Three Wyoming residents were charged Friday in connection with the murder of a 31-year-old woman whom police found beaten and stabbed under a burning tire in a trailer house in Riverton.
Ashley Dewey, 31, of the Wind River Indian Reservation, was found dead in a trailer fire in Riverton on Aug. 24.
Chasity Washington, 36, Kasia Monroe, 31, and Jason Quiver, 41, all have been charged with felonies relating to her death.
Billowing Smoke
Riverton Police Department Officer Logan Alley was dispatched to a fire that day at about 4 p.m., at 425 N. 7th St. East in Riverton, and found a woman with no pulse inside trailer No. 22, where smoke streamed from the bathroom.
The detective on the case, RPD Detective Kingston Cole, arrived on scene at about 4:16 and saw an officer performing chest compressions on Dewey in the burned trailer’s living room.
Alley left the trailer to speak with Cole, and said when he got there, smoke billowed from the southern part of the home, especially the bathroom. He said he found Dewey face-down in the bathtub with a burning tire on top of her. He got the burning tire out of the house and went back to the woman.
Personnel dragged Dewey to the living room where she received CPR.
She was pronounced dead at 4:23.
Alley and Brookover told the detective that Dewey appeared to have been beaten and stabbed, and there was blood in the bathroom and the north bedroom.
The coroner’s report ruled that Dewey died of blunt-force trauma of the head and stab wounds of the chest, a homicide, the affidavit states.
Bathroom Attack
Police found Kasia Monroe outside the trailer sitting on its hitch when officers arrived, the affidavit states.
She said she’d been in the trailer.
The affidavit does not say when Monroe was arrested or how, but Cole interviewed Monroe in the jail two days later, it says. In the interview, Monroe said she watched Chasity Washington punch Dewey multiple times while the women were in the north bedroom. Washington escorted Dewey to the bathroom to help clean her up, Monroe said.
When Monroe went to the bathroom, the affidavit says she watched Washington stab Dewey with a large kitchen knife and kick Dewey in the face as the latter lay in the bathtub.
Holding a Knife
Police contacted Jason Quiver about 150 yards north of the trailer after the fire. They had found some of his belongings in the trailer, the affidavit says. Quiver told officers he lived there.
Cole interviewed Quiver in the jail two days after the fire.
Quiver didn’t name Washington. He said that Monroe and “T” appeared to be friends and referred to one another as “Sis.”
Cole suspected that Quiver spoke of Washington but could not remember her name, the affidavit states.
Quiver said he went to the bathroom and found Dewey in the tub in a seated position with the shower curtain off and the shower running. He left the bathroom and came back, the affidavit states, and found the woman he knew as “T” holding a knife.
Quiver said he saw “T” hit Dewey but couldn’t say where in the trailer he witnessed that.
Sick And Puking
Detectives interviewed a 31-year-old woman who said she’d visited with Washington that day.
The woman said Washington was “sick and puking” on Aug. 24. She also said Washington asked her for a ride, and during the drive, Washington said she might have hurt someone, the affidavit says.
The woman said Washington made a comment about her hand being broken.
“Why were you fighting around?” the woman remembered asking.
Washington replied that that is “what Natives do,” reportedly.
Later that day, in another interview with police, the witness expanded her narrative. “The truth is,” the affidavit says, “(Washington) come and told me that she stabbed that girl.”
The woman said that during the drive, Washington “freaked out” while they drove through the neighborhood with the burned trailer and a huge law enforcement presence, lowering herself and donning a hat.
Both Tires
Police interviewed Washington on Thursday.
She reportedly admitted to entering a home and taking a bag containing firearms from it.
“She (said) she went back to her old ways of stealing stuff,” the affidavit reads. “She said that she did this to try to sale (sic) the firearms for money.”
Cole also interviewed Washington on Friday. He said she admitted to lighting two tires on fire – one on top of Dewey and one in the kitchen area – while other people were still in the trailer, according to the affidavit.
Accessories
Both Washington and Monroe are charged with accessory before the fact to murder in the second degree.
Washington also faces first-degree arson (up to 20 years and $20,000) and firearm theft charges (up to 10 years and $10,000).
Quiver is charged with a lesser crime, accessory after the fact to murder in the second degree, which is punishable by up to three years in prison and $3,000. The law sees accessory after the fact as more of a hindrance to law enforcement than an enabling of murder.
The law also states that people can be convicted of accessory before the fact even if no one in the case is charged with murder.
The three defendants appeared in Riverton Circuit Court on Friday.
Washington received a $700,000 bond, Monroe a $500,000 bond and Quiver a $3,000 bond. Their prosecution is ongoing.
