One More For The Road

[{"type":"text","text":"Remember, it is always safe to race a train..."}]

One more for 10 18 23

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<title>One More For The Road: Wednesday, October 18, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

It is always safe to race a train...

One More For The Road: Wednesday, October 18, 2023

 Remember, it is always safe to race a train...

Julie Mankin

Crime & Courts

A Wyoming barrel racer was stunned to learn that the 17-year-old girl accused of stabbing three horses during a major rodeo event in Las Vegas over the weekend was the same rider who tried to borrow one of her horses.

“About a month ago, I got a message from a girl asking if I had a horse she could run,” said Lora Nichols of Pavillion. “I said no, and she kept asking about each of my specific horses. 

“This weekend I looked to see if it was the same girl they arrested. It was! It makes my skin crawl to realize she was stalking my horses, too. It could have been me just as easily.”

Nichols, who has earned more than $400,000 competing on the half-brother brother of one of the stabbed horses, said she’s especially horrified by the attack.

Along with Nichols, Wyoming’s rodeo community is shocked and appalled by the Tonya Harding-like violent rampage that left the three barrel racing horses stabbed multiple times.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"What Happened"}]

Las Vegas police report that the 17-year-old barrel racer was arrested in connection the attack on the horses of competitors.

The girl is accused of stabbing each of the horses multiple times inside their stalls during 

the NBHA Professional’s Choice Vegas Super Show at the South Point Equestrian Center.

The attack came just hours after one of the horses — a 6-year-old gelding named Saaul Good — had carried 20-year-old Hailey Krahenbuhl to a first-place paycheck of $1,805. 

The horse, which Krahenbuhl calls “Sully,” has shattered arena records this season and racked up $238,388 in earnings in less than four years competing. 

“Sully was stabbed multiple times last night,” Krahenbuhl posted to her Facebook page on Saturday. “I have no words. He is stitched up and in recovery.” 

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department reports that officers received a report at around 2:07 a.m. Saturday that a horse had been injured inside a South Point barn. 

When officers arrived, they learned three horses had been “intentionally injured with a sharp object” believed to be a knife, police say.

Veterinarians reportedly cleaned and sutured deep blade lacerations to Sully’s flank and shoulder. 

Another competitor named Keira Weisbart confirmed on social media that her horse, Rocket, was stabbed three times and had other “stab attempts around his body.” 

That horse was reportedly treated and released at the scene.

A third stabbed horse, however, underwent emergency surgery to repair muscle tissue damage. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Detail’s Ordeal"}]

Southern California barrel racer Arielle Phillips owns that third horse, a mare she calls Detail was stabbed multiple times.

, Phillips described the arrested teen as “a crazy obsessed stalker who has been following me on social media for a long time, obsessing over Detail, obsessing over meeting me.”

Phillips said she’d arrived back at the South Point barn to find the suspect hosing off Detail’s wounds.

“Cameras verified her entering our stalls,” wrote Phillips. “I can’t even put into words the pain I feel for my mare and for Hailey’s Sully.”

She said the attack has also affected her horse.

“Detail is traumatized,” Phillips wrote. “Every time she runs away from the approach of my hand, I burst into tears. This is my best friend. An innocent sweet horse was brutally tortured for no reason.”

While all three horses are expected to recover, they are sidelined for the near future and aren’t able to compete.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Champion Lineage"}]

Krahenbuhl, the daughter of a Las Vegas landscaper who grew up about 15 minutes from The Strip, had plans to hit the rodeo road with Sully — whose sire Winner’s Version has produced earners of more than $7 million — and make an NFR run in 2027. 

“We were a match from the beginning and my dreams became reality, all thanks to him,” she wrote prior to the attack from Globe Life Field during the $3 million American Rodeo. 

 to help with at veterinary for all three of the horses.

Nichols said she knows those other girls and is heartbroken for them and their horses.

“I’ve competed alongside Hailey a lot, and she’s an amazing human being,” said Nichols. “I think of the raw emotion and just the blood, sweat and tears she’s put in ­— you know, how hard she’s worked to get there. 

“When I heard it was her horse, I was just sick to my stomach.”

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, detectives located the suspect at a nearby hotel and took her into custody.

“She was transported to Clark County Juvenile Hall, where she was booked on 12 counts of willful or malicious killing, maiming or torturing of an animal and three counts of felony malicious destruction of private property over $5,000,” investigators told KTLA 5 Morning News.

Because of her age, official law enforcement sources have not identified the suspected publicly.

Veteran barrel racers have over the years heard rare rumors of winning horses being poisoned, but a brazen rash of stabbings is a first. 

Nichols said the incident makes her think of a made-for-TV movie in which the stalker ends up booked for murder. 

She’s also grateful the suspect wasn’t targeting the girls themselves.

“I just think we’re sheltered from that so much in our world,” added barrel racer and Gillette College rodeo coach racer Casey Rae Sellers. “The youth in our industry are pretty dang good kids. This is so out-of-character for the Western industry.”

Horses stabbed Krahenbuhl and Sully at The American 6 1 26

<title>Wyoming Barrel Racer Says She Was Approached By Alleged Horse-Stabber | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Wyoming barrel racer was stunned to learn that the teen girl accused of stabbing three horses in Las Vegas over the weekend tried to borrow one of her horses last month. “It makes my skin crawl to realize she was stalking my horses, too,” she said.

Wyoming Barrel Racer Says She Was Approached By Alleged Horse-Stabber

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Outdoors

For wolves in Yellowstone, it’s all about survival, and sometimes that doesn’t leave much room for niceness – pack members sometimes put the smack-down on each other, just to maintain order.

There can be a “constant rivalry among pack members” and only dominant breeding wolves are rarely, if ever challenged, biologist Robert Crabtree told Cowboy State Daily.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Discipline In The Wapiti Pack"}]

Willow Holm recently captured video of a member of the Wapiti wolf pack harshly correcting one of its packmates on the west side of Yellowstone National Park.

She’s not sure what prompted the episode, in which a black wolf bowls over and pins down a tail-tucking gray wolf.

“That had been all around us (for hours). This happened just as they were leaving,” said Holm, who frequently visits Yellowstone with her parents, April and Patrick Holm.

The pack had spent much of the day hunting bison, but didn’t have any success, she said.

Two top wolf biologists said the video shows the type of behavior wolves engage in to maintain discipline within the ranks, so to speak.

“I think the video is very interesting, but standard social interaction for wolf pack members. Classic straight tail for the dominant (wolf) and tucked tail for the subordinate,” said Crabtree, the founder, chief scientist and president of the Yellowstone Ecological Research Center.

Biologist Doug Smith said the gray wolf was “very submissive.”

The black wolf was clearly communicating, “I’m in charge here,” said Smith, who led Yellowstone wolf program in for nearly three decades.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"‘Who Is Calling The Shots?’"}]

Wolves aren’t always harsh with each other. Sometimes, they romp and play 

, which also help with pack cohesion and hunting skills.

But there’s a time and place for corrective measures between wolves as well.

Basic pack structure in Yellowstone hinges on a “dominance hierarchy,” Smith said.

The top dogs are usually a breeding male and female.

“They don’t fight each other and they don’t exhibit dominance with each other. But who is calling the shots? Usually the female,” he said.

When food is abundant, a second female might be allowed to breed, Smith said.

“The top positions are more fixed. The positions below the lead wolves are more fluid,” Smith said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Competition Within The Ranks"}]

The jostling for lower position is segregated by sex, he added. In other words, males compete with other males, females with females “and it doesn’t cross over.”

And as with humans, wolves’ personalities can play into their management styles.

“There’s some packs where the dominant wolf easygoing, and it’s difficult to tell who the leader is,” Smith said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"In other packs, the leaders are harsh."}]

The black wolf in the video “was quite aggressive” and might be the lead wolf,” he said.

It’s difficult to say whether the pack’s lack of success hunting that day played into the aggressive behavior, Smith said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"But hunger can be a factor."}]

“That type of behavior is personality-driven and food-driven,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"‘A Dominance Fight’"}]

An abundance of food helps keep things relatively peaceful within packs, Smith said.

A lack of food can cause “social tenson,” he said.

“When you’re having trouble making ends meet, everybody’s stressed,” he said.

Once in a while, there might be a “dominance fight” when one of the lower wolves challenges a leader, Smith said.

More often, the changing of the guard happens because of a death at the top.

When the dominant female dies, the formerly dominant male might get “evicted” by a new male joining the pack, he said.

The new dominant, breeding female might be the daughter of the past top pair and “wolves avoid inbreeding,” so that’s why the former dominant male, her father, has to go, Smith said.

Wolves in Yellowstone are protected and may not be hunted by humans.

In that setting, lower-ranking males are much more likely than females to disperse from the pack and try their luck at becoming a top, breeding leader elsewhere, Smith said.

Outside of the park, where wolf hunting is allowed, females and males disperse about equally, he said.

Wolf packs outside Yellowstone “are less stable” in their social order because of hunting, he said.

Wolf smackdown 2 6 1 26

<title>Wolves Putting The Smackdown On Each Other Is How Yellowstone Packs Maintain Order | Cowboy State Daily</title>

For wolves in Yellowstone, it’s all about survival. Pack members sometimes put the smackdown on each other, just to maintain order. One biologist said a video captured last week by a visitor shows one wolf clearly telling another, "I'm in charge here."

Wolves Putting The Smackdown On Each Other Is How Yellowstone Packs Maintain Order

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's managing editor, Greg Johnson.

Greg Johnson

Courts

CHEYENNE — A 27-year-old man accused of shooting another man and leaving him bleeding in a Cheyenne street after a blowup over a former girlfriend pleaded not guilty Monday to a charge of attempted second-degree murder.

Adrian Maggos sat quietly with 11 other Laramie County Detention Center inmates waiting to make pleas in their cases, seemingly listening attentively to District Court Judge Nathaniel Hibben run through their cases.

He was clean-shaven with short, dark hair and was wearing the typical bright orange jail jumpsuit and orange Crocs. His legs were shackled together with a thin chain, which rattled softly as he shuffled to the front of the courtroom to give his plea.

He didn’t say much, answering Judge Hibben’s questions with either a short “yes sir” or “no sir.”

When asked how he pleaded to the charge for allegedly shooting the other man in the early morning hours of April 30 and eluding the Cheyenne Police Department during an 

 before finally turning himself in, Maggos quietly answered, “Not guilty, your honor.”

The judge then set an Oct. 6 trial date for Maggos, while his attorney informed Hibben that a motion to reduce his $250,000 cash-only bond would be filed in writing.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘The Guy I Shot’"}]

While Maggos didn’t say much during his Monday arraignment, he reportedly made some potentially incriminating 

 after he was taken into custody, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed in his case.

“How’s (the victim) doing?” Maggos asked an officer taking him to the detention center, the affidavit says.

“Who’s (the victim)?” the officer replied because he had “minimal knowledge of the case.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"“The guy I shot,” said Maggos, 27."}]

That was the culmination of a convoluted series of events that ended on a central Cheyenne street a little before 4:15 a.m. April 30 with a man shot and bleeding while some witnesses gave medical attention and others fled the scene, Cheyenne Police Detective Jim Eddy wrote in the affidavit.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Point-Blank Range’"}]

The victim suffered “life-threatening injuries due to a sustained gunshot wound that appeared to have been at or nearly at point-blank range,” Eddy wrote, relating information from staff at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, where the man was taken.

“The projectile (bullet) most likely entered (his) body between his sternum and left areola, striking (his) diaphragm, stomach, colon, and lower rib,” the affidavit continues. “The projectile exited (the man’s) left flank.”

Maggos reportedly fled the scene after the shooting, the affidavit says, but more than eight hours later at about 12:51 p.m., he returned to the house in the 100 block of East Third Avenue, which is the home of a relative where he also lived.

Shortly after returning, “Maggos telephoned law enforcement and advised he was surrendering,” Eddy wrote. “Officers contacted Maggos, arrested him and transported him to the CPD.”

It was on the way to the police station that Maggos asked about the shooting victim, the affidavit says.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Adrian Shot Me"}]

When they arrived, Cheyenne police reported finding a man in the street in front of the house “bleeding profusely and appeared to have been shot,” the affidavit says.

The victim, who was still conscious and able to talk, told an officer who shot him.

“(He said) that Adrian Maggos shot him prior to being transported to Cheyenne Regional Medical Center via ambulance,” the affidavit says.

At the East Third Avenue scene, police interviewed four other people who were there or witnesses in some fashion at the time of the shooting, Eddy wrote.

There were two men and two women, with both women reportedly having a romantic tie to Maggos, according to the affidavit. One was an ex-girlfriend who had broken up with Maggos four days prior.

She showed up to the house in the early morning hours Thursday — driven by the victim — and argued with Maggos over an alleged sexual encounter with the other woman, the affidavit says.

While Maggos and his ex argued in the street, the victim got out of his car to defend the former girlfriend, and the confrontation turned physical, Eddy wrote.

At some point in text messages between them, the ex told Maggos that “she was coming to his residence to confront him,” the affidavit says. She “threatened that she would break the residence’s windows if he did not exit the house to talk with her.”

The victim drove her to Maggos’ house because they had been “hanging out” together and she needed a ride, Eddy wrote. When they got to the house, Maggos was outside and alone.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"They Fought"}]

“(The ex) exited the car and an argument ensued with Maggos on the west side of the home,” the affidavit says. “This argument escalated to the point Maggos ordered (her) to leave and threatened to hit her.”

That’s what prompted the other man to get out of the car and confront Maggos.

“(He) and Maggos argued, escalating in Maggos pushing (the man) to the ground,” the affidavit says. “While in proximity, (the ex girlfriend) verbally intervened, allowing (the other man) to return to his feet.”

But the two men began fighting again, pushing each other until Maggos was standing “physically over him when she heard a gunshot that caused her ears to ‘ring,’” the affidavit says.

The woman then started running, “and looked back toward the two men when she heard (the victim) say, ‘I’m sorry’ to Maggos,” Eddy wrote. “(She) then heard, but did not see, a second gunshot.

“Fearing for her life, (the ex) ran to a residence across the street and hid in a window well, eventually falling asleep.”

If convicted of attempted second-degree murder, Maggos could get between 20 years and life in prison.

Adrian Maggos 5 1 26

<title>Cheyenne Man Accused In Shooting Over Ex Pleads Not Guilty To Attempted Murder | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A 27-year-old man accused of shooting another man and leaving him bleeding in a Cheyenne street after a blowup over a former girlfriend pleaded not guilty Monday to attempted second-degree murder. He allegedly asked police how “the guy I shot” was doing.

Cheyenne Man Accused In Shooting Over Ex Pleads Not Guilty To Attempted Murder

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

A Torrington family is in shock after finding their mutilated dogs partially submerged in the North Platte River outside of Torrington.

Angelica Garcia told Cowboy State Daily on Monday that two rottweilers owned by her parents had gotten loose from their home Friday and hours later were found dead by a woman and her son who were walking by a popular fishing spot on the river.

Garcia said the discovery of the two dogs named Django and Hera left her stunned.

"The top of Django's head was gone and Hera's neck and chest were gone," Garcia said.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"They were family dogs. I trusted them around my kids,\" she added."}]

Goshen County Sheriff Kory Fleenor confirmed Monday that his office has an open investigation into the incident. 

He declined to comment on whether investigators have determined a cause of death, whether any suspects or persons of interest have been identified, or what evidence investigators have gathered, citing the active nature of the case.

Garcia said her parents last saw the dogs late Friday morning after letting them outside near their Torrington home.

The two rottweilers, a brother and sister who were both nearly 6 years old, had occasionally gotten loose before and were familiar to many people in town, Garcia said.

When her father realized the dogs had not returned, he began searching for them. A short time later, the family learned the dogs had been found dead near the North Platte River.

[{"type":"text","text":"Questions Remain "}]

Garcia said her family believes the dogs were unlawfully killed and wants investigators to thoroughly examine what happened.

She said relatives have searched for information, spoken with people in the area where the dogs were found and tried to learn whether anyone witnessed the incident.

[{"type":"text","text":"So far, she said, they have found no eyewitnesses."}]

"We're drawing a blank as to what happened," Garcia said. "Or why it happened." She added that on top of being concerned the dogs were shot, she's concerned "it happened in the city." 

 that accuses authorities of not doing enough to investigate the deaths.

"Whoever did this brutally murdered these dogs, took their collars and drug them off and dumped their bodies in the river," the petition reads.

"There is a lead and law enforcement is refusing to look further and do their job," it reads.

The Torrington Police Department also responded after the dogs were found, according to Garcia. 

She said city police helped direct the case to the sheriff's office because the location where the dogs were discovered fell under county jurisdiction.

Torrington Police Chief Matt Johnson did not return a request for comment.

[{"type":"text","text":"A Gruesome Discovery"}]

Garcia began to choke up when she described the condition of the dogs and added the collars on the dogs were missing.

[{"type":"text","text":"The family believes the dogs were killed with a shotgun. "}]

One question repeatedly raised online is whether Wyoming law allows people to shoot dogs under certain circumstances.

 does permit dogs to be killed if they are running livestock and the livestock has been injured or is threatened with injury. The law also shields the person who kills the dog from liability if the danger or damage can be shown.

So far, however, authorities have not publicly indicated whether livestock played any role in the deaths of Django and Hera.

The dogs were known to "get out," said Garcia, "and they would kind of roam around, but nobody ever really made a big deal about it." 

"They would just call the dog catcher or local PD, and they would tend to joke about it, like they're just really nice dogs, and you know, even when they picked them up, the dog catcher was appalled at what happened, because she knew them, you know," she said.

Garcia added that she doesn't think the dogs were bothering livestock, "They would never go after cattle or anything like that." 

Rottweilers 6 1 26

<title>Torrington Family Says Rottweilers Were Mutilated And Dumped In The River  | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Torrington family is in shock after finding their mutilated dogs partially submerged in the North Platte River. Angelica Garcia said one dog's head was removed and the other was missing its neck and chest. "They were family dogs," she said.

Torrington Family Says Rottweilers Were Mutilated And Dumped In The River 

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Politics

Update: A poll recipient told Cowboy State Daily on Monday that the "information" phase of the Chuck Gray poll leveled disparaging, inflammatory comments against candidates Steve Friess and Reid Rasner. Cowboy State Daily also 

In the first significant poll of Wyoming’s primary election season, Secretary of State Chuck Gray leads a crowded GOP U.S. House race with 21% support.

Casper businessman Reid Rasner is second at 14%, Teton County philanthropist Steve Friess at 10%, former Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow at 8%, and state Senate President Bo Biteman at 7%, according to a poll memo Gray sent to Cowboy State Daily.

The poll also shows 33% of those surveyed are “hard undecided.”

Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, a survey and research firm that ran polls for President Donald Trump’s campaigns,

 compiled the poll of 400 Wyoming Republican voters from May 13-16.

Casper-based veteran Kevin Christensen followed at 5%, with Moran rancher Frank Chapman at 1% and David Giralt at less than 1%.

The poll lists former state Rep. John Romero-Martinez at less than 1%, but Romero-Martinez did not register to run for the seat by Friday’s 5 p.m. deadline. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"But What ‘Information’?"}]

The pollster’s methodology says the survey 

 gave voters “information” about Gray, Rasner and Friess. 

Gray told Cowboy State Daily on Monday that the “information” included “different points on our records” but upon inquiry, he did not list those points by publication time.  

 jumped to 48% over “hard undecided” at 22%, with Rasner and Friess falling to 3% and 6% respectively.

In the first significant poll of Wyoming’s primary election season, Secretary of State Chuck Gray leads a crowded GOP U.S. House race with 21% support. Casper businessman Reid Rasner is second at 14%, and Teton County's Steve Friess is third at 10%.

One More For The Road: Wednesday, October 18, 2023

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