Accused of strangling and beating his pregnant girlfriend in a fit of jealous rage, an Ethete man faces up to 20 years in prison.
Riverton police arrested Keller Wendley Duran Jr., 30, after his pregnant girlfriend went to SageWest Health Care with numerous bruises on her neck and face early May 24, according to an evidentiary affidavit in the case.
The Riverton Circuit Court transferred Duran’s case to the felony-level Fremont County District Court on June 12, according to his court file, after Duran declined to have a preliminary hearing weighing whether there was probable cause to advance the case.
A key part of the case unfolded when Duran's girlfriend, who is about 25, remembered that she had cameras recording in her bedroom and living room during the alleged attack.
Another Baby On The Way
Duran’s girlfriend was 20 weeks and four days pregnant with his child during the alleged attack, the affidavit says. The pair had been dating since January.
Duran’s girlfriend also is the mother of twin baby girls whose father, Anthony Long, broke their bones in November.
Born in October, the twins were 24 days old during the abuse incident.
Fremont County District Court Judge Jason Conder sentenced Long in April to 16-20 years in prison.
This Phone
Duran was drunk when he came to his girlfriend’s home in Riverton to hang out the night of May 23, the affidavit says, based on statements the girlfriend gave Riverton Police Department Officer Ethan Borchardt during her hospital interview.
When they lay down for bed, Duran allegedly accused her of cheating and asked to look through her phone.
She wouldn’t let him go through her phone. He got angry, and they fought over the phone as he tried to take it from her, the affidavit says.
The affidavit says Duran got on top of his girlfriend, held her down and began to strangle her with his thumbs joining over the center of her throat and his fingers wrapping around both sides of her neck.
Her vision started to go dark; she struggled to breathe and saw stars, according to the affidavit.
She bit Duran on his right arm and rolled around on the ground. Duran finally got off her, the woman told Officer Borchardt.
And Again
As she stood in the corner of the room by her bookshelf, Duran charged her again, the affidavit says, adding that she told him repeatedly to leave her alone and that she couldn’t breathe.
The woman couldn’t remember how she got from the bedroom to the living room couch. But in the living room, she told the officer, Duran smothered her nose and mouth with his hand, pushed her face into the side of the couch and started smacking her with his right palm.
Refuge
Duran allegedly wouldn’t let his girlfriend leave the house until she begged him to let her leave because her stomach was hurting.
They left together and went to the woman’s friend’s house, the affidavit says.
The friend, a 30-year-old Riverton woman, was at her house with her own boyfriend. The friend’s boyfriend kicked Duran out of the house, the affidavit says. That was when the alleged victim went to the hospital.
Officer Borchardt noted the following injuries:
- Bruising on the woman’s eyelids and around both of her eyes.
- Both sides of her head were red and swollen.
- Bruising on the right side of her neck.
- Blood blisters speckling her right eye.
These injuries, the affidavit says, were consistent with the woman’s account of the attack.
Oh, There’s Camera Footage?
The woman gave Borchardt permission to go look for Duran at her home, which the officer found unlocked.
Borchardt didn’t find Duran there, but he did notice cameras in the living room and bedroom. He went back to the hospital to ask the woman about this, says the affidavit.
The woman said she’d forgotten about the cameras. She started showing Borchardt the footage and downloaded clips of the attack.
On the footage, Borchardt saw the woman and Duran enter the bedroom frame and fall to the floor, the affidavit says. Duran was on top of the woman; she struggled on the floor. Duran pulled her back underneath him and sat on top of her.
Borchardt’s account says he could see Duran’s arms extended and pushing down where the woman’s neck was, on the floor.
In the next clip of the living room, Borchardt allegedly watched Duran pull the woman into the living room and throw her on the couch, then smother her nose and mouth with his hand.
Borchardt’s account says he watched Duran hold the woman on the floor and he “threw a few strikes at her.”
Supervised Release From Federal Prison
Duran faces one count of aggravated assault and another of strangulation of a household member, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
A 2021 press release by the office of the U.S. Attorney for Wyoming indicates that Duran was recently out of prison on another strangulation charge. A federal judge had sentenced Duran on Feb. 10, 2021, to 27 months in prison for strangling a person on the Wind River Indian Reservation months earlier.
The sentence may have kept Duran behind bars until May 10, but he appears to have been let out for supervised release Sept. 2, 2022.
Within days of his release, Duran was in trouble for giving an alcohol-positive urine test Sept. 7, according to his federal court file. He said he’d gone to his sister’s gravesite Sept. 2 and drank alcohol afterward.
When a Sept. 26 urine test yielded yet another alcohol-positive result, Duran reportedly admitted to consuming a half-pint of vodka the Friday before.
He voluntarily asked to be put in a “structured environment,” says the request for release modification. He agreed to stay at the Center of Hope detox center in Riverton.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
