Daily Darwin

[{"type":"text","text":"Darwin vs science..."}]

Darwin 10 15 23

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

<title>Daily Darwin: Sunday, October 15, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Darwin vs science...

Daily Darwin: Sunday, October 15, 2023

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

Renée Jean

Government & Politics

EVANSTON — Prometheus Hyperscale laid out a vision for its massive 1.2 gigawatt data center campus on a ranch east of town owned by native Trenton Thornock. It’s a place where cattle still graze and the residents prize open country and sky.  

That includes Thornock, the fifth-generation ranching family member told a packed room of Uinta County residents, many of whom are wary of becoming the next front in Wyoming’s data center boom.  

“Our family ranches here, and my great-great-grandmother homesteaded here down Bear River back in 1869,” Thornock said. “I started the company because I saw two things that were wrong with the data center industry. 

"They’re using way too much power for the amount of compute that they’re getting out and they’re using way too much water for cooling.”

Thornock said he started his company in 2020 with the idea of first innovating water cooling systems and doing things in a more sustainable way and second improving the economy of his home state.

Wyoming has struggled with outmigration of its youth, losing most of them by age 30 to other states. 

It’s a dynamic Thornock, as an Evanston graduate, said he's all too familiar with. He knows plenty of his Wyoming classmates who wanted to stay in Wyoming, but couldn’t find high enough paying jobs to support a family.

His thought was that data centers could be part of a new story that changes that dynamic.

That’s one of the reasons he settled on a “bring-your-own-power” approach. Because of severance taxes paid on every molecule of natural gas used, that would be the best way, he figured, to support the state.

“Instead of exporting all of this economic value from the gas that’s produced here in Wyoming like we’ve always done, the point is to consume that here, do the compute here, have the property taxes from these facilities here to support our tax base, to support our schools, and all the other county services,” he said. “That’s my reason for doing this project.”

Thornock’s data center would be built on family-owned ranch land near the Silver Eagle refinery.

This, he added, is not a case where some billionaire from far away is coming to buy up Wyoming land. This is a born-and-raised Wyomingite, wanting to make a difference for his home town.

Prometheus Hyperscale has faced a rising tide of opposition against data centers amid broader concerns gripping the state, following a surge of as many as 70 data centers headed for Cheyenne. 

The meeting Tuesday was informational to answer questions from Uinta County residents about the company’s plans — and they had plenty.

It wasn’t just the usual gamut of water and power use issues. 

People wanted to know who the tenants were, who would be minding the man camps and policing any crimes, whether public officials have signed any non-disclosure agreements, and whether there are any federal, state, or local subsidies, tax abatements, or special utility deals. 

As far as tenants, Thornock said he’s not able to reveal the tenants just yet because they’re not yet ready to go public.

However, he would say that he’s signed a binding agreement with a tenant that restricts future owners of the facility.

“It will not be sold to certain types of entities,” Thornock said. “And there are at least five Chinese names on that list.”

Thornock revealed that he’d gone through a full-blown process early on to bring in a tenant, and ultimately had to reject the contract when he learned that the tenant would have been Chinese-owned ByteDance. 

“So we’ve waited two more years to get to someone we think is the right person to have in this county,” he said. 

 ties to the World Economic Forum, as well as his ties to Blackrock, his involvement in environmental, social, governance (ESG) measures during his tenure as CEO of BP.

Thornock had to say, more than once, that he hasn’t requested any abatements, nor is he accepting any government funding. Looney, he explained, made a better CEO than himself for the sake of name recognition.

“No one knows who Trenton Thornock is on Wall Street,” he said. “They don’t care who I am. The CEO of the company, Bernard Looney, everyone knows him. Jamie Dimon knows him. The head of Blackrock knows him. He’s the reason we had a CEO change, to go raise the money for private markets.”

All of the equity, all of the debt, will be raised from private investors using a bond offering that will be managed by Morgan Stanley.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Not Remote Jobs"}]

Uinta County Commissioner Mark Anderson told Thornock and his team that he’d been engaging with local residents for the past two weeks, and that he had a long list of questions from them. 

Chief among them was whether the 200 long-term jobs the data center projects it will have once operational will be actual jobs for people residing in Uinta County.

“Or will these be jobs created for somebody to sit and operate remotely?” Anderson asked.

The jobs will not be remote, Anderson was told, and the company is taking extra steps to try and hire as many people locally as possible.

“The way we’re going to do it here is that we’re first going to post all these jobs locally so that we can pull all the talent that’s here or people who are interested in getting a job there,” Thornock said. “And I can tell you what the wages are, because they’re kind of the same across the industry. 

"These 200 jobs range from $75,000 a year on the low end to about 150 on the high end. They’re good jobs … and these jobs will come with all the benefits. You’ll have bonus, you’ll have overtime, vacation, full healthcare, 401K — all the things that you want that I don’t have working for a startup.”

The data center will bring “a lot of advancement in the learning and the workforce,” Prometheus Head of Construction Ahmed Anwar said. 

“When you talk about direct construction, we’ll need electricians, we’ll need pipefitters, we’ll need ironworkers,” he said. “Pretty much any trade that supports an oil and gas field, any type of power plant project, those are the same types of trades that we’re looking for as we build data centers.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Minimizing Water Use"}]

In a state where ranching and water rights are existential issues, residents pressed hard on water use and power use. 

Thornock spent the most time addressing questions about those issues, explaining that his data center will use a closed-loop, liquid cooling system similar to the radiator of a car.

Unlike the radiator of car, the cooling loop for the data center will be filled with a propylene glycol water mixture referred to as PG25. 

Propylene glycol is an additive that’s been generally recognized as safe by the Food and Drug Administration for food, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. 

It has a variety of uses including as an anti-caking agent, as well as an emulsifier or stabilizer. It’s also useful as a humectant — absorbing and retaining moisture — which helps keep baked goods fresh and soft.

PG25 is good for around six years, after which it requires recharging. That will be done off-site by a chemical supplier, which will manage trucking the fluids in and out of Wyoming. 

The spent fluid will not be released into local well water. It will be drained and sealed into 1,000-gallon drums or containers and shipped off either for recycling or disposal in a Class VI well.

The only well water the site will use is for domestic uses such as employees washing their hands when they use the restroom.

The company also promised it would report daily water extraction from its wells on a portal, so that residents can track usage.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Staying Off Grid"}]

As far as energy, Prometheus is proposing a fully off-grid power strategy that will be built around on-site natural gas generation through the Kern River pipeline, which already loops through that area.

“Because we’re not connecting to the grid, there’s zero impact on your rates, because we are not connecting to Rocky Mountain Power,” he said. “The rules in Wyoming are such that we can consume our own electricity on site, and we’ll have to abide by all regulations.”

The type of power generation will be natural gas reciprocating engines, which Thornock said will use very little water. 

“We’re talking about, on a per engine basis, a couple of Yeti cups per day,” he said. “So it’s not significant. And when we get to the larger turbine generation, those will be cooled with dry coolers, similar to the data center, so there’s no water consumption there either.”

Thornock further committed to paying for municipal fire protection, road maintenance, and emergency service responses required by the facility, and said the company will be working with Target Hospitality to provide workforce housing to avoid affecting the local housing market.

Wyoming’s abundant gas resources and existing gathering systems, meanwhile, mean that production can increase with demand without dramatically spiking prices for that resource, while simultaneously supporting the state through severance taxes. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Why Data Centers Matter"}]

Swipe a credit card, and you’re interacting with a data center somewhere. Go to a gas station and use a preferred shopping card, and you’re interacting with a data center somewhere else.

“Our health care rules have been focused around the fact that all the records are in data centers,” Prometheus Hyperscale Head of Global Infrastructure James Faccone told the standing-room only crowd at Evanston’s Roundhouse on Tuesday. 

“So, as much as we think we might be trying to avoid data centers, they’re here to stay,” he said. "They are very much part of our life, and they bring us a lot of value.”

That frames the Evanston project as part of a broader shift in “critical infrastructure,” akin to things like hospitals, military installations, and other complex facilities that require operations, maintenance, and security personnel to run safely and reliably.

Inside these data centers, there are hundreds of computers sitting in rows on server racks, supported by intricate systems that require skilled jobs and long-term technical capabilities who both work and live in their host communities. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Overall Economic Impact"}]

An economic analysis commissioned from the University of Wyoming projects a $3.1 billion economic impact in Uinta County through 2032, with hundreds of permanent jobs and hundreds more indirect positions once the campus is fully built out.

Statewide, the economic impact for Wyoming is $184 million through 2029, Thornock said, with a $40 million impact to Uinta County over the same period.

Once operational, it will be good for $53 million annually to the state, largely from severance taxes on natural gas consumed on site, and roughly $13 million per year in county and sub-county impact, which includes property taxes. 

These revenue streams would help stabilize a county whose tax collections have been buffeted by swings in oil, gas and coal, Thornock said.  

The biggest beneficiary will be school districts, he added, followed by fire districts, roads, infrastructure, public safety and county government. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Continued Engagement"}]

With opposition to data centers rising across the Cowboy State, residents have voiced concern that Prometheus’ data center campuses are large enough to still put pressure on local water supplies and the regional power grid even with these efficiency measures in place.

Along with the Uinta County project, the company also is moving forward with a data center in Natrona County.

They’ve had a long list of growing questions from residents, ranging from what the campus will look like on the ground to how it might affect everything from housing and traffic to emergency services. 

Prometheus has promised to engage with those concerns directly through community benefit agreements and local-hiring priorities through a broader “Build Wyoming” message that pitches data centers as a tool to fight the state’s brain drain and keep more young people working at home.

Company officials have said construction is expected to begin on the Evanston data center within six to nine months, with an eye to starting operation sometime in 2027.

Tuesday’s informational meeting was the latest opportunity for residents to weigh those assurances, ask detailed questions about water and power use, and help shape how this ambitious AI campus, if built, fits into Uinta County’s future.

Evanston town hall 5 26 26

<title>Prometheus Faces Skeptical Crowd In Evanston Over Huge 1.2GW Data Center | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Fifth-generation Wyoming rancher Trenton Thornock pitched a huge 1.2 gigawatt data center on family land to a skeptical Evanston crowd on Tuesday. The project is facing a rising tide of opposition against data centers locally and across Wyoming.

Prometheus Faces Skeptical Crowd In Evanston Over Huge 1.2GW Data Center

Leah Veress

Outdoors

[{"type":"text","text":"“Leah, get up. The horses got out.”"}]

I burrowed my head deeper into my sleeping bag against the cold, feigning sleep. Outside my synthetic-filled cocoon, my tentmate was shuffling around, unzipping her sleeping bag.

In the distance, a creek was roaring, and horses were whinnying, and dull bells were ringing.

“You put the bells on the mares,” Matt, a contractor who grew up locally, explained to me the previous day. “They’re the trouble makers. If they get out, the rest will follow.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Like a queen bee, I had thought."}]

Suddenly, I was fully awake. Shit, the horses got out! Deep in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, dozens of miles from the nearest road, two days into a five-day trip, the horses and mules were our only way to pack out our camp.

I threw open my sleeping bag, pulled on my jeans, grabbed my headlamp and bear spray, and crawled out of the tent.

Despite the darkness, camp was alive with motion. Tent doors flew open, riding clothes were thrown over sleepwear, and saddles were slung on the remaining horses. I clicked my headlamp to the highest setting, blinking hard to adjust my eyes to the low light and shake the sleep from my mind.

Two horses and two mules came into view, tethered to trees by their lead ropes. That left eight animals missing. Lights scanned like spotlights as horses whinnied and the mules brayed, casting an eerie, wail-like sound into the darkness.

As Matt and Antonio, a seasonal outdoors worker, mounted their horses to track the escaped equestrians, the outfitter turned to me.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Stay here and watch the animals in case any trouble comes.”"}]

Two days earlier, our posse of five mules, seven horses, an outfitter, two contractors, a nurse, an outdoorsman, and a reporter embarked on an extended weekend pack trip.

New to horseback riding, having taken a multi-year hiatus from the backcountry, and largely unfamiliar with my companions, I was immediately overwhelmed with a deep appreciation for their company, keen to learn as much as I could.

Most members of the group had worked for the outfitter at one point, spending a summer taking dude rides or a fall guiding hunts in the Absaroka-Beartooth. Cumulatively, they had more than a century of experience. With no dudes on this particular trip, they were afforded a unique opportunity to let loose, exchanging banter and stories freely.

Food packed into Yeti coolers and Milwaukee Packouts, tents and personal items loaded onto mules, horses saddled, bridled, and ready to go, we set out on the 20-mile ride into camp around 11 a.m., three hours after our target departure time.

“I hope you all brought headlamps,” Hazel, a life-long outdoorswoman and practicing nurse, joked.

As the miles wore on, I got to know Cherokee, the 10-year-old paint I was riding.

The cadence of her stride set the pace of my day. As we passed lakes and paralleled streams, the reflection of the sunlight glimmered with every step she took.

I watched as her ears twitched and tail swooshed, shooing away early-season mosquitoes. I noticed the way her sides flared out as we rode up ridges, and the snorts she released to clear the dry, dusty air from her nostrils.

I sneezed in tandem. I learned to anticipate the way she leapt over streams, favoring dry land for the muddy trail most of the other animals trudged through.

As we rode in, the outfitter narrated, sharing personal and historical anecdotes about the route. He had been riding in these mountains twice as long as I had been alive. His stories chronicled the time Teddy Roosevelt spent in the wilderness, the history of resource extraction in the area, and childhood stories that echoed with the ring of universal human experience.

He led a string of five mules with one hand, and the reins of his paint gelding Cabaret and a Coors Banquet in the other. Every time the string would stall, he’d kick up Cabaret.

“I’m not even upset about the mules stopping,” he said. “I’m just pissed it’s spilling my beer.”

Packed in the panniers were three boxes of wine, and two 30-packs of Coors.

Matt rode ahead of the group, scouting the path where the trail fell out. When my borrowed Stetson hat blew off my head for the umpteenth time, and I started rolling my saddle getting back on after retrieving it, he looped back, ensuring everything was OK. He rode this way the whole trip, scouting and keeping everyone together, offering me horsemanship tips over the five days.

By the time we arrived at camp, nestled between a mountain ridge and a swollen creek, the sun had started to descend, and the air temperature fell.

As we dismounted and started to untack the stock, the outfitter walked over to me, his back bent permanently 10 degrees forward from a lifetime of riding, and showed me how to take off the bridal, the cinch, and the breast collar, hands on autopilot from decades of repetition.

“Always unbuckle from the left,” he said, looping and tying the cinch strap like a necktie. “And put your saddle blanket upside down on top of the saddle so it can air out.”

I nodded, making mental notes I later translated to my journal. In this same way, I learned how to tie the quick-release knot necessary to tether her lead rope to a tree (always at neck height or higher), and how to bridle and saddle Cherokee.

Any time I faltered, someone was there to help, offering demonstrations and heuristics.

Once the horses were brushed, untacked, and put to pasture behind an electric fence, camp was erected, illuminated by our headlamps.

Orange, yellow, and green tents stood in the conifer forest like presents under a Christmas tree, packed close enough together to provide perceived protection in grizzly country, but spread apart far enough to create a semblance of privacy.

By the time I crawled into my sleeping bag, the day had stretched over 18 hours. Stomach full of chili reheated over a camp fire, legs and back sore from riding, and my heart happy to be in the backcountry with good company, I drifted off to sleep.

Over the next three days, we cooked all of our meals over an open fire: Corn, potatoes, steak, eggs, hot dogs, pasta, Jiffy Pop. Blue and white enamel cookware was charred black by the soot and washed with murky water retrieved from the creek.

By day three, we had built a second ring. One for talking around, one for cooking over.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Less pressure on the chefs,” the outfitter said."}]

Stumps, cut from felled trees with hatchets, rocks, and a single REI pop-up chair surrounded the talking ring, each a chamber for smoke roulette.

As conversation drifted from shared memories to political beliefs and everything in between, laughter permeated the air, infectious and heavy. Hours passed this way, with the campfire burning steadily, fueled by a seemingly never-ending pile of deadfall, blanketing our dust-covered clothes in a comforting aroma of smoke.

As the week lumbered on, we trekked to nearby lakes, waterfalls, and ridgelines, riding single file, weaving through the landscape like a condensed centipede.

With no cell service and limited charging opportunities, our phones transformed from universal tools into cameras and jukeboxes. Temporarily entirely relieved of the worries and responsibilities a tower connection carried, I contentedly diverted my attention to the people, animals, and space immediately around me.

As we explored the mountains, valleys, meadows, and waterways, I found myself overwhelmed by gratitude. Gratitude for the head on my shoulders and the earth beneath my feet. Gratitude for the people around me, their humor, banter, and willingness to share their wilderness experience and expertise with me.

On day three, we rode to an alpine lake, dipping into willow-blanketed meadows full of bear claw-marked trees, before climbing to snow-covered lodgepole stands. For lunch, we ate sandwiches: PB&J, bologna, turkey, Velveeta, and drank filtered river water.

I watched as Larry, who had moved to Montana from New Hampshire a decade ago and never looked back, and the outfitter fished for cutthroat, one brandishing a spin rod and the other a fly rod.

“I’ve caught eight,” Larry touted, less than a minute after hitting the water.

“That’s OK, pal,” the outfitter called back, holding his spin rod. “One of these days we’ll teach you to count.”

As they fished, Hazel and Antonio read, lazily sprawling out on dried grass.

“I hope there aren’t ticks up here,” Hazel said, resting her book on her lap, pages spread, spine up.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Don’t say that word,” said Antonio, half-joking."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“Tick, tick, tick,” she taunted."}]

I laughed and rested my back against a felled tree, settling my weight into the dirt below. As ants crawled up my arms, I watched them, making no motion to swat them away. I pulled open my journal and started to sketch the lake.

My pen traced the contours of the landscape, filling the page with ink. I reveled in the warmth the unobscured sunshine cast on my face. Closing the book, I tilted my face upward, and drifted off to sleep.

Despite cold evening temperatures, late nights, and early mornings, the trip brought some of the best rest I had experienced in months. Between being lulled to sleep by the steady roaring of the creek, eating hearty, fire-cooked meals, drinking fresh water, and filling fleeting moments with laughter, this experience felt like a turning point.

[{"type":"text","text":"Exactly the direction I was pivoting toward, I still don’t know."}]

Before this trip, I had spent fewer than 10 cumulative hours on horseback. It had been years since I had been in the backcountry, and even longer since I had felt this level of adoration for the wilderness. Here, I was surrounded by people who made the outdoors their life, and stock that knew these mountains like the back of their hooves.

In this company, in a camp surrounded by sage, pines, glacier lilies, shooting stars, bears, deer, bison and wolves, I found comfort. It was their confidence, good nature, and competence in the backcountry that kept me calm as I stood watch in camp after the horses broke down the electric fence and disappeared into the night.

Nestled next to a Douglas fir tree, keeping a careful eye on the four remaining animals, I watched as the sky slowly turned forget-me-not-blue against the gray mountain ridges and valleys.

Beside me, I heard a snap. I jerked my head up, my headlamp catching the eyeshine of Wrangler, a 12-year-old bay quarterhorse. As her head lurched toward me, I groped at the air, missing her lead. She beelined down the trail, and across the creek, following the other escapees to a meadow that lay beyond.

[{"type":"text","text":"The outfitter’s words echoed in my head."}]

Resigned to my watchpost, I waited. The symphony of chaos continued around me, swirling like a storm cloud. Horses and mules snorted, pawing the ground anxiously as the creek our camp shouldered roared, angry and swollen with spring rainfall and runoff.

Slowly, color returned to the earth as first light careened down the ridgeline into camp. As I flicked off my headlamp, the faint ring of bells returned, followed by the clomping of hooves against dirt and rock.

[{"type":"text","text":"“We got ‘em,” said Matt, leading a string of mules."}]

I checked my watch. 5:36 a.m. Just like that, it was all over, less than 40 minutes after it began.

“We should let them loose to graze,” the outfitter joked, signifying that the danger had passed.

For the remainder of the trip, the livestock were tied up at night. In this way, I learned that horses sleep standing up.

“If they’re confident they’re safe, they’ll sleep lying down,” Larry told me. “They’re prey animals, and they always want to be ready to run.”

He kept his horses in a corral on his property. He said it took them months to feel comfortable enough to sleep laying down.

By the time we rode out on the final day, the coolers and packouts were lighter. Clothes were saturated with dust, grease and smoke. Animals were well-grazed on native grasses that blanketed the meadow serving as their temporary pasture.

Anticipation for the trip’s commencement rested heavy on everyone’s chests.

The ride out took more than 10 hours, culminating in a steep climb back to the outfitters. Tired, sweaty, and hungry, we untacked the animals, moved them to the corral, unpacked the mules, loaded our cars, hugged goodbye, and dispersed, like ashes in a campfire pit.

[{"type":"text","text":"The names of the horses have been changed to protect their identity."}]

Horses 1 5 26 26

<title>'Tonight The Horses Sleep Standing Up': Lessons From Five Nights In The Absaroka-Beartooth… | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Suddenly, I was fully awake. The horses got out! Deep in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, dozens of miles from the nearest road, two days into a five-day trip, the horses and mules were our only way to pack out our camp.

'Tonight The Horses Sleep Standing Up': Lessons From Five Nights In The Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Crime & Courts

Courts

CASPER — A 37-year-old Casper woman who police say 

 to create the appearance of abuse, then stabbed her husband in the neck, pleaded not guilty in Natrona County District Court on Tuesday.

Tabatha Richardson appeared beside her attorney Dylan Rosalez in a white top and black slacks, free on a $30,000 cash or surety bond. Judge Kerri Johnson read Richardson the single charge of aggravated assault and battery she faces.

Johnson asked her if she had read the police affidavit outlining her alleged actions, and understood the charge and potential 10-year prison sentence and $10,000 fine that she faces.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"“Yes, your honor,” she said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The judge asked her how she would plead."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"“Not guilty,” she said."}]

Rosalez asked the judge to continue her bond, who agreed and said the issue would be set for trial.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"His Account"}]

Court records show that Natrona County Sheriff’s deputies were called by both Richardson and her then-husband to a residence in the 3300 block of Allendale in Casper on Dec. 9. 2025, for a reported stabbing. 

Richardson told deputies it happened while protecting herself from physical abuse by her husband.

Richardson told the 911 dispatcher that her husband “was on the couch and I just walked by him and he started attacking me,” according to an affidavit of probable cause filed in her case.

In Richardson's husband’s 911 call, he reported that he had just been stabbed in the neck without provocation and that he was afraid for the safety of his children.

Interviews with both Richardson and her husband were conducted at Banner Wyoming Medical Center where they sought treatment, the affidavit states.

Sheriff’s Investigator Cory Brooks wrote that Richardson stated in an interview that her husband punched her in the ribs and scratched her while she held her son in her right arm. 

She said she pulled a lock-blade folding knife from her bra with her left hand and pushed the button to make the blade flip out.

She then allegedly stabbed her husband on the right side of his neck to get him off her, the affidavit says. She told Brooks that he then stood up, grabbed his neck and left the residence.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Neck Pain"}]

The husband told Brooks that he and Richardson were going through a divorce and he was there to visit with his children. 

He had made a bottle for his son and held him while feeding him, the affidavit says.

After his son was full, he placed the bottle to the side and was holding him to get him to go to sleep when he heard Richardson make a remark and then he felt something on the right side of his neck.

“(The husband) felt his neck with his hand and saw that there was blood on his hand,” Brooks wrote. 

The husband told the investigator he laid his son on the couch and that Richardson stabbed at him again and missed.

He told Brooks that he left the house, went to his pickup, and called 911. Once law enforcement arrived, he was transported to the hospital.

Both husband and wife agreed to provide police with digital downloads of their phones.

Deputies obtained a warrant to search the house, and an investigation of the home found baby clothes, a blanket with blood stains and a black folding knife with a stain on the blade. 

The husband also told police that security cameras were on the exterior of the home.

The affidavit says that a search of Richardson’s phone found she had sent “a lengthy string” of messages to herself about women who had been physically abused and had tagged social media articles and videos about how to testify in court about physical abuse.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Swinging Sledge"}]

Investigators also found a security camera from the home had been removed from the exterior and taken to a bedroom where Richardson and her daughter were in the room. 

About 2 1/2 hours before her husband arrived at the home, she was seen on camera with a small sledgehammer in her right hand. Her shadow was then seen swinging the sledgehammer hitting her back, shoulders, and left rib area, the affidavit states.

“It appeared on the video that the sledgehammer was swung with just enough force that it would leave a mark on a person,” the affidavit states. 

The video also showed a small blue-and-yellow concrete chisel sitting on the stand with the camera.

Richardson was asked to visit the sheriff’s office for photos of her injuries and investigators saw that the bruises were round and similar to the size of the sledgehammer, Brooks wrote.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Hammer For ‘Treatment’"}]

On Dec. 12, Richardson told Brooks that she hit herself with the sledgehammer because it was a treatment for a chronic condition for which she had been diagnosed and not to fake any injuries.

A Casper woman told police she hit herself with a sledgehammer to treat a medical condition, not to fake abuse from her husband. She pleaded not guilty Tuesday to allegations she stabbed him in the neck with a knife.

Daily Darwin: Sunday, October 15, 2023

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