State Briefs

Jury awards family $2.2M

CASPER (WNE) — A Natrona County jury awarded more than $2 million in damages last week to the wife and daughter of a man killed as a result of poor traffic control during construction on an Evansville intersection. 

Bill Gray, 62, of Casper, was riding his motorcycle on the evening of Sept. 12, 2017 when he was hit by a driver at the intersection of the Old Yellowstone Highway and Cole Creek Road. He was airlifted to a Denver hospital with serious injuries, where he died two weeks later. 

The Wyoming Department of Transportation, according to a complaint in the case, was contracting with the Knife River Corporation on the construction project, redoing asphalt and preparing to install traffic lights at the intersection on Yellowstone Highway. Knife River subcontracted with RoadWorx for the project’s traffic control, entrusting them with placing things like cones or barrels to guide drivers safely through the construction.

According to the original complaint in the case, the traffic control setup put in place at the intersection was confusing and unsafe.

On that September evening, said Grant Lawson, an attorney representing Gray’s family, the driver was trying to turn left onto Cole Creek Road from the Old Yellowstone Highway. She wasn’t clear where she was supposed to be heading, and her initial turn took her into an oncoming lane. While trying to adjust and move around the poorly placed barrels, she collided with Gray. 

The jury determined in its April 20 decision that the driver was just 10% at fault for the crash. Knife River and Roadworx bore 60% and 30% responsibility each, according to the verdict. 

Man pleads no contest to murder of child

GREEN RIVER (WNE) – A week after arriving in Green River, Christopher Nielsen recalls feeling stressed about not having any job prospects and the possibility of being homeless. He had come to Green River from Utah to help look after his friends’ two children as they worked to establish themselves after moving to the city. 

Nielsen told Third Judicial District Court Judge Suzannah Robinson that one of the children, 5-year-old Anthony James Radcliff, wasn’t listening to him as he tried to convince the child to eat his meal.

“I lost my temper and shook Anthony,” he said. 

Nielsen changed his plea last Thursday to no contest to a charge of first degree murder. He faces life in prison without parole. Sweetwater County Attorney Daniel Erramouspe said he wouldn’t seek the death penalty. An argued sentencing will take place later. 

Nielsen’s plea was submitted without a plea agreement offered by the county attorney’s office. The plea itself means Neilsen admits the information presented in the charging documents, but not guilt in the boy’s death. 

Erramouspie said some of the injuries Anthony had were consistent with being shaken, with brain injuries being identified after Anthony’s death. Other injuries consistent with physical abuse were also found, but it was impossible to determine if they occurred in Wyoming or Utah and who caused them.

Nielsen said he realized something was wrong when, after shaking Anthony, the child went into a seizure. Panicking, Nielsen said he shook the boy a second time. 

The boy was transported to Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County and later taken to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. He died Nov. 28, 2019.

Man’s body found outside Fort Bridger

EVANSTON (WNE) — The Uinta County Sheriff’s Office issued a press release Thursday concerning a man’s body discovered in the Bridger Valley.

“During the afternoon hours of Monday April 26...the Uinta County Sheriff’s Office responded to the report of a body that had been located in a haystack/field outside of Fort Bridger,” the release said. “The body appeared to be that of an adult male, and appeared to have been deceased for some time.” 

According to the release, the body was located close to the area where Trevor Boyd, who was reported as a missing person, had last been seen in November 2020. 

Trevor’s missing person investigation has been a joint investigation involving the Evanston Police Department and the Uinta County Sheriff’s Office. 

The Uinta County Sheriff’s Office and the Evanston Police Department are continuing their investigations involving the recovered body and any relation to Trevor Boyd’s missing person’s case.

State denies Pine Bluffs schools mask variance

CHEYENNE (WNE) — The Wyoming Department of Health has denied Laramie County School District 2’s request for an exemption to the state’s continued mask mandate in K-12 schools.

The rural eastern Laramie County district, which serves roughly 1050 students in grades K-12, applied for the exemption a couple weeks ago and received notice that it was denied earlier this week. According to the district’s website, it counted two active cases of COVID-19 and 12 individuals in quarantine as of Tuesday afternoon.

Laramie County, as a whole, is experiencing some of the highest case numbers in Wyoming, recording 102 active COVID-19 cases as of Thursday afternoon. Although Gov. Mark Gordon recently lifted the statewide mask mandate for most other public spaces, including gyms and bars, face coverings are still required in schools when social distancing is not possible. Students and staff who are wearing masks if and when they are exposed to an infected individual do not have to quarantine.

To date, the state health department has granted exemptions to 20 of Wyoming’s 48 total school districts, and all of those are in areas with low case counts.

Every district granted an exemption fell into the department’s so-called green zones, which means it encompasses an area with fewer than 19 cases per 100,000 people. Laramie County, however, does not fall into the green zone.

Laramie County School District 1, Wyoming largest district, has already said it will not seek an exemption to the mask mandate.

ITC to host $51.7M carbon capture research

GILLETTE (WNE) — Less than two weeks removed from announcing the winners of the NRG COSIA Carbon XPrize, the Integrated Test Center is at the center of another large, high-profile carbon capture project.

Gov. Mark Gordon announced Friday afternoon that the ITC, attached to the Dry Fork Station coal-fired power plant about 10 miles north of Gillette, will host one of two large U.S. Department of Energy CO2 capture research projects.

The DOE has awarded $99 million to a pair of projects to continue their research into Phase III of the federal Demonstration of Large-Scale Pilot Carbon Capture Technologies program.

One of those Phase III projects is from a group called Membrane Technology and Research (MTR), which was awarded $51.7 million. Along with other non-federal financial backing, the project will bring more than $64 million in research money to Wyoming and Campbell County, Gordon said in a press release announcing the funding awards.

“This is exactly the type of research that was envisioned when the ITC was developed and Wyoming will continue to support these efforts,” Gordon said in a news release.

CarbonBuilt, a research team from the University of California-Los Angeles, was one of two teams of scientists that tested their CO2 capture and reuse technologies at the ITC last summer. On April 19, CarbonBuilt was announced as one of two XPrize winners, with each getting a $7.5 million award.

Wyoming gas prices tick up again

CHEYENNE (WNE) — Wyoming gas prices have risen 0.4 cents per gallon in the past week, averaging $2.90 per gallon as of Monday, according to GasBuddy.com’s daily survey of 494 stations in Wyoming.

Gas prices in Wyoming are 0.4 cents per gallon higher than a month ago, and stand $1.10 per gallon higher than a year ago.

According to GasBuddy price reports, the cheapest gas in Wyoming was priced at $2.55 per gallon Monday, while the most expensive was $3.49 per gallon, a difference of 94 cents per gallon.

The national average price of gasoline has risen 0.7 cents per gallon in the last week, averaging $2.89 per gallon Monday. The national average was up 1.8 cents per gallon from a month ago and stands $1.13 per gallon higher than a year ago.

Man who killed deputy loses appeal on life sentences

CODY (WNE) – A former Cody man convicted of killing a Fremont County Sheriff’s deputy in 1995 has lost his appeal to have his life sentence removed because he wanted to rescind his guilty plea.

John Michael Sides Jr. pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder and was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences and a 3-5 year consecutive sentence.

Sides was 17 years old when he pleaded guilty to shooting and killing Deputy Steve Crerar. The deputy had been bringing him back to the Wyoming Boys’ School in Worland when Sides was able to remove one of his handcuffs and steal Crerar’s gun, fatally shooting him in the head. 

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to sentence a minor to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and Sides made an appeal in 2013 to Washakie County district court on the matter.

The court changed his sentence to two concurrent life sentences in 2019. Sides was not allowed to withdraw his guilty plea, however, or address his claim that he was unconstitutionally denied parole by the state Board of Parole.

The Supreme Court also rejected Sides’ appeal from his Carbon County sentence for stabbing a Wyoming State Penitentiary teacher and another inmate after beginning his sentence for Crerar’s murder. From this incident, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for attempted first-degree murder and a consecutive sentence of 6-10 years for aggravated assault and battery.

Sides is now serving a 25-to-life sentence for his Carbon County crimes, which is consecutive to his 25-to-life sentence for his Washakie County crimes, and he is eligible for parole in both.