One More For The Road

<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1594447605265735680
</div></figure>

One more for no play 11 22 22 scaled

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>One More For The Road: Tuesday, November 22, 2022 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Let's all watch Frank eat grapes...

One More For The Road: Tuesday, November 22, 2022

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Business & Tourism

The first time Farmstead Cider went after old apples in Jackson Hole, it was just for the flavor. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"It soon became about the bears. "}]

Every fall as apples drop and ferment in the backyards and ghost orchards of Jackson Hole, grizzlies and black bears do what comes naturally. They follow their noses straight into trouble — calorie-rich fruits that taste oh-so-good when you’re a bear desperate to fatten up for winter. 

The first harvest, though, was all about the homesick wives, Farmstead Cider’s co-owner Orion Bellorado said. They had grown up on the East Coast, where apple harvests are a big deal. 

“We started harvesting the apples in our neighborhood off of peoples’ trees that were kind of derelict,” he said. “And they were tiny, so we pressed a bunch of juice and made some cider out of it.”

The party was great and word soon got around. 

“Someone from the county found out about it and said, ‘Hey, you should really put in for this community grant to start a business,” Bellorado recalled. “‘Because we’ve really been having issues with bears.’”

That was in 2016, and the business has been going ever since, bottling 5,000 to 7,000 gallons of native-yeast cider a year and selling it across Wyoming as well as other states such as Washington and Montana. 

In the process of climbing into backyards and abandoned orchards, Bellorado stumbled onto a bigger realization. Wyoming is curiously — if quietly — rich in apples across the state.

“They are everywhere,” he said. “I mean, Lander was called Apple Town before it was called Lander. It’s full on part of this interesting tidbit of our culture and our history that’s really been left behind.”

That history is being rediscovered thanks to a project called the Wyoming Apple Project. Through it, researchers have been cataloguing a hidden network of heritage and volunteer trees that have somehow survived a century or so of drought and neglect. Researchers say these hardy survivors might point the way to a new kind of apple economy in one of the harshest fruit-growing climates in America.

You wouldn’t know it from today’s landscape of hay bales and cattle, but Wyoming was once thick with apples. Homesteaders brought apple seeds to plant in their new homes, carving out orchards that were just as essential as a root cellar to their survival.

Apples meant sauce, butter, cider, vinegar and livestock feed. They were essential calories, but also comfort — the kind that could be stored up through a long, hard winter.

By the early 1900s, experimental orchards and private growers had tested at least 218 named apple cultivars across Wyoming, including 11 that were Wyoming-bred. 

Among the most ambitious of the early apple pioneers was an experimental fruit farm in Lander, which trialed 175 different cultivars under superintendent John Steinbrecht, who also developed 10 of the 11 Wyoming-bred cultivars. 

Not far away from Steinbrecht was Lander orchardist Ed Young, who planted a prodigious 3,000-some apple trees in 1882 — an act of faith in a place better known for blizzards than fruit blossoms.

At the time, Wyoming was held up as a national example of what’s possible on the frontier. 

“A lot of those early settlers, such as Ed Young, and their success in growing apples was used in news articles back east, to bring hope to people thinking about moving West,” University of Wyoming graduate and plant physiologist Jonathan Magby told Cowboy State Daily. “It helped show them that you can successfully inhabit this remote location of the United States.”

Wyoming’s apples at that time came from everywhere — Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, Canada and even Russia. Several nurseries were involved in seeing which varieties could stand up to Wyoming’s brutal mix of cold, drought and wind, including 

At one point, at least 70 out-of-state nurseries and 20 in-state nurseries across 11 Wyoming cities were selling apple stock to Wyoming growers.

Then, slowly, the state forgot about its apples.

Wyoming’s agricultural identity shifted solidly toward cattle and general row crops. Many orchards were abandoned. Irrigation ditches shifted. Families moved away or sold off land.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Winters kept coming. "}]

And the apple trees that had been left behind continued growing. They became part of an unintended Darwinist experiment — one where only the fittest would survive. 

What’s left of the apple trees that once dotted Wyoming are now the toughest of the tough. Trees too full of Wyoming grit to give up and die.

Among the most interesting is a gnarled apple tree in Lander. Its limbs curl up to the sun like an insect on its back, and its trunk is so hollowed out, one wouldn’t be surprised to find a hobbit — or some other creature of legend — sleeping inside.

Somehow, though, this ancient tree is still alive, still leafing out, still stubbornly insisting on producing apples, despite a century or so in a place that routinely tries to freeze them to death.

Wyoming is not a state known for hardy trees. It is, after all, among the coldest and driest of states in the Lower 48. And apple trees aren’t known for being especially long-lived, either. Most never see a 100th birthday.

That makes this particular apple tree special. It’s passed a 100-year stress test, one where Wyoming wind and drought are separating the true pioneers from the pretenders.

To Magby, the Lander tree is far more than a curiosity. It’s a symbol of what Wyoming apples once were, as well as what they could be again. 

These survivors could help develop ever more hardy Wyoming stock, making apples a potential new and viable agricultural commodity. Because of that, the tree’s tissue was pulled and grafted onto new stock, so it can keep growing for another 100 years.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Like A CSI Detective"}]

Magby has been searching out all the old heritage apple trees of Wyoming using DNA finger-printing techniques more often associated with crime shows like CSI. 

So far he’s sampled 510 trees at 91 locations in 19 cities, from Lander and Sheridan to Buffalo and Casper, to figure out which trees match known cultivars and which might be lost or forgotten varieties. So far he’s found more than 150 unique genetic fingerprints that don’t match anything in old reference collections. 

Some of those varieties show up in multiple towns, suggesting they are long-lost cultivars that no longer exist anywhere else. hey are a living link to an era when Wyoming was serious apple country.

Two varieties that keep showing up, meanwhile, are Wealthy and Haralson, both bred in Minnesota. They are roughly one-third of all the identified surviving trees in his data set.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Than Charming History"}]

Magby doesn’t see Wyoming apples as a charming historical footnote. He believes these survivors are pointing the way to a viable agricultural commodity for the state, one that could lead to more products that are made in Wyoming, such as Farmstead Cider in Jackson Hole. Making products in Wyoming — referred to as value-added products — is a better bang for the buck. It keeps most of the economic value chain in-state.

Apple cider production makes a lot of sense in Wyoming, alongside the growing microbrewery scene, Magby said. People also just enjoy fresh produce that’s been grown in Wyoming, whether that’s an apple or other fruits.

“We take pride in anything that’s been produced in Wyoming,” Magby said. “So I’d love to see someone take a strong stance of producing and backing development of cultivars and revamping testing of grape and pear varieties and other small fruits, just to provide that diversity, not just in fresh food products, but also diversity of economies.”

Bellorado is already living that future at Farmstead Cider, thanks to bear-safety grants that helped launch a business to haul apples out of backyards and ghost orchards. 

Now, instead of attracting trouble, those apples are a useful and delicious product in a growing business. It’s more joy to the human world, all from abandoned, pioneer apple trees.

Apples Ian Mc Gregor co owner of Farmstead Cider Courtesy Photo 6 27 26

<title>Wyoming’s Ghost Apple Orchard Trees Have Been Rediscovered And Are Producing | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming was once thick with apples. In fact, it was a top apple producer. Now those forgotten apple trees are being rediscovered by small cider houses. "They're everywhere," said one cider house owner. "Lander was called Apple Town before Lander."

Wyoming’s Ghost Apple Orchard Trees Have Been Rediscovered And Are Producing

At historic Fort Bridger, one of the site’s most reliable staffers doesn’t draw a paycheck, take vacations and has been on duty for more than a century.

“We just call him Mac,” Fort Bridger Historical Association board member Holli Beach told Cowboy State Daily. “And we actually have had him photographed. Several times, he’s been caught in pictures, and we have some pretty cool pictures of him.”

Mac is short for John McLaughlin, one of the soldiers who came to Fort Bridger with the Twenty-First Infantry in the spring of 1888. 

He was given the last of the fort’s remaining log officers' quarters, most of which had been sold to the local ranching community and moved off site. After his discharge he stayed in the area, watching over the remaining buildings and the small cemetery.

Eventually, old age forced him to move on to the Old Sailor’s and Soldier’s Home in Hot Springs, South Dakota, where he is buried. 

But he always wanted to be buried in Fort Bridger’s cemetery, and many people feel that after his death Mac’s spirit returned to the Fort and has remained ever since.

“Mac’s pretty famous for locking people inside his house, for whatever reason,” Beach said. “If workers go in there alone, they tend to get locked in and have to call someone to come help them.”

Alarms also have gone off at night, forcing police to respond, Beach said — alarms that later can’t be explained.

“The sheriffs will come in, and we have quite a few funny stories about them coming onto the property and getting scared,” she said. “One of our mannequins was almost shot by one of the sheriffs.” 

Fort Bridger also regularly gets reports from people thinking they have seen or heard a child drowning in the creek, Beach added. 

“There are actually historical reports of that happening,” she said. “And so, people have been really taken aback by such experiences.”

Haunted stories like that might once have been downplayed by a serious historic site. But with “dark tourism” now a $34.2 billion global market — nearly 80% of it in North America, according to analyst firm, Grand View Research — ghosts and paranormal phenomena have become an undeniable selling point.

One doesn’t have to look far from Wyoming for a famous example of the power of haunted tourism. 

Colorado’s Stanley Hotel in Estes Park is a 

favorite vacation spot for many in Wyoming

. It’s also the real-life inspiration for Stephen King’s cult classic novel “The Shining.” 

The hotel was on its last legs when John Cullen 

 and many at the time believed it was headed for a date with a wrecking ball. But it found new life thanks to Cullen’s decision to lean into its spooky history.

Before Cullen, hotel managers feared admitting there were any unusual happenings, especially in the Stephen King suite. They feared ghost stories would drive guests away — like tales of suitcases somehow winding up in the hallway with no logical explanation, or ghostly children laughing and playing on the third floor.

Cullen, though, actively marketed such tales, and turned the hotel’s unexplained phenomena into a year-round theme that now draws nearly 200,000 visitors annually — about half of its overall visitor total.

The move saved the hotel and has created a premier destination in the Rockies that blends luxury with a history that “still walks the halls.”

In more recent times, as haunted tourism’s popularity has grown, the Stanley has doubled down on its horror pedigree. It’s working with Blumhouse Productions on a planned horror-film center and it 

 for the “Frozen Dead Guy Days” festival, after that event outgrew its original site in Nederland. 

Reports like Mac’s pranks and the drowning child have attracted attention from paranormal groups wanting to investigate the Fort, but the site’s board has usually turned them down, fearing such activities could detract from the core mission of preserving and sharing the site’s rich, 19th century history.

This year, though, it’s leaning into a select number of paranormal events in hopes it can help boost its visitation stats, which range from 75,000 to 90,000 annually. The figures feed directly into its funding through state allocations tied to attendance.

“First and foremost, I am a historian, and I run a historic site,” Fort Bridger Superintendent Josh Camp told Cowboy State Daily. 

“But really, we are a state park, and we’re meant to be a good amenity to the people of Wyoming," he said. "That’s a huge part of what we do here. So there’s more than one way to skin a cat, as the saying goes, and I see ghost stories as another way to do just that.”

Camp is a skeptic when it comes to ghost stories in general, but it’s not lost on him that haunted tourism has become enormously popular. He sees it as a new avenue for sharing history with an audience that might not typically turn up at a historic site. 

“When I hear a ghost story talking about someone going through the old Victorian commanding officers quarters and a young girl will have her hair pulled or something like that, for example,” he said. 

“That’s not an uncommon story. Well, that gives me the perfect opportunity to say, ‘Well perhaps this is the spirit of a Victorian lady who has just realized your hair is not done in a way that’s appropriate for a young lady to be in public'.”

Messy buns of today, Camp added, would have been a Victorian nightmare.

“So, for me, it’s an opportunity to talk about the cultures of the time,” he said. “It becomes an interesting way to teach history, particularly to a crowd who doesn’t necessarily usually want to come learn about history.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Not A YouTube Screamer"}]

Fort Bridger’s three-day paranormal experience July 30 through Aug. 1 will be a rare opportunity, investigator Marie Mason told Cowboy State Daily.

Mason bills herself as a real ghost hunter, not a “screaming YouTuber.”

“On television and YouTube, they completely sensationalize these things,” she said. “The public is aware that’s all BS for the most part.”

Her approach is different. Guests themselves will become the investigators, using professional-grade equipment she’s spent years acquiring and in some cases building. 

Her events have drawn hundreds of people in places such as Deadwood, South Dakota, as well as to historic hotels in Wyoming such as the Occidental in Buffalo. 

“These events are great business for the historical locations,” Mason added. “People will come for three days and stay, and now they’re going to buy food, they’re going to spend money … families will literally plan their vacations around paranormal events like this.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Where Tragedy Lingers"}]

To Mason, most hauntings are simply people, or fragments of people, lingering where something powerful happened. And Fort Bridger is a place with no shortage of powerful moments.

For one, it was the last major stop for the Donner Party, a group of 87 American pioneers, before they turned onto the ill-fated Hastings Cutoff, where they became snowbound. Nearly half the group died of starvation, disease and freezing, with survivors eventually resorting to cannibalism.

Mason is in the camp of historians who believes their route had been endorsed by Jim Bridger himself, who she sees as something of a scoundrel.

“(Bridger) got a piece of every guide (map) that was sold,” she said. “And this guy named Hastings, who wrote the guide map, told them it’s a shortcut.”

But Hastings had never actually done the route he was selling at all, Mason said, and it was actually longer than the way they had planned. Hastings’ “shortcut” sent the party into the Sierra Nevada mountains, where they would become synonymous with unspeakable tragedy.

Fort Bridger is also where a teen-aged Calamity Jane landed after losing both parents on the trail. She returned to Fort Bridger with her younger siblings and worked in the “laundry,” a euphemism, Mason said, for prostitution. 

“So 14-year-old Calamity Jane,” Mason said. “If you just think about high school, all of that stuff is so clear to us, right? You can remember the first boy you kissed. It’s a very special time in your life. 

“So, for me, if her spirit lingers anywhere, that’s got to be a place. It’s where something traumatic happened to her.”

This won’t be the first time Fort Bridger has reinvented itself. The 37-acre site was started in the 1840s by Mountain Man Jim Bridger as a trading post for Native Americans. 

The fur trade had collapsed at the time and Bridger needed a new career.

“Many people, especially if you look at early historians, feel like Fort Bridger was built kind of out in the middle of nowhere, which, by today’s standards, would be accurate,” Camp said. “But these guys who’d been trapping in the mountains for decades at this point knew about the Native American trade network gained through here. So they certainly knew what they were doing.”

When Bridger’s plan to trade with Native Americans didn’t pan out, he pivoted to serving pioneers on the Oregon and California trails. 

“That was something they hadn’t necessarily planned on,” Camp said. “But they were, of course, more than happy to take advantage.”

By the time pioneers hit Fort Bridger, they were usually short on supplies but had cash available to buy more. 

“Bridger was more than happy to be selling them goods,” Camp said. “And seeing as they were one of the few places you could stop, and it was a couple hundred miles to the closest competition, they were certainly able to get their own prices and certainly took advantage of that opportunity.”

Using Ghost Stories To Keep History Alive

Highlighting all that rich history in ways that make it accessible to new audiences is the main play Fort Bridger is after.

“We’re not trying to claim there’s a portal to hell,” Beach said, poking a little fun at more sensational ghost-hunting shows. “First and foremost, we’re a historic site. The history is what matters to us.”

For Camp, if a few haunted tales around the campfire can help turn more people onto history, the shift will be more than worthwhile.

“Everyone needs to learn their history,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we all need to learn it the same way.”

If a spooky cry along the creek or an unexplained shadow on an SLS camera is what it takes to draw people through Fort Bridger’s gates and into its complicated, sometimes uncomfortable history, Camp believes the gambit will have been well worth the risk.

Fort Bridger inset Carter family graveyard Visual and Written via Alamy 6 27 26

<title>Ghostly Gold Rush: Fort Bridger Chases Haunted Tourism Dollars | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Haunted tourism isn’t fringe anymore. It’s become a $34 billion-dollar segment of the tourism industry. Fort Bridger is among those leaning into dark tourism this year with its most famous ghost, Mac, and a three-day paranormal experience next month.

Ghostly Gold Rush: Fort Bridger Chases Haunted Tourism Dollars

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Wildlife

A wildlife rescue hospital on the fringe of the Denver metro area’s urban sprawl is accustomed to taking on tough cases. A young red fox with a severely broken leg is among the latest.

Rocky Mountain Wildlife Alliance’s critter hospital in Sedalia, Colorado, has taken in 627 patients so far this year, founder and executive director Emily Davenport told Cowboy State Daily.

This spring, the center treated a bald eagle 

, after eating a carcass with bullet fragments in it.

June and July are typically the busiest time of year, with roughly 200 animals per month arriving. Roughly one-third have suffered injuries from vehicle collisions or some other sort of physical trauma, she said.

The young fox (or kit) was likely born in April and was brought in June 6, Davenport said. The kit is believed to have been struck by a vehicle at a remote county road intersection near the small prairie town of Elbert, Colorado.  

At the hospital, he joined a coyote pup recovering from head trauma after being hit by a vehicle, a red-tailed hawk that suffered bone fractures in a vehicle strike, and many others.

“We’ve had 110 different species in this year. That’s a 26% increase in the number of species over last year,” Davenport said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Little Fella, Big Surgery"}]

Davenport runs the center with the philosophy of returning wildlife to the wild whenever possible. She likes to give every animal a chance, even against long odds.

The fox kit was such a case. He had severe bone fractures in his right front leg.

An orthopedic surgeon was brought in to realign the bones and install a metal plate to keep them in place. The center raided enough money through donations to pay for the surgery.

“The surgery went well and there were no issues. He was standing on the leg the day after the surgery,” Davenport said.

“We take on some of the more difficult cases, where other shelters might euthanize (the injured animals,” she added.

But she sees it as a matter of doing right by wildlife.

Some might argue for “nature taking its course” with injured animals, and Davenport understands that, when the circumstances are natural.

“I’m a big believer that it’s not nature taking its course if an animal is hit by a car or bird flies into a window. That’s human-caused,” she said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘A Pretty Good Plan’"}]

The plan is to keep the little fox at the center until late August or early September, helping it to learn how to hunt and then turn it back loose in the wild, Davenport said.

Biologist Robert Crabtree told Cowboy State Daily he thinks the fox has good chances of survival.

“It it’s a pretty good plan. The fox should be fine, as long as it’s learned to hunt on its own,” said Crabtree, the founder, chief scientist and president of the Yellowstone Ecological Research Center in Bozeman, Montana.

Canines such as wolves are on the “social end of the spectrum” and are raised into supportive packs, he said.

Foxes are on the “more solitary end of the canine spectrum, he said.

However, they typically mate for life and “dad is involved” in helping to raise the kits, he said.

Kits typically disperse on their own in September, Crabtree said.

There might be one, usually a female, that still hangs around with the parents.

“There is often a helper, that helps mom at the fox den,” he said.

Retired biologist Franz Camenzind of Jackson also gave the fox kit good chances of returning to the wild on his own.

“If it’s physically all good, it should have a good chance, said Camenzind, who studied coyote behavior in and around the National Elk Refuge near Jackson.

Foxes also adapt fairly well to human development, so long as they can find natural food sources, such as mice, and stay out of trouble, he said.

“If there is a group that’s trying to heal an animal like a fox and put it back into the wild, I would certainly encourage it,” he said.

Davenport said foxes play a vital role in the ecosystem and can be beneficial to humans.

“Not only are they cute to boot, they serve a really important ecosystem function with pest control,” by devouring mice and voles, she said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Urban Sprawl"}]

Davenport doesn’t expect business at the wildlife hospital to slow down anytime soon.

The Denver Metro area is growing, with no end in sight.

“As the human environment expands, we’re seeing more and more conflict with wildlife,” she said.

There are “lots of massive housing developments bringing changes that animals can’t adapt to quickly," she said.

Sedalia is nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountain front and has so far escaped the worst of it, and Davenport hopes it stays that way.

"We’re in this amazing little rural pocket surrounded by the Denver metro area,” she said.

Rocky Mountain Wildlife Alliance 685362380 959399060172653 9117888975218967458 n 6 27 26

<title>Urban Sprawl Is Flooding Wildlife Rehab Center With Eagles, Foxes and Coyotes | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Amid Denver's urban sprawl, Rocky Mountain Wildlife Alliance is rescuing a fast-growing number of injured animals. The animal hospital has taken in 627 patients this year with roughly one-third having suffered injuries from vehicle collisions.

Urban Sprawl Is Flooding Wildlife Rehab Center With Eagles, Foxes and Coyotes

Jen kocher

Jen Kocher

Law Enforcement

Authorities are working to unravel the mysterious deaths of a man and woman who were found in Laramie County earlier this year within three months of one another in unrelated incidents.

The first, a woman thought to be between 30 and 50 years old, was struck by a vehicle and killed on the side of Interstate 25 outside Cheyenne in late April.

The second is an unknown man found near a commercial building on South Greeley Avenue earlier this month.

Both deaths are under investigation, pending autopsy results from the Laramie County Coroner’s Office.

The fatalities were not publicly announced by authorities, but instead entered into the National Unidentified Persons System — known as NamUs — which is the country’s only centralized database for tracking missing and unidentified persons.

Although anyone with an account can enter missing people into the database, only law enforcement and those with coroners' offices can add unidentified people.

For both, distinctive tattoos could help investigators track down who they are.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Potential Assist"}]

Two NamUs entries for Wyoming in one week are unusual, say two amateur Cheyenne-based genealogists who run a pro bono company focused on reporting missing and unidentified people.

“It definitely caught our attention,” said Ashley Kroner, who along with her twin sister, Megan McWilliams, are cofounders of Genetics Uncovered.

As usual, they made posters for both John and Jane Doe, with photos of identifying tattoos added by the coroner’s office and shared on their 

Facebook page with more than 9,000 followers

The posts reached hundreds of people, potentially including members of the John Doe’s family, who contacted Kroner and stated they recognized the tattoos.

Kroner shared their information with Laramie County Coroner Rebecca Reid, who is responsible for making the identification, per state statute.

As of Thursday, John Doe was still listed in NamUs.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Mysterious Circumstances"}]

Little is known about the individuals and the circumstances under which they died.

Jane Doe was struck and killed by a vehicle at the mile marker 11 exit, potentially near the on ramp, between 8 and 9 p.m. on April 20, according to Aaron Brown, public information officer for the Wyoming Highway Patrol.

Brown said troopers rendered aid to no avail, and the woman succumbed to her injuries on the scene.

Her death remains under investigation, Brown said. He declined to share any additional details, citing an active investigation, though he added no charges are pending.

The victim is described as Caucasian with shoulder-length blonde, strawberry hair and unknown eye color. She was about 5-feet-7 and weighed 136 pounds.

She had a distinct tattoo on her right hip: A cloud with three zigzag lines beneath it, a sun emerging from the cloud’s left side and a star above the sun, and two clusters of triangles running along the far left of the lines.

Along with her clothing, a black and white duffle bag was found near her body, according to the NamUs entry.

Also citing an active investigation, Reid likewise could not provide any additional information.

John Doe was found dead June 6 at the 800 block of South Greeley Highway in Cheyenne, slumped in a kneeling position alongside a commercial building, with no cellphone or other identification.

His death remains under investigation, according to Chance Walkama, chief deputy of operations for the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office.

Walkama said his office is awaiting autopsy and toxicology results from Reid’s office. No foul play is currently suspected, but the cause and manner of death have not yet been determined.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Giving Them A Name"}]

McWilliams and Kroner said they were pleased their efforts might have helped lead to the identification of the John Doe and also credited Reid for entering both Does into the national database, where the public – and family members – can see them.  

why they started Genetics Uncovered in 2021

Twin genealogists are working to identify a John and Jane Doe found two months apart in Cheyenne earlier this year. “They don’t have a voice,” the sisters said, “but their distinctive tattoos could help investigators track down who they are.”

One More For The Road: Tuesday, November 22, 2022

More in One More For The Road

One More For The Road: Sunday, June 28, 2026

One More For The Road: Saturday, June 27, 2026

One More For The Road: Friday, June 26, 2026

One More For The Road: Thursday, June 25, 2026

Most read