State Briefs

Man killed in wreck south of Wright

GILLETTE (WNE) — Wyoming Highway 59 was closed for about seven hours Friday after a fiery two-vehicle accident that killed a man.

A semitruck heading northbound on an icy Highway 59 by Cosner Road south of Wright T-boned a southbound pickup at about 9 a.m., said Trooper Eli Ellis of the Wyoming Highway Patrol.

The pickup was in a passing lane when it apparently lost control on the ice and drifted into the northbound lane in front of a Rev Energy semi-truck, Ellis said.

The semi “attempted to brake, but couldn’t stop in time,” he said.

The big rig hit the pickup T-bone fashion on its passenger side, and the pickup “immediately caught fire and slid down an embankment and became fully involved.”

While the pickup was too damaged to determine how fast it may have been going when it lost control, Ellis said the WHP estimates the semi was traveling at about 50-60 mph when the truck slid in front of it.

The driver of the pickup was killed in the crash and his identification is being withheld until his next of kin can be notified, said Campbell County Coroner Paul Wallem.

The cause of the crash is being attributed to icy road conditions.

Friday’s fatality is the third so far on Wyoming highways in 2020.

Man in fatal crash identified as Casper resident

GILLETTE (WNE) — The man who was killed on icy roads Friday morning was 46-year-old Peter P. Godwin of Casper.

He died instantly after his 2017 Dodge Ram pickup collided with a semi-trailer Friday morning, Campbell County Coroner Paul Wallem said Monday.

The man was driving southbound by Cosner Road south of Wright about 9 a.m. when he lost control on the ice and drifted into the northbound lane in front of a northbound 2018 Kenworth commercial truck.

The driver of the Rev Energy semi-truck was 33-year-old Zach Manning of Gillette, according to the Wyoming Highway Patrol. The semi attempted to brake, but could not stop in time and T-boned the pickup.

The pickup immediately caught fire and slid down an embankment, Wyoming Highway Patrol Tooper Eli Ellis said.

Manning, who was wearing his seat belt, was taken to Campbell County Memorial Hospital for injuries he received in the crash. Godwin, who was wearing a seat belt, died at the scene of his injuries.

A Nigeria native, Godwin had a Casper address but worked in Gillette.

An autopsy will be completed some time this week, Wallem said.

The accident caused Highway 59 to shut down for several hours Friday.

Godwin’s death is the fourth fatality on Wyoming’s roadways in 2020 compared to 14 in 2019, six in 2018, and six in 2017 to date.

DCI director to retire

CASPER (WNE) — The director of Wyoming’s drug investigative agency will retire later this spring, he told the Star-Tribune last week. 

Steve “Woody” Woodson, who has led the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation since 2012, said that his retirement will become effective March 1. 

Attorney General Bridget Hill, under whose supervision DCI rests, confirmed Woodson’s pending retirement and said that working with him was a pleasure.

“I have very much appreciated his tremendous passion and dedication to law enforcement and I will always admire his level of commitment and devotion to his job.” Hill said by email on Thursday afternoon. “We are lucky to have had him and I am thankful he decided to share his talents with this office for nearly the past decade. He will be missed.” 

Before he was named to lead the agency under then-Gov. Matt Mead, Woodson worked more than 31 years in law enforcement. After a stint as a detective in Missouri, Woodson took an agent’s job with DCI. After leaving the Wyoming agency for the first time, he spent 20 years working for the Drug Enforcement Administration. 

When he left the federal agency, Woodson in fall 2012 was sworn in as director of DCI. Woodson said in a brief Thursday phone interview that his retirement will enable him to spend more time with family. 

DCI is authorized by state law to investigate drug crimes, organized crime that crosses into multiple local jurisdictions, as well as certain computer and sex crimes.

Yellowstone coyote that bit skier did not have rabies

CODY (WNE) — The National Park Service announced the coyote which bit a Colorado woman who was cross-country skiing in Yellowstone National Park in late January has tested negative for rabies.

The 43-year-old woman was treated for puncture wounds and lacerations to her head and arm near Canyon Village.

There was concern the animal could have infected the skier with rabies. Yellowstone staff subsequently killed the coyote.

Wildlife biologist Doug Smith said they suspected the coyote was starving due to having porcupine quills in its lower jaw and inside its mouth.

Federal subsidy for Cody air service to continue

POWELL (WNE) — The federal government will continue to subsidize fall, winter and spring flights between the Cody and Denver airports, agreeing to pay United Airlines $841,000 to fly the route twice a day from October through May. 

The Jan. 29 decision from the U.S. Department of Transportation effectively guarantees that Yellowstone Regional Airport (YRA) will continue to have year-round commercial service in the coming years. 

Airlines are happy to fly to Cody in the summer months, when tourists drive up passenger numbers, offering service to Denver, Salt Lake and occasionally Chicago. However, they’ve generally been unwilling to fly to YRA without government help between October and May, when traffic sinks. To keep the service going, the Department of Transportation has been subsidizing those eight months of flights through its Essential Air Service program.

United has been receiving subsidies through the program since 2018 — to the tune of $850,000 a year — to provide service between Cody and Denver. However, the current contract ends March 1, which required the DOT to seek proposals for a new deal, which will run through May 31, 2022. 

United estimated that it will cost nearly $5.67 million to fly to and from Cody from October to May, with the twice a day flights yielding less than $4.83 million in revenue. The airline requested an $841,000 annual subsidy to cover the shortfall, which breaks down to $882 per flight and $23.54 per passenger; the Essential Air Service program allows subsidies of up to $1,000 per passenger. 

Former Guernsey police chief returns to position

GUERNSEY (WNE) — Guernsey Town Council members on Jan. 21 selected former Police Chief Dwight McGuire to reassume the role. It will be his second stint in the post. 

McGuire takes over the job as Guernsey’s top cop after Terri VanDam resigned on Jan. 15, stating in a letter that she was forced from the position by the town’s mayor and council. 

According to his Facebook profile, McGuire has served as a Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper and in the U.S. Army as a convoy commander at the rank of staff sergeant. McGuire studied criminal justice at Utah State University in Logan, Utah.

Murder charge dropped in 2018 case

LARAMIE (WNE) — Prosecutors dropped a murder charge last week against 24-year-old Artem Day, who was accused of fatally bludgeoning his 22-year-old fiancée in March 2018.

Day’s case was scheduled to go to trial on Monday, but prosecutor Ben Harwich said in a court filing that “further investigation” is needed.

After what the Laramie Police Department described as a “lengthy and intensive investigation,” Day was charged with second-degree murder in August 2019.

The delay in charging Day largely stemmed from the bizarre and convoluted circumstances of his fiancée’s death.

When Laramie police responded to the couple’s home on March 11, 2018, it initially appeared that Day’s fiancée was suffering from alcohol poisoning, as Day suggested.

However, the autopsy found no alcohol or other drugs in her bloodstream.

Instead, a medical investigator discovered wounds that suggested she had been beaten so severely that her body was inundated with fatal levels of lactic acid.

Court documents did not name the victim, opting instead to use the victim’s initials, S.R. — a practice that’s customary in cases that involve a sexual assault charge, as this case does.

When S.R. was brought to Ivinson Memorial Hospital, an examination revealed two bruises on her back, a bruise on her forearm, a bruise on her right shoulder, a bruise on her right thigh, two bruises on her right hip and one bruise on her tricep.

After searching the couple’s residence, police found a “breaker-bar-type tool” that matched the linear bruises on S.R.’s body.

Men found not guilty of animal cruelty charges

GILLETTE (WNE) — Two Campbell County men who had each been charged with 27 counts of animal cruelty were acquitted Friday.

David and Trenton Love were found not guilty on all counts. The jury of five men and one woman deliberated for less than two hours before delivering the verdict Friday afternoon.

The Loves were charged with failing to provide 27 animals, which were in their charge and custody, with proper food or drink on June 5, 2019.

The attorneys for each side made their closing arguments Friday morning. Deputy County Attorney Steve McManamen and J. Craig Abraham were in agreement about one thing: the situation was a tragedy.

The case was about “27 living, feeling, breathing animals, completely dependent on the Loves,” McManamen said. “They were failed by the men who were supposed to provide for them.”

The tragedy, Abraham said, was that the investigation was biased against the Loves from the start and separated them from animals that they cared for and loved.

“There’s no malice here [from the Loves],” Abraham said.

The Loves had 20 horses and seven cattle on Joel Hjorth’s property nine miles south of Gillette. The animals were seized June 6 and sold at an auction July 10.