Wyoming News Briefs

Man arrested after allegedly kidnapping woman from Walmart

GILLETTE (WNE) — A 26-year-old man was arrested for felony counts of kidnapping and probation violation, as well as misdemeanor counts of theft, use of drugs and interference with a peace officer after a 24-year-old woman reported that he tried to kidnap her at Walmart on Friday morning.

The woman told officers at the police department the man came up to her at Walmart and told her that she was going to go home with him and that his friends were outside with automatic weapons, Police Deputy Chief Brent Wasson said. The man allegedly told the woman that she wouldn’t be killed and he would let her go if she spent the day with him.

He took her out of Walmart and forced her to give him a kiss before telling her to get into the car to drive home with him. She unlocked her driver’s side door and fled to the police department before he got in the vehicle, Wasson said.

Sheriff’s deputies assisted Gillette police and spotted the shirtless man, Alex Sigvaldsen, jumping a fence in an alley north of Boxelder Road. 

A deputy jumped from his patrol vehicle and yelled for the man to stop multiple times, to which the man replied “f— you” and kept running. The deputy grabbed the man’s left arm and took him to the ground with a “leg sweep,” said Sheriff Scott Matheny.

Police arrived and helped detain him, and EMS was called because the man said he couldn’t breathe and may have hit his head on the ground during the takedown, Matheny said.

Wasson said there was no sign of the friends with weapons.

Gogerty pleads not guilty

CODY (WNE) — The Cody man who turned himself in for killing the grizzly bear found dead on the North Fork Highway on May 1 pleaded not guilty during his arraignment May 19.

Patrick M. Gogerty, 65, represented himself during the arraignment, with Park County Circuit Judge Joey Darrah recommending he get an attorney within the next ten days.

Darrah told Gogerty, who was charged with taking a grizzly bear without a license, that he had been charged with a “high misdemeanor,” which meant he could face up to one year in prison in addition to a $10,000 fine.

Gogerty also could end up having to pay up to $25,000 in restitution to the state, Darrah said.

“You stand to lose your hunting and fishing license,” Darrah told Gogerty.

Park County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Eichele said the state wanted Gogerty not to hunt while out on bond.

Darrah gave Gogerty an own recognizance bond, meaning he wouldn’t have to post bond, but would have to provide a written promise to appear in court when required to do so.

Darrah further ordered that Gogerty not be allowed to hunt while out on bond, but would be able to apply for preference points.

The matter was set for a jury trial in October.

Mihara receives grant to teach about Japanese American incarceration in Wyoming

POWELL (WNE) — Sam Mihara, who was incarcerated at Heart Mountain as a child, has received a grant from the Wyoming Humanities Council to travel around the state and teach about Japanese American incarceration. 

A board member of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, the 90-year-old Mihara is an award-winning educator who also received the 2022 Japanese American of the Biennium Award from the Japanese American Citizens League. 

Since he started speaking about his incarceration experience in 2011, he has delivered his presentations in person to more than 95,000 people. 

The Wyoming Humanities grant covers three trips to take place in August, September and October this year. He will visit Gillette, Buffalo, Sheridan, Jackson, Pinedale, Rock Springs and Evanston and is now considering a tour of the southeast sector of Wyoming, including Laramie and Cheyenne. 

He will also be at Heart Mountain in June and July as a faculty member for Heart Mountain’s workshops for educators, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is also scheduled to speak during a visit by the Bar Association of the District of Columbia and attend the annual Heart Mountain Pilgrimage. 

His work is part of the larger educational mission of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, which includes in-person and virtual field trips to the museum and interpretive center. 

The foundation is also building the new Mineta-Simpson Institute dedicated to spreading the sense of public service and bipartisanship exemplified by Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta and Sen. Alan Simpson, who first met as Boy Scouts behind the barbed wire at Heart Mountain in 1943.

Camper fire deaths ruled homicide-suicide

GILLETTE (WNE) — Two men found dead at the site of a camper fire Friday morning are believed to have died in a murder-suicide.

Patrick M. Mahoney, 56, is believed to have shot and killed his landlord and employer, Steven E. Hague, 59, with a .308 scoped rifle recovered from the scene at 1500 Midland Road, Sheriff Scott Matheny and Sgt. Dan Maul said Monday afternoon.

Mahoney is then believed to have died by suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head and Hague died from a gunshot wound that entered his upper shoulder, traveled downward and damaged his aorta, said Campbell County Coroner Paul Wallem.

Wallem identified the men Monday afternoon following an autopsy in Rapid City, South Dakota.

The incident was called in when someone saw that the camper, which Mahoney lived in, was on fire. His body was “burnt beyond recognition” and he had a gunshot wound to the face when recovered from the fire, said Sheriff Scott Matheny.

Sheriff’s deputies, EMS and firefighters responded to the report at 11:06 a.m. Friday. Once at the scene, a man with a significant wound to his shoulder, later identified as Hague, was found outside the camper. Soon after, Mahoney was found inside the camper, Matheny said.

A criminal investigation began when the bodies were found.

“We believe that the individual that was in the camper fire was the suspect in this situation and that the male outside of the camper was the victim,” Maul said.

The cause of the fire and whether it was intentional or accidental remains unclear.

The Sheriff’s Office declined comment on a possible motive for the murder-suicide.

“While the Campbell County Sheriff’s Office believes a crime has been committed, there’s no cause for community concern and no other members of the community were ever at risk,” Matheny said.

Wyoming braces for possible flooding

CASPER (WNE) — Wyoming officials are preparing for possible flooding after a record-setting winter that dumped heavy snow over the state, Gov. Mark Gordon’s office announced Friday. 

“A deeper-than-normal winter snowpack means there is a higher risk of flooding as temperatures rise and snow melts,” the governor’s statement said. 

On Friday, the Little Snake River near Baggs was already experiencing minor flooding. 

And two gauges on the North Platte River near Saratoga indicated that waters were approaching the flooding stage. 

Gov. Gordon recently visited the Carbon County Office of Emergency Management to coordinate the distribution of sandbags for area residents. 

Additional gauges show that many area rivers are nearing flooding levels. 

Those include the Bear River in the Bridger Valley, the Salt River near Etna and Pacific Creek near Moran.

“We recognize the importance of proactively addressing this issue and have been busy offering our expertise, resources, and personnel to prepare local communities for any flooding,” Gordon said in the statement. 

Filling sandbags, shoring up dikes and updating county websites with additional information and resources have been part of the state’s preparedness activities, the statement said. 

Last month, the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security hosted a Flood Summit and Emergency Management meeting in Casper to discuss those areas of concern and identify the process for counties to ask for help during incidents of flooding. 

Residents can prepare by securing emergency kits, creating an evacuation plan and staying informed on local weather conditions and flooding alerts, officials said.

People are also encouraged to check the Wyoming Information Sharing Platform resource to stay informed. 

“Work together to be prepared and protect each other during this unpredictable time,” the statement said. 

Wildfire smoke from Canada blankets southeast Wyoming

CHEYENNE (WNE) — A northern wind following a cold front caused heavy wildfire smoke from Canada to settle across much of Wyoming on Friday.

The National Weather Service in Cheyenne issued a special weather statement at 9:19 a.m. Friday, warning of dense smoke from wildfires located in Alberta and Saskatchewan that could stretch from the Shirley Basin to the Upper North Platte River Valley and all the way into eastern Laramie County.

“Wildfires are not a surprise to anyone nowadays,” Brandon Wills, incident meteorologist for NOAA Cheyenne said in a Friday morning interview with the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. “And if there is a large enough wildfire, with the smoke going into the atmosphere, it [travels] with the wind patterns.”

A cold front traveling across southeastern Wyoming on Wednesday and Thursday brought with it northern winds, different from prevailing southwestern winds in Wyoming.

A large region of surface high pressure originating from Canada continued to slowly move across the northern Plains and Central Rockies on Friday, according to the special weather statement.

Essentially, a cold front that came through Wyoming on Wednesday “ever so slowly pushed the smoke our way,” Wills said. 

Although the smoke isn’t as thick in Wyoming as it has been in other places, it can bother those who are susceptible to reduced air quality.

People spending time outdoors were advised by NOAA to be “extra cautious and avoid prolonged exposure to smoke.”

Internet fraud that costs victims thousands goes widely underreported

SHERIDAN (WNE) — Sheridan County Commissioner and former sheriff Allen Thompson said internet fraud is a continuing issue locally, sometimes impacting victims to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.

Thompson said the scale of the money lost to internet scams is commonly underestimated. People might estimate losses of tens to hundreds of dollars, but victims of internet fraud regularly lose out on thousands, he said.

“It’s the social engineering ones that are really the most costly. Those can start from dating sites or chat rooms or Facebook messaging, things like that,” Thompson said. “They blossom into an online relationship with someone, usually in a foreign country, and people will [ask for] money to travel over to get their visa or help a family member or something like that. It starts small and depending on how long it goes, they can get into the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Thompson said it’s all too common for those who suffer losses to the tune of thousands of dollars not to report the incident to local law enforcement; what does get reported is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of actual losses.

“We don’t realize what the dollar amount is because I think a person that has the means to lose $100,000 is not as likely to report it to law enforcement,” he said. “They feel like they’ve been scammed and it’s their fault and they’re hesitant to pick up the phone and call.” 

Steam engine Big Boy No. 4014 departs Cheyenne June 7

CHEYENNE (WNE) — Union Pacific’s famed Big Boy No. 4014, the world’s largest steam locomotive still in operation, returns to the rails on June 7 for its Home Run Express Tour to Omaha, Nebraska, where it will be on display for 11 days during the college baseball championship.

Big Boy will leave Cheyenne on June 7 en route to Omaha. It will make whistle-stops in Wyoming and Nebraska before returning to its home base in Cheyenne on July 3. 

The following stops are in and near Wyoming: 

• June 7 — Albin and LaGrange, Wyo., overnight in Gering, Nebraska

• July 3 — Kimball, Nebraska, and Pine Bluffs, Wyo.

Details can be found on the Union Pacific Steam Schedule online at up.com/heritage/ steam/schedule/index.htm.

Cheyenne population estimates show shift of residents from city to county 

CHEYENNE (WNE) — Although Wyoming’s largest city lost population between 2021 and 2022, rural Laramie County gained nearly as many residents as Cheyenne lost.

Cheyenne’s population dropped by 456 people between July 1, 2021, and July 1, 2022, according to recent population estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau.

However, Laramie County as a whole gained residents, Wenlin Liu, chief economist with the State of Wyoming Economic Analysis Division, said in an interview with the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on Thursday.

“People left and moved just outside of the city. The balance of Laramie County actually increased by 405 people,” he explained. “That is consistent with trends. Many people moved away from metro centers, but many of them moved into suburbs of that metro city.”

The migration pattern in Wyoming is consistent with nationwide trends following the COVID-19 pandemic, Liu said, where people shifted to less-populated and lower-cost areas.

Both Casper and Cheyenne, the largest cities in Wyoming, lost population from 2021 to 2022. 

However, two-thirds of the 30 “large” cities and towns in Wyoming of more than 2,000 people added residents.

For cities and towns with a population of over 2000, Mills demonstrated the fastest annual growth at 4.4%, followed by Star Valley Ranch at 3.3%. Gillette grew by 277 residents, and Sheridan grew by 195 residents during the one-year period.

The state’s most populous city, Cheyenne, lost the most residents, at 456. Casper lost 220 residents, and Rock Springs lost 135. Jackson lost 171 residents, and Rawlins declined by 101.

Wyoming’s total population grew by 1898, or 0.3%, from 2021 to 2022.

Hate crime ordinance passes second reading; final reading scheduled in June

GILLETTE (WNE) — A proposed hate crime ordinance passed its second reading Tuesday night on a 4-3 vote by the Gillette City Council.

It will now move on to a third and final reading, which will take place at the city council’s next meeting on June 6.

The votes remained unchanged from the first reading.

Mayor Shay Lundvall said the city will stand against hate, regardless of whether the ordinance is passed.

“There’s not a single one of us up here that doesn’t want a good healthy community,” he said. “What I struggle with a lot is layering the law that’s already existing.”

Councilman Jim West, who supports the ordinance, said he’s heard from residents that it is doing nothing more than dividing the community.

“Our community’s already divided,” he said. “This is just making us have a conversation about it, making people talk to each other and ask tough questions.”

Dozens of people took advantage of the public comment period at the end of the meeting, following the vote on the ordinance. 

Karin Ebertz said a community’s strength is in its diversity, and over the last 40 years, Gillette has shown that it values diversity.

Sen. Troy McKeown, on the other hand, said “diversity and division are the same thing,” and Mike Morgan, who’s lived in Wyoming for more than 20 years after spending his first three decades in California, said more diversity leads to more hate.

Kim Mather, a local business owner, said he moved to Gillette from California two years ago to get away from liberal policies, and that it’s “disturbing to see we’re in fact contemplating some of the same stuff” as California.

Black Hills Energy seeks increase in residential natural gas rates

CHEYENNE (WNE) — Black Hills Wyoming Gas, doing business as Black Hills Energy, has filed a rate review application with the Wyoming Public Service Commission seeking an increase in base rates of $19.3 million to recover the necessary capital infrastructure and operational costs required to enable safe, reliable natural gas service for customers in Wyoming.

If approved as proposed, new rates would be implemented during the first quarter of 2024, with residential customers with an average usage seeing an increase of approximately $6.74 per month and small general customers with an average usage seeing an increase of approximately $13.70 per month.

Black Hills Energy spends millions of dollars each year to safely operate, maintain and update more than 6400 miles of natural gas system infrastructure, which provides critical and reliable energy to over 133,000 households and businesses in 56 communities across the state, the utility said in a news release.

Since its last rate review in 2019, the company has completed more than $140 million in system safety, integrity and reliability projects for its natural gas utility system in Wyoming.

Learn more at blackhillsenergy.com/reliableWY.