crime

Domestic violence and sexual assault advocacy groups are still providing services around the state, but they've had to adjust how individuals can get help. Many victims have been stuck inside the house with their abuser, unable to find the privacy to reach out to friends, family, or crisis hotlines. 

A number of people packed a large legislative committee room testifying on a bill that would create criminal offenses, including murder, for the harm of what the bill calls an unborn child. Senate File 128 is the Unborn Victims of Violence act.

A manhunt is currently underway in the Bridger Teton National Forest for a man suspected of committing a triple homicide in Caldwell, ID.

A car registered to one of the suspected victims was recently found parked at the Pacific Creek Campground in the forest. Multiple agencies are participating in the search, including the National Park Service, the Teton County Sheriff’s Office, the U.S. Forest Service, and the FBI among others.

The Wyoming Supreme Court has reversed four felony convictions against former Albany County Attorney Richard Bohling.

Bohling had been convicted of obtaining property under false pretenses for purchasing cameras and electronic equipment using county money and a county credit card. He was found guilty by a jury and had been sentenced to serve two to four years in prison. 

The Wyoming Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday in the criminal appeals case of former Albany County prosecutor, Richard Bohling.  

In February, Bohling was found guilty of five charges related to improperly using government money to purchase cameras, photography equipment and other electronics. He was sentenced to two to four years in prison, along with an order to pay $45,000 in fines and more than $3,000 in restitution to Albany County. Bohling’s counsel then filed an appeals case with the Wyoming Supreme Court to overturn all five convictions. 

A Laramie man has been arrested for the October 1985 murder of a Laramie woman. 

Sixty-seven-year-old Fredrick J. Lamb has been charged with first degree murder and first degree arson in the death of 22-year-old University of Wyoming student Shelli Wiley. 

Police at the time of the murder said that Wiley was stabbed 11 times, sexually assaulted, and that her West Laramie apartment was set on fire. Police did find a bloody hand print near the murder, but were unable to convict anyone. 

An African American woman was injured in what she said was a racially motivated attack in Laramie early Sunday morning. 

The victim is a former Laramie resident who posted on her Facebook page that she and two other African Americans were returning from a night at Laramie’s Jubilee Days when they were approached by a small group who shouted racial slurs at the victim's group and threatened to kill them. 

Wyoming’s Episcopal Bishop John Smylie wants the state to have a conversation about gun violence following shootings that killed three men and seriously injured another this week.

Smylie says the shooting of two people at a detox center in Riverton and the shooting of two people at a Cheyenne business shows him that gun violence issues across the country have come to Wyoming.  

A federal judge has overturned the death penalty for Dale Wayne Eaton, Wyoming's lone death row inmate.

U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson of Cheyenne on Thursday stated Wyoming has a choice of either granting a new sentencing proceeding for Eaton within 120 days in Natrona County or keeping him locked up for life without parole.

The 69-year-old Eaton was sentenced to death in 2004 in state court for the 1988 rape and murder of 18-year-old Lisa Marie Kimmell of Billings, Montana.

An investigation into the shooting of a Centennial pastor has concluded that the so called victim turned the gun on himself. According to Albany County Undersheriff Rob Debree says misdemeanor charges have been filed against 44 year old Dennis Lynn Davis for a false report.

Debree says that eight deputies were sent to investigate a burglary and shooting at the Centennial Valley Community Church on Tuesday evening. Davis says he was shot by a burglar during a struggle. He was airlifted to the hospital.  

The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation is looking into allegations of criminal misconduct within the Albany County Attorney’s office. 

DCI Deputy Director Kebin Haller says that no charges have been filed, but DCI investigators have confiscated electronic devices and smart tablets as part of the investigation. He says the criminal investigation has been ongoing for for a month. 

Wyoming is now offering a new program to victims of crimes that will allow them to request a facilitated meeting with the offender of the crime. The Victim Offender Dialogue Program is the first of its kind in the state for adults.

The Wyoming Senate killed a bill that would have required DNA testing for those charged with a crime. Information from the DNA tests would then be stored in a database.  Senator Drew Perkins of Casper told the Senate that such action violates people's rights.

"Through technology we continue to find more, and more, and more, and more information about us that's stored.  We already have in our statutes that if you are convicted of a crime of felony, we store and maintain that DNA.  This takes it another step further."

A former hospital administrator who pleaded guilty to defrauding hospitals in Wyoming and Indiana has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Freudenthal on Monday also ordered Paul Cardwell to pay restitution of nearly $1.7 million.

Cardwell pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Prosecutors say Cardwell took nearly $850,000 from Powell Valley Healthcare in 2011 and earlier took about the same amount from White County Memorial Hospital in Monticello, Ind.

Wyoming continues to incarcerate youth at a rate much higher than the national average.  That’s according to a new study by the National Juvenile Justice Network. 

Since 2011, the number of kids held in detention centers has dropped dramatically across the nation. But not in Wyoming. New research shows Wyoming's youth confinement rate was 2.2 times the national average during that period.

Wyoming is working on establishing its first adult restorative justice program. Restorative justice is a method of dealing with a crime that seeks to repair the damage done, rather than just punish the perpetrator, and to give more of a voice to the victim. It often involves a mediated meeting between victim and perpetrator.

There are already restorative justice programs in the state for juvenile offenders. But Victim Services Coordinator, Randi Losalu, says this is the first adult program she knows of in Wyoming. 

Two teens have been sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to killing three members of a Wyoming family.
 
     Tanner Vanpelt and Stephen Hammer appeared in court in Cody Tuesday to change their pleas under a deal with prosecutors in the killings of 40-year-old Ildiko Freitas and her parents in the northwestern Wyoming town of Clark.
 
     The Powell Tribune  reports Park County Attorney Bryan Skoric agreed to seek life sentences instead of the death penalty with the support of law enforcement and Freitas' family.
 

A federal judge has given lawyers until early next year to submit written arguments about whether Wyoming's lone death row inmate should be put to death.

The Wyoming Board of Parole has approved the establishment of a victim-offender dialog program. The program will create an avenue for perpetrators and victims of a crime to meet in person and talk, which advocates say helps the healing process for both parties.

The Board of Parole’s Victim Services Coordinator, Randi Losalu, says this approach gives victims of crimes more of an opportunity to be heard. 

The Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 requires record-keeping of federal agencies’ activities with violent crime occurring in Indian Land. In compliance with the law, the Department of Justice has released a report detailing investigations and prosecutions of violent crimes in tribal communities for 2011 and 2012.

The report says federal efforts to prioritize criminal investigations and prosecutions in Indian Country have led to a 54% increase in that caseload.

Katie’s Law, a bill that would have allowed the state to collect DNA of people arrested for certain felonies will not move forward in the Wyoming House.

A committee voted 5-3 to kill the bill, which is named after a 22-year-old New Mexico resident whose killer was identified based on DNA matching. Proponents of the bill argued that DNA is the modern equivalent of a fingerprint.

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a parolee who says he was forcibly catheterized to provide a urine sample.  

Wyoming A-C-L-U Attorney Jennifer Horvath says Parolee Daniel Delaney did consent to testing without search warrants, but he had submitted a breath and blood sample.

Wyoming’s U.S. Attorney Kip Crofts says an increased presence in law enforcement on the Wind River Reservation is having an effect on high levels of crime there.

Crofts, along with members of the legislature’s Tribal Select and Joint Judiciary Interim Committees, met on Wind River earlier this week to discuss issues related to crime and Crofts says continued federal and state support may be the key to addressing the issue.