The Cody Police Department’s investigation into a report of a kindergartener suffering harrowing sexual abuse at school by some older students will soon be turned over to prosecutors, the department announced Monday.
A 5-year-old girl told her parents Oct. 26 that bigger girls at Livingston Elementary School pinned her down in a bathroom and shoved objects into her vagina. That revelation came after she’d been emotionally troubled and suffering bladder incontinence for weeks, her father told Cowboy State Daily.
“The Cody Police Department completed a comprehensive six-week investigation into the allegations,” says a Monday press release by the department. “The investigation included multiple interviews, forensic child interviews, review and collection of evidence and the watching of many hours/days’ worth of security camera footage.”
The department “will” turn its investigation over to Park County Attorney Bryan Skoric's office for review, the statement says.
The statement also addresses the department’s lack of public discourse on this case.
“Public safety risks notwithstanding, the Cody Police Department does not release information during an open investigation because we have a duty to protect the integrity of our investigation and the release of information in cases such as this one is strictly prohibited by Wyoming State Statutes,” it says.
It is a crime in Wyoming for public officials to divulge details of sex crimes before the defendants in them reach a felony-level court.
“There is no further information available at this time,” the statement concludes.
Skoric did not immediately respond to a Cowboy State Daily request for comment.
These Faces
Meanwhile, the girl’s parents continue to express disappointment over the handling of their daughter’s case, saying the detective did not allow their daughter to point out her attackers from a collection of head shot photos.
The parents have criticized the child forensic interview to which they took their daughter in Casper, at the detective’s request. The interviewer was harsh, intimidating, clad entirely in black, and authorities did not give parents the contents of the interview, the parents have told Cowboy State Daily in a series of emails and phone calls.
To protect the girl’s identity, Cowboy State Daily has chosen not to identify the parents or the girl publicly.
Tidings From Congress?
The girl’s father told Cowboy State Daily in a Dec. 1 email that Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman, Wyoming’s only delegate to the U.S. House, is going to conduct a Congressional inquiry into the Cody Police Department’s chief and the superintendent of Park County School District No. 6 because of the girl’s reported assaults.
Hageman’s office has not responded to two Cowboy State Daily emails requesting confirmation.
The girl’s father forwarded an email Monday, apparently from Cody Police Chief Jason Stafford, in which Stafford said his department had not received any correspondence from Hageman.
Update: As of Tuesday, the girl's father reported with disappointment that he was told by a Hageman staffer that, rather than send Congressional inquiries to the school district and police, the Representative contacted Wyoming's Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
