighten. The highest unemployment rates in December were found in Big Horn County at 3.3%, Sublette County at 3% and Sweetwater County at 2.9%. The lowest unemployment rates were reported in Teton County at 2%, and Weston, Converse and Albany counties, each at 2.1%.

Current Employment Statistics estimates show that total nonfarm employment in Wyoming (not seasonally adjusted and measured by place of work) rose from 286,700 in December 2022 to 295,000 in December 2023, an increase of 8300 jobs (2.9%).

January unemployment data will be released on March 12.

Amid ‘dangerous’ conditions, skiers keep getting buried in avalanches

JACKSON (WNE) — More than five backcountry skiers, riders and snowmobilers — including a family — have been carried and buried by avalanches in the past week in the greater Teton area. All of them have survived.

Frank Carus, executive director of the Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center, said the number of accidents is indicative of how dangerous and atypical the snowpack remains a week after the last snowfall.

“These things are occurring in places and ways that people don’t expect,” Carus said. “It’s not just big high alpine terrain, but mid-elevation slopes that aren’t obvious avalanche paths.”

A month-long drought in December created a variety of weak layers — surface hoar, crusts and more — that were preserved in January when a series of storms dropped around four feet of snow in the Teton area. A week after the snow stopped, those weak layers are continuing to act like ball bearings under the new snow, which is consolidating into a hard slab capable of seriously injuring people caught in avalanches.

Carus said those layers are more widespread than usual. 

Since this past Saturday, the avalanche danger has been “considerable” at mid- and upper-elevation areas in the Tetons, meaning “dangerous” avalanche conditions exist, natural avalanches are “possible” and human-triggered slides are “likely.”

Though the danger rating has come down from “high,” in part because there have been fewer natural avalanches, forecasters have consistently warned about those dangerous weak layers.

Carus said the people who have been carried and buried in the past week have been lucky.

“Fortunately, they haven’t run into trees and they’ve been dug out quickly by skilled people,” he said.