You Still Here

[{"type":"text","text":"Gladiator in training..."}]

You still here 9 2 23

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

<title>You Still Here? Saturday, September 2, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Gladiator in training...

You Still Here? Saturday, September 2, 2023

Jen kocher

Jen Kocher

Crime & Courts

Law Enforcement

Editor's note: This is the second of a two-part series on the infamous "Rawlins Rodeo Murders." Part one 

 and focused on the disappearances of four young girls that remain unsolved 52 years later.

In the early 1970s, the small, rugged city of Rawlins, Wyoming, was in the dawn of an energy boom.

The summer of 1974 arrived like any other, but then between July and August, 

Two of then — 10-year-old Jaylene Banker and 19-year-old Christine “Christy” Gross — were eventually found dead.

The other two teens, 19-year-old Carlene Brown and 15-year-old Deborah Meyer, were never found at all.

All their murders and disappearances remain unsolved, and more than 50 years later law enforcement has yet to publicly named any suspects or persons of interest.

Carbon County Sheriff Alex Bakken, who wasn’t born at the time the murders took place, admits that his knowledge is limited on the cases. He took over as sheriff four years ago and inherited these among other cold cases.

He said the files are securely stowed in an offsite storage facility that he plans to retrieve.

other cash-strapped agencies throughout the state

 with large jurisdictions and limited staff, is “slowly but surely” working to digitize older case files in accordance with state statute passed in 2024.

It requires agencies to report cold cases dating back to January 1972 to the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation’s 

[{"type":"text","text":"To date, only Banker appears in the database."}]

This work is being done around their current workload, Bakken said, but it doesn’t mean that they’re forgotten, he said.

Retired homicide detective and Powell-based cold case investigator Janet Franson likewise believes there’s still work to be done.

She’s been looking into these cases for 25 years, specifically trying to locate the remains of the missing girls.

“I know people would say it’s so old,” Franson told Cowboy State Daily. “But two girls are still missing and need to be found.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Possible Suspects?"}]

The first two teens vanished on July 4, 1974, which was a big year for Rawlins.

Fireworks were returning to the town’s Fourth of July celebration after being absent for several years, according to local reporting at the time.

Two friends, 19-year-olds Carlene Brown and Christine “Christy” Gross, attended the Little Britches Rodeo, a local favorite annual event. Gross had been visiting from Bowdle, South Dakota.

Details surrounding their disappearances are vague, but former Carbon County Deputy Sheriff Jeff Faycosh reported that their van was found parked at the fairgrounds, according to a November 1983 Casper-Star Tribune story.

Gross’s remains were found nine years later near Sinclair, a small town of around 350 residents located about 6 miles from Rawlins along Interstate 80.

At the time, Faycosh said his office had turned up a “few new leads” from the crime scene and indicated that a suspect had been identified after looking at “all possible suspects,” according to local media reports.

He further stated that his office was in the process of attempting to locate the suspect, who he declined to name.

[{"type":"text","text":"Faycosh also said that he hadn’t given up hope of finding Brown."}]

“You spend nine years sweating a case like this and you think you are at a dead end. Then you get a new lead,” he told a Rawlins 

Times reporter in a November 1983 article.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Likely Not Bundy"}]

It’s not clear what “suspect” Faycosh was referring to or if any suspects have ever been publicly named.

Many in the community, including Brown’s longtime friend Mary Kay Albrechtson, believe that 

Theodore “Ted” Bundy may be responsible for the murders.

However, former Carbon County Sheriff Chuck Ogburn dispelled that speculation, telling reporters that his office had looked into Bundy, but he’d been incarcerated in Colorado when Gross and Brown vanished.

That timeline, however, appears to be off, according to 

 that say Bundy was not arrested in Utah until August 1975, when he was taken into custody for kidnapping and assaulting a teenager in that state.

He faced additional murder charges in Colorado and was moved to an Aspen jail in January 1977.

Bundy later escaped from the jail in June 1977 from a second-story window while using the jailhouse law library but was captured five days later.

Authorities believe Bundy’s killing spree began in 1974, as he confessed before his 1989 execution to the murders of more than 30 women and young girls.

In July 1974, however, it’s likely that Bundy was still in Washington state, where he abducted and killed Janice Ott and Denise Naslund from Lake Sammamish on July 14, 1974.

Bundy may have been in the Rawlins area, however, when Meyer and Banker disappeared in August — the same month he relocated to Salt Lake City to begin law school and continue his prolific killing spree.

He’s thought to have killed at least eight young women during his time in Utah. His latest victim there was 17-year-old Laura Ann Aime, 

which the Utah County Sheriff’s Office solved in April after 52 years

This discovery also allowed authorities for the first time to upload Bundy’s full DNA profile with more murders expected to be linked to the notorious serial killer.

He’s known to have killed victims in at least seven states — including Utah, Idaho and Colorado — but so far, Bundy has not been tied to any murders in Wyoming.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Tracking A Suspected Murderer"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"A more likely suspect for some is Royal Russell Long, said Janet Franson."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“I’d put my money on this guy,” Franson said."}]

Franson, a retired Lakeland, Florida, homicide detective now living in Powell, has been studying Long’s connections to the Rawlins murders since 2001.

After retiring from the Lakeland Police Department, Franson continued investigating cold cases.

She worked as a volunteer cold case investigator for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and later for the Human Identification Lab at the University of North Texas.

It was this work that sent her to Wyoming and other states to investigate cases and procure DNA from victims’ families for identification.

Long’s name popped up a lot in her investigation into Brown’s disappearance.

He was a long-haul trucker known to carry equipment to carnivals and fairs. In 1984, Long was arrested for kidnapping and raping two teen girls.

The girls had been hitchhiking when they were abducted by Long, who tied them up at gunpoint and took them to his home in Evansville, Wyoming.

The 15-year-old was able to escape and call for help, but Long fled with 12-year-old Sharon Baldeagle.

Long was eventually caught in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Baldeagle was not with him, however, and remains missing to this day.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Predilection For Pairs"}]

Long has never been charged with murder. He pleaded guilty to the two counts of kidnapping and received two life sentences, according to legal documents.

He was also charged with the kidnapping and murder of two 13-year-old girls whom he’d abducted from the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds in September 1981.

Despite having several witnesses that recognized Long as well as hairs of one of the girls in the trunk of his car, authorities were unable to make the charges stick.

Long died in a Wyoming prison of a heart attack in 1993, taking his secrets to his grave.

Though never charged, Long is suspected of multiple rapes and murders across many states, Franson said.

She firmly believes that not only did he murder Baldeagle and dispose of her body, but he’s also responsible for the deaths of all four Rawlins victims.

Franson notes the similarities of the abductions and Long’s predilection for taking victims in pairs, which is rare, she said.

Though there’s no record of address that Cowboy State Daily could locate, Franson was told by a local she interviewed years ago that Long had been staying in Rawlins at the time of the murders at a residence within blocks of the fairgrounds.

Long, who is originally from Indiana, has a long rap sheet dating back to the early 1950s when he was still in his late teens.

This includes a charge for assault with a deadly weapon in Reading, California, in 1952, and also escaping from jail, forged checks and burglary, among other charges, according to a criminal record shared with Cowboy State Daily.

Franson believes Long escalated to murder, and that the Wyoming incarceration was preceded by a trail of victims.

Long was considered a suspect but not the “only viable” one, said Ryan Cox, commander and head of cold cases for the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI).

He did not share information about additional suspects or whether there is any DNA or any evidence still on file. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Finding Brown’s Family"}]

With justice for the “Rawlins Rodeo Murder” victims is likely not possible at this point, Franson thinks the next best thing is finding the remains of Brown and Meyer.

Meyer’s DNA is in the national database, so she can be identified should her remains be found.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Brown, however, is a different story."}]

She and her brother Rick Brown were adopted by Carl Brown and Catherine T. Gutsch, who split up when the kids were teens.

[{"type":"text","text":"Carl remained in Rawlins while Gutsch moved to Colorado."}]

Both Brown’s adopted parents and brother are now deceased, so Franson has taken it upon herself to attempt to track down Brown’s biological parents or family to procure a DNA sample from them.

[{"type":"text","text":"She’s been trying for years in vain to track this information down."}]

A spark of hope came this spring when Sheriff Bakken was able to get Brown’s birth certificate from the Colorado Department of Vital Services. However, the birth certificate contained the names of her adopted, not biological, parents.

Franson said she’d never seen that before nor did the genealogists with whom she consulted on Brown’s case.

Now, it’s back to the drawing board with Bakken in the process of seeing if he can attain an amended or earlier birth record.

Anyone who might know Brown’s biological family or have information about her birth is asked to contact Sheriff Bakken at the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office.

For now, both Bakken and Franson will continue to try to piece together the mystery while keeping the girls’ names alive.

Rawlins Rodeo Murders Old Welcome to Rawlins sign Jimmy Emerson via Flickr 6 7 26

<title>Rawlins Rodeo Murders, Part 2: Did Ted Bundy Kill Four Wyoming Girls 52 Years Ago? | Cowboy State Daily</title>

In the second of a two-part series on the infamous "Rawlins Rodeo Murders" of 1974, many in the community believe serial killer Ted Bundy was responsible for the deaths of the four girls. Others pin the blame on long haul trucker Russell Royal Long.

Rawlins Rodeo Murders, Part 2: Did Ted Bundy Kill Four Wyoming Girls 52 Years Ago?

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

[{"type":"text","text":"As a young girl, Debbie Rude wondered if she had imagined it."}]

Growing up in a tiny rental house on Walnut Street in Rock Springs during the 1950s, some of her earliest memories are of standing at the fence line beside her family’s yard and staring up at what looked to her like something pulled from the pages of a storybook.

The building towering beside her family’s modest home was Schlacter Castle — a hulking stone fortress with rounded turrets, battlemented towers and thick, gray masonry that seems better suited for Germany's Rhine Valley than the windswept coal country of southwest Wyoming.

Its heavy arches and castle walls rise above the hillside with a dreamlike absurdity, as though a medieval stronghold had somehow wandered into Rock Springs and decided to stay.

The fence separating the properties made it feel, Rude said, “as though I lived in two separate worlds.”

On her side sat a hard-packed dirt yard scattered with toys and lined with a clothesline fluttering with work shirts and bedsheets in the Wyoming wind. 

Beyond it rose another world entirely — emerald grass trimmed neat beneath the shadow of stone turrets, flower beds bursting with color around a castle that seemed impossibly elegant against the coal-dust grit of Rock Springs.

“I’d dream of going inside and of living in that castle, like a real princess,” Rude said.

More than a century after German immigrant John Schlacter finished building the castle in 1914, the strange stone fortress still clings to the hillside above Rock Springs, keeping a medieval eye on the city below while generations drift through its halls and the city changes around it.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Castle In Coal Country"}]

Nobody seems entirely sure why Schlacter decided to build a literal castle on a hill overlooking Rock Springs.

That mystery is part of what has kept the building embedded in local imagination for generations.

Born in Germany on Feb. 23, 1866, Schlacter came to the United States in 1886 and eventually married Viola Van Kaiser in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1890. 

The couple raised several children before moving West, first to Diamondville in 1899 and later to Rock Springs in 1907.

By then, Schlacter had already established himself as a master stonecutter.

Historical accounts credit him with helping build the Carnegie libraries in Rock Springs and Green River, along with foundations, homes and churches throughout southwest Wyoming.

With their grand stone facades, towering arched windows and stately symmetry, the libraries Schlacter helped build carried an almost cathedral-like permanence onto the Wyoming frontier — monuments to knowledge and ambition rising from dusty mining roads.

He also built portions of the local Episcopal Church, stone foundations on D Street and C Street, and homes across the city alongside fellow stoneworkers.

According to local historian Helene B. Novotny’s self-published history “The Days After Abraham Lincoln 1943-1949,” Schlacter once bid unsuccessfully on the stately Taliaferro home on Cedar Street.

One local theory suggests Schlacter responded by buying property across from it on Walnut Street and building an even grander stone residence to prove “what an excellent stonecutter he was.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Tall and imposing on the hill, it certainly accomplished that."}]

Construction on the castle began in 1909 and took roughly five years to complete. 

The stone reportedly came from the same local quarry used to build the old Rock Springs City Hall, now home to the Rock Springs Historical Museum, though the quarry itself has since been lost to time.

Schlacter hauled much of the stone himself using two horses and a wagon, according to the Rock Springs Historical Museum.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'My Baba Had To Pull Me Along'"}]

Rude only lived beside the castle until age 5, but the building left a permanent imprint on her memory.

Her family’s roots run deep in Rock Springs’ immigrant coal-mining community. Her father, Pete Mirich, attended Rock Springs High School before leaving to fight in World War II. 

Her grandfather, Sam Mirich, came from Montenegro and worked in the coal mines while helping raise seven children.

Like many immigrant families in Rock Springs at the time, they lived modestly.

[{"type":"text","text":"That made the castle next door feel even more surreal."}]

“My Montenegrin Baba would often take me for walks to the town cemetery to visit my grandpa’s grave, and she would always have to tug on my hand to get me moving when we walked past the castle,” Rude said.

Part of the fascination, she believes, came from the mystery surrounding the place.

“I don’t ever recall seeing a person go in or out of the house,” she said. “That may actually have made it easier for me to create my own fantasies about it.”

Her parents sometimes had to call her inside because she spent so much time staring at the building.

“Others would laugh and say it was just a little girl’s flight of fancy,” she said. “In fact, there was a period of time when I wondered, myself, if I had simply imagined it was there. 

"After all, how could there be a real castle in Rock Springs, Wyoming?”

Friends and neighbors later described the Schlacters as intensely private people, which only deepened the mystery surrounding the looming stone home.

Two of Schlacter’s daughters eventually lived in the castle, including Olga Schlacter, who remained unmarried and reportedly lived there longer than anyone else in the family while working at Parker Brothers Drug Store in Rock Springs.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Soldiers, Ghost Stories And Survival"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The castle’s history only grew stranger with time."}]

According to local historical accounts, Schlacter opened the building during World War I to soldiers in the area, allowing it to be used as temporary barracks and providing room and board to military personnel.

[{"type":"text","text":"Local stories also suggest tragedy followed the family. "}]

One account claims Schlacter and his wife returned to Germany grief-stricken after the reported death of an older son shortly after World War I, leaving much of the remaining family behind in Wyoming.

After World War II, the castle was eventually sold to the Greek family. Residents who visited the home during that era remembered wandering staircases and cavernous interiors. 

One former piano student reportedly joked she spent more time staring at the staircase and wondering how horses could ever climb it than practicing music.

Later, the castle sat vacant for years — boarded up, dark and looming over Walnut Street.

[{"type":"text","text":"That was when the ghost stories began."}]

For generations of Rock Springs kids, the abandoned stone fortress became the kind of place people dared each other to approach.

Eventually, the Hamm family purchased the building and converted it into apartments. During renovations, portions of the original structure were altered, including removal of the attic roof and modifications to the turrets. Large picture windows were also added overlooking the city below.

Those renovations ultimately prevented the building from qualifying for the National Register of Historic Places.

[{"type":"text","text":"Still, the castle survives."}]

More than 112 years after its stone walls first rose above Rock Springs, the fortress remains perched on the hillside — weathered by Wyoming winters, softened by time and stubbornly standing watch over the city below.

Today, Rude still makes a point to drive past it whenever she passes through town.

“No trip through town is complete without driving past the castle and the tiny little house that still sits in its shadow,” she said.

Schlacter Castle Screenshot 2026 06 06 at 10 23 32 AM 6 6 26

<title>Why The Heck … Is There A Castle In The Middle Of Rock Springs, Wyoming? | Cowboy State Daily</title>

No one knows why German immigrant and master stonemason John Schlacter built a castle overlooking Rock Springs more than a century ago. He spent five years building it by hand, hauling locally quarried stone by horse and wagon before finishing it in 1914.

Why The Heck … Is There A Castle In The Middle Of Rock Springs, Wyoming?

Most sheriff cruisers are designed to blend into a fleet, but the newest cruiser in the Laramie County Sheriff's Office fleet was designed to do the exact opposite.

It not only stands out, “it looks pretty badass,” said Laramie County Sheriff Brian Kozak.

Covered in Western artwork featuring a cowboy on horseback racing forward with purpose on a white background, the 2025 Dodge Durango LCSO SUV is pure Wyoming.

That it turns heads is exactly what Kozak said he was going for in commissioning the look of the department's new recruiting rig.

It squats low and mean with a wild-eyed horse charging across its sides, mane whipping viciously in the Cowboy State wind. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Clint Eastwood-Inspired Cruiser"}]

When it came time to create the design, Kozak called on Cheyenne mural artist Jordan Dean, whose giant wild horse mural transformed the city's towering water tanks north of town.

Dean has become one of the state's most recognizable mural artists, painting everything from large public art installations to massive water tower projects that require boom lifts, projectors and specialized industrial paint.

[{"type":"text","text":"Kozak had a simple request for Dean."}]

"I wanted a high plains drifter, Clint Eastwood kind of cowboy hard charge-in graphic,” the sheriff said.

[{"type":"text","text":"Dean delivered."}]

The result is a rolling Western mural that has already been drawing attention from residents and fellow law enforcement officers.

[{"type":"text","text":"Kozak said he keeps hearing, \"That is the coolest car we've ever seen.\""}]

The cruiser's first major public appearance in Cheyenne was Saturday during a downtown summer event, where families were able to climb inside, check out the lights and meet members of the sheriff's office.

[{"type":"text","text":"Wyatt Earp On Wheels"}]

Dean said his relationship with the sheriff's office began years ago when Kozak called looking for an artist to paint murals inside the Laramie County Detention Center. 

When he was done with that, he told the sheriff, "I would love to take a crack at your vehicles. I've always just thought it would be the coolest thing to design a law enforcement vehicle." 

The artist said early discussions centered on creating something inspired by a Wyatt Earp-style lawman — part frontier sheriff, part larger-than-life Western character. 

"I wanted something that had action, had motion to it," Dean said. "I wanted the horse and rider to fit in the space but kind of take up the whole width of the car.

 "It's the Laramie County Sheriff's Office," he continued. “So, the Western theme just fit, and I love that style." 

If the art causes people to stop and take a second look at the local hero's, Dean says he's done his job. 

[{"type":"text","text":"More Than A Cool Paint Job"}]

As eye-catching as the vehicle is, the sheriff's office didn't build it simply to show off.

The cruiser is assigned to Cpl. Heather Wilson in the agency's hiring unit and is intended to function as a rolling recruiting tool.

"The whole motivation was for people to ask, 'Hey, what's with this car?'" Kozak said.

[{"type":"text","text":"Once the conversation starts, deputies can begin talking about careers."}]

The vehicle is packed with recruiting features, including a pull-out television screen that can play hiring videos during public events.

The sheriff's office will soon hook up a PlayStation loaded with a pursuit-driving game so kids can climb into the back and try it out.

"It's just a vehicle to attract attention and spark up a conversation," Kozak said.

[{"type":"text","text":"Lights, Sirens, Western Swagger"}]

The cruiser also comes loaded with what Kozak described as an almost absurd amount of emergency lighting.

Then there are the novelty features. Push the right buttons and the vehicle can play the famous “Bad Boys” theme from the television show "Cops."

[{"type":"text","text":"It can also blast the national anthem."}]

The sheriff's office has only had the vehicle about a week, but it's already been getting attention beyond Wyoming.

[{"type":"text","text":"Kozak said Wilson recently drove it to a leadership training in Colorado."}]

"All the Denver law enforcement officers that went to this leadership training just thought it was the best car ever that they've seen," he said.

[{"type":"text","text":"The attention is exactly what the sheriff hoped for."}]

Like many agencies nationwide, Laramie County is constantly recruiting new employees as veteran deputies retire or move on.

Kozak said the agency employs about 240 people and generally maintains around a 10% vacancy rate, leaving roughly 10 to 15 positions open at any given time.

His hope is that a cruiser people can't stop staring at might help start conversations that eventually fill those openings.

When Laramie County Sheriff Brian Kozak wanted a new design for the newest SUV in the fleet, he asked a local artist to create a "Clint Eastwood High Plains Drifter" look. "It looks pretty badass," Kozak said, noting he's received many compliments.

You Still Here? Saturday, September 2, 2023

In case you missed it

More in You Still Here

Today In Cooking: Monday, June 8, 2026

Bonus Video 2: Monday, June 8, 2026

Bonus Video 1: Monday, June 8, 2026

Steve Inman: Monday, June 8, 2026

Most read