Daily Smile

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Daily smile 12 30 22

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

<title>Daily Smile: Friday, December 30, 2022 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Well, at least he admits it.  [SOUND UP!]

Daily Smile: Friday, December 30, 2022

Coy Knobel

Don Day Weather

Mostly sunny to sunny in Wyoming on Tuesday, windy, fire watches in some areas. Partly cloudy to mostly clear, breezy overnight. Highs from the mid 70s to the low 90s. Lows from the low 40s to the low 60s.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":" "}]

Red flag fire warning from noon today until 9 p.m. tonight. Breezy, gradually becoming sunny today with a high near 90 and wind gusts as high as 31 mph. Mostly clear and windy overnight with a low near 59 and wind gusts as high as 39 mph.

Sunny and breezy today with a high near 93 and wind gusts as high as 34 mph. Breezy, gradually becoming clear overnight with a low near 57 and wind gusts as high as 34 mph.

 Sunny and windy today with a high near 87 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph. Mostly clear and windy overnight with a low near 54 and wind gusts as high as 44 mph.

 Sunny today with a high near 79 and wind gusts as high as 32 mph. Mostly clear overnight with a low near 52 and wind gusts as high as 32 mph.

  Sunny and breezy today with a high near 87 and wind gusts as high as 37 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 57 and wind gusts as high as 37 mph.

Sunny and windy today with a high near 79 and wind gusts as high as 38 mph. Mostly clear and windy overnight with a low near 52 and wind gusts as high as 38 mph.

Mostly sunny and windy today with a high near 79 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph. Mostly clear and windy overnight with a low near 44 and wind gusts as high as 38 mph.

 Sunny and breezy today with a high near 86 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 47 and wind gusts as high as 31 mph.

  Breezy, gradually becoming sunny today with a high near 80 and wind gusts as high as 37 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 46 and wind gusts as high as 37 mph.

 Sunny and windy today with a high near 77 and wind gusts as high as 47 mph. Mostly clear and very windy overnight with a low near 47 and wind gusts as high as 55 mph.

  Sunny and breezy today with a high near 84 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 45 and wind gusts as high as 37 mph.

Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park

:  Sunny and breezy today with a high near 76 and wind gusts as high as 26 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 39 and wind gusts as high as 24 mph.

Sunny and breezy today with a high near 94 and wind gusts as high as 34 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 59 and wind gusts as high as 34 mph.

:  Sunny and windy today with a high near 89 and wind gusts as high as 38 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 56 and wind gusts as high as 37 mph.

  Sunny and breezy today with a high near 91 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 55 and wind gusts as high as 38 mph.

  Mostly sunny today with a high near 85 and wind gusts as high as 20 mph. Partly cloudy and windy overnight with a low near 56 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph.

  Mostly sunny today with a high near 86 and wind from 13-18 mph. Partly cloudy overnight with a low near 53 and wind from 18-23 mph.

:  Mostly sunny today with a high near 84 and wind from 17-22 mph. Partly cloudy overnight with a low near 52 and wind gusts as high as 38 mph.

Gradually becoming sunny today with a high near 86 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Gradually clearing late and breezy overnight with a slight chance of rain before midnight, a low near 54 and wind gusts as high as 31 mph.

  Gradually clearing today with a high near 84 and wind gusts as high as 28 mph. Gradually becoming mostly clear overnight with a slight chance of rain after midnight, a low near 58 and wind gusts as high as 31 mph.

:  Gradually becoming sunny today with a high near 87 and wind gusts as high as 26 mph. Gradually becoming mostly clear overnight with a slight chance of rain after midnight, a low near 54 and wind gusts as high as 28 mph.

  Fire weather watch from noon today until 8 p.m. tomorrow night. Mostly sunny, hot and breezy today with a high near 93 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 62 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph.

  Fire weather watch from noon today until 8 p.m. tomorrow night. Mostly sunny, hot and breezy today with a high near 91 and wind gusts as high as 35 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 62 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph.

  Red flag fire warning from noon today until 9 p.m. tonight. Breezy, gradually becoming sunny today with a high near 90 and wind gusts as high as 31 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 55 and wind gusts as high as 28 mph.

  Fire weather watch from noon today until 8 p.m. tomorrow night. Sunny and breezy today with a high near 87 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph. Mostly clear and windy overnight with a low near 60 and wind gusts as high as 45 mph.

  Sunny and windy today with a high near 81 and wind gusts as high as 45 mph. Mostly clear and windy overnight with a low near 54 and wind gusts as high as 45 mph.

  Fire weather watch from noon today until 8 p.m. tomorrow night. Mostly sunny, hot and breezy today with a high near 90 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 59 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph.

  Sunny and windy today with a high near 83 and wind gusts as high as 50 mph. Mostly clear and windy overnight with a low near 56 and wind gusts as high as 50 mph.

  Sunny and windy today with a high near 84 and wind gusts as high as 45 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 54 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph.

  Sunny and breezy today with a high near 88 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 51 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph.

Daycap small 6 16 26

<title>Don Day's Wyoming Weather Forecast: Tuesday, June 16, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Don Day's Wyoming Weather Forecast: Tuesday, June 16, 2026

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Outdoors

Wildlife

A pair of young Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep rams that wandered into Cheyenne were killed by game wardens out of concern that they could catch pneumonia from domestic livestock and transmit it back into wild sheep herds.

The rams, thought to be between 1 and 2 years old, were killed last week, Game and Fish spokeswoman Amanda Fry stated in a Monday email to Cowboy State Daily.

Meat from the rams was donated to Wyoming first lady Jennie Gordon’s Food from the Field program through the Wyoming Hunger Initiative.

Bighorn sheep can pick up diseases from domestic stock and spread them back into their herds with devastating effects, according to Game and Fish.

Pneumonia is the disease of greatest concern, Fry said.

“We do not know which area/herd these two came from,” she said. "The closest two wild sheep herds to Cheyenne are west of Scottsbluff, Neb., and in the Iron Mountain area (in southeast Wyoming)."

Biologist and wildlife researcher Jack States lives near a bighorn sheep herd in Sinks Canyon in the Lander area.

He told Cowboy State Daily that he doesn’t agree with the Game and Fish policy of killing bighorns that might have come into contact with domestic sheep or other livestock.

“My opinions are contrary to the current management policy,” he said, although he’s willing to consider whether or not long-term data reveals “that management policy actually works.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Spotted The Day Before"}]

Cheyenne resident Valarie Grace told Cowboy State Daily that she spotted the rams late on June 7 in the yard of her parents’ house on the outskirts of Cheyenne.

“We have no idea where they came from. They took off after we spotted them and they were still going when we last saw them,” she said.

She said that at the time, she was worried that the rams might run out onto Pershing Boulevard and get struck by vehicles.

States said that young bighorn rams can have a propensity to wander, usually because they’re seeking to stake out new territory.

It’s unlikely that the rams were planning to stay in Cheyenne, Fry added.

“Suitable habitat for bighorn sheep tends to be steep, open, higher elevation, rocky slopes,” she said. "While there have been occurrences in the past of young sheep showing up in lower elevation municipalities in southeast Wyoming over the last couple of decades, it is not common.

“These sheep were likely traveling on a stream corridor seeking out suitable habitat and reached Cheyenne city limits."

While bighorn sheep are hardy enough to survive Wyoming’s worst weather in its roughest terrain, they are highly susceptible to disease.

Pneumonia outbreaks, sometimes transmitted from domestic sheep, can be bighorn conservationists’ worst nightmare. In some cases, entire herds are nearly wiped out.

The legendary Ramland Whiskey Mountain bighorn herd near Dubois is a fraction of what it once was, having 

 with pneumonia infections that just won’t go away.

Game and Fish and others have concluded that letting potentially infected wandering bighorns return to the wild isn’t worth the risk, Fry stated.

“If suspected commingling has occurred, Game and Fish will euthanize the wandering bighorn sheep to protect the rest of the wild herd from disease, as is outlined in the statewide Bighorn Sheep/Domestic Sheep Working Group Plan,” she stated.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Is There Another Way?"}]

States admires the Sinks Canyon bighorn herd and was a huge fan of 

, who gained a legendary reputation for his love of people, peanut butter and ramming visitors’ vehicles.

States recalled an instance of bighorns from the Sinks Canyon herd being euthanized after suspected exposure to domestic sheep.

"I did complain about that, because their (Game and Fish’s) policy was to euthanize first and test later,” States said. “I really wanted them to test first and then euthanize, if those diseases were present in those wild sheep."  

In some instances, wandering bighorns could be quarantined, States said.

He thinks that “capturing them until agents could determine their origin and health status” might be better than killing bighorns.

Katie Cheesbrough, executive director of the Wyoming Wild Sheep Foundation, told Cowboy State Daily that the policy of euthanizing sheep that might have had close contact with livestock was “based on the best available science” when it was implemented.

Newer technology, such as GPS wildlife tracking collars, might not make that necessary in every instance, she said.  

However, Game and Fish made the right call with the Cheyenne rams, Cheesbrough said.

“Game and Fish can’t know the travel path they took along the way and they can’t know where they were headed,” she said.

So, euthanizing the rams “was the prudent thing to do,” she added.

Bighorns sheep 2 6 15 26

<title>Wyoming Game And Fish Kills Bighorns That Wandered Into Cheyenne | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A pair of young bighorn sheep rams that wandered into Cheyenne were killed by Wyoming wildlife officials. However, one biologist and wildlife researcher says it's not necessary. He said they should be quarantined instead.

Wyoming Game And Fish Kills Bighorns That Wandered Into Cheyenne

Daily Cartoon

Cartoon 1 6 16 26

<title>Daily Cartoon 1: Tuesday, June 16, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon 1: Tuesday, June 16, 2026

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Crime & Courts

Courts

A Minnesota man says he was stunned to learn a stranger spent years building a life in Wyoming allegedly using his name — earning hundreds of thousands of dollars, fathering a child and leaving him to sort out the financial fallout with the IRS and owing child support.

Now, a Gillette welding worker is facing four felony identity theft charges after investigators say he used another man's name and Social Security number to obtain employment and official documents.

Jose Alfredo Guevara-Reyes, 45, made his initial appearance in Campbell County Circuit Court last week after being charged with four counts of unauthorized use of personal identifying information.

According to court documents, the case began June 8 when Gillette police received a handwritten letter from Martin Almendarez of Minneapolis saying that someone working in Gillette had been using his identity.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Child Support Surprise"}]

For Almendarez, the first signs of trouble didn't come from Wyoming law enforcement.

"I learned that the man who stole my identity had fathered a child," Almendarez said. 

Because the worker allegedly used Almendarez's Social Security number, the child's mother initially believed Almendarez was the father, he said.

The situation escalated when the state of Wyoming notified him that he was on the hook to financially support the child.

"I got a letter from the state of Wyoming saying that they were going to garnish my wages,” he told Cowboy State Daily.

Almendarez said even his employer questioned his identity as records tied to the alleged fraud surfaced. The Minnesota man said the ordeal was especially unsettling because he had never met the defendant.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I don't even know him nor have I ever been to Wyoming,\" he said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Welding Shop Discovery"}]

An affidavit filed in the case by Gillette Police Detective Brendan Trujillo says investigators contacted MC Welding Services after receiving Almendarez's complaint.

The company provided employment paperwork associated with the worker, including a W-4 tax form, an I-9 employment eligibility form, a Social Security card and a Texas driver's license bearing Almendarez's name, the affidavit says.

Police determined the Texas driver's license number actually belonged to another person in Texas, according to the affidavit.

Investigators then visited MC Welding and spoke with the employee using the documents.

The man then identified himself with a New Mexico driver's license as Jose Alfredo Guevara-Reyes of Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Reyes admitted to obtaining documents from a person in Texas for employment purposes but declined to identify the person.

The detective told Reyes the person who supplied the documents had essentially "set you up for failure,” the affidavit says.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"$500,000 Question"}]

Court records estimate Reyes worked at the welding company for more than four years, and a company employee told investigators that Reyes typically worked three 12-hour shifts each week and earned roughly $30 per hour.

The affidavit says he earned well above the felony threshold while allegedly using Almendarez's identity.

Almendarez believes the damage done to him may extend far beyond employment records.

According to IRS records he reviewed, he said more than $500,000 in earnings had been reported under his name.

"I heard he bought cars and put them under his name, a business in fabrication and other things like credit cards," Almendarez said.

The alleged victim also said he even worries someone might have obtained a life insurance policy using his identity.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Truthfully, it scared me to think it has gone on this long,\" he said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Relief Call"}]

After years of trying to untangle the situation from hundreds of miles away, Almendarez decided to write directly to authorities in Gillette.

[{"type":"text","text":"The response came quickly."}]

"A week later they called me saying he was in jail, and I felt so relieved," he said.

Even with the arrest, Almendarez said he believes he still has a long road ahead clearing his name with government agencies and financial institutions.

[{"type":"text","text":"For now, though, he says he finally feels like someone is listening."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I pray this turns out for the best,\" he said."}]

Reyes is being held at the Campbell County Detention Center on a $500,000 cash-only bond. 

He is expected to next appear in circuit court for a preliminary hearing on Thursday at 11:30 p.m.

Gillette police 5 31 23

<title>Gillette Welder Accused Of Stealing Identity, Leaving Man Owing Child Support | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Minnesota man says a stranger spent years building a life in Wyoming using his identity — earning more than $500,000, fathering a child and leaving the man owing child support. "I don't even know him nor have I ever been to Wyoming,” the man said.

Gillette Welder Accused Of Stealing Identity, Leaving Man Owing Child Support

Jen kocher

Jen Kocher

Law Enforcement

Lt. Doug Fisher had been about a week away from flying to Wisconsin to arrest Roger Durkee when he got the news: Durkee was dead.

The cat-and-mouse game Durkee had been playing with Elko County Sheriff’s Office (ECSO) detectives for the past few years was officially over.

[{"type":"text","text":"Fisher called the news bittersweet."}]

He and ECSO Det. Alex Cox had been looking forward to finally putting the cuffs on Durkee, who had spent 32 years eluding authorities after allegedly murdering an unidentified woman and dumping her nude body at a remote desert exit off Interstate 80 in Nevada.

but both officers agree that identifying Durkee’s victim 

For decades, she was known only as “Shafter Jane Doe,” named for the highway exit where she was found in November 1993.

detectives finally identified her as Marion Hertha Alexander

, a 25-year-old German immigrant who had been living in Salt Lake City, Utah, when she crossed paths with Durkee.

The woman also had spent seven months in Afton, Wyoming, shortly before she was killed, which was determined in 2010 via a breakthrough isotope testing procedure. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Family Devastated"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Alexander’s mother was devastated, Fisher said."}]

He and Cox had driven to her California home in January to tell her in person. She had met her husband, a

She married him and returned to California with him and her children in 1972.

Alexander left home in her late teens — a free spirit, her mother told detectives, who drifted and grew distant from the family.

They had not known she was missing and were devastated 

Her mother is now working with the sheriff’s office to finalize the inscription on a new headstone 

 paid for by the Elko County Commissioners.

[{"type":"text","text":"After more than three decades, they finally has the answer."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“We want to make sure we finally get Mary laid to rest,” Fisher said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Little To Go On At First"}]

Many detectives have worked on Alexander’s case over the years. It was not their only cold case, Fisher said.

Along with Alexander, there are five other unidentified people in Elko County dating back to 1972, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs).

[{"type":"text","text":"At first, they had little to go on."}]

When Alexander’s body was discovered about a week after she was killed, it was already badly decomposed.  

She’d been shot in the chest and the back with a small

caliber firearm and had been severely beaten in the face.

There was little to no evidence left at the scene, leaving authorities to believe she’d been killed elsewhere and dumped afterward.

Apart from a partial right thumbprint that had no match in federal databases, detectives had little to go on. The only other identifiers were a tooth that was in the process of getting a root canal and a 2-by-4-inch burn scar or birthmark on her right calf.

To draw attention to the case, detectives reached out to the national media and also held a funeral for her.

Her story initially gained traction after it was picked up by the 

news program “Hard Copy.” but it ultimately yielded no results.

The sheriff’s office took advantage of technological advancements over the years, including having a forensic facial reconstruction done as well as stable isotope ratio analysis of a hair follicle that linked her to Afton, Wyoming, where it was suspected she’d spent the last seven months of her life.

Oddly, this was one detail that the detectives couldn’t track down upon finally learning her identity.

They found addresses for her in California, Oregon, Utah and southern Nevada, but nothing in Wyoming.

In fact, at the time of her murder, she had been living in downtown Salt Lake City near Durkee, Fisher said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Overlooked Evidence"}]

The biggest break in the case happened in April 2019 when detectives took a new look at existing evidence and realized they had DNA on a vaginal swab for both the victim and perpetrator.

It’s not clear how this evidence went overlooked for so long, Fisher said, but it appears to have been the result of a miscommunication between detectives and the crime lab.

still needed to figure out to whom they belonged.

Neither was found in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) or on genetic DNA databases, still leaving them with no answers, so they kept pulling threads, Fisher said.

approved a $10,000 expenditure that allowed the sheriff’s office to contract with Identifiers International for a forensic genetic 

This led investigators to Durkee in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who reached out to the FBI for help identifying him.

The FBI agents procured some items from Durkee’s trash and determined that profile could not be excluded from the one taken from the swab.

“Not being excluded” is as close as law enforcement and science can legally get to saying it’s a likely match.

[{"type":"text","text":"“That was a good indication that this is our guy,” Fisher said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Still, Alexander’s identity remained a mystery at that point."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Closing In On A Killer"}]

Even with Durkee’s identity as Alexander’s killer likely confirmed, it was not enough to collar him for the murder.

All it proved, Cox noted, is that the two had been intimate, but not that he killed her.

[{"type":"text","text":"So they kept digging, Fisher said."}]

In doing so, they learned Durkee moved quite a bit during the 1990s and early 2000s while working 

. This included stints in Nevada, Idaho and Colorado and Salt Lake City.

They also learned he’d been arrested for third-degree sexual assault in Wisconsin in 1978.

Along with moving frequently during this period, Durkee also changed his name, assuming aliases of James W. Kenedy and Carrol T. Hiel.

why he changed his name, he told detectives it was during a time in which he’d made bad decisions in his life and didn’t care to be known by his real name.

Then Fisher and Cox flew out to Wisconsin for the first of three interviews with Durkee in Milwaukee beginning in August 2024.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Pulling Out Teeth"}]

A couple things struck the detectives about Durkee during that first meeting. For starters, he was toothless.

This is because he’d pulled out all of his teeth over the years by himself, Durkee told them. With pliers.

[{"type":"text","text":"“That was a first for me,” Cox said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Fisher agreed."}]

A detective was about to fly to Wisconsin to arrest the lead suspect in the 32-year cold case of a woman whose nude body was dumped along I-80 when he got the news the suspect was dead. The woman's time in Wyoming led to the breakthrough in the case.

Daily Smile: Friday, December 30, 2022

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