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

<title>Daily Cartoon: Saturday, March 30, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon: Saturday, March 30, 2024

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Outdoors

Hunting

Forget about e-bikes, ATVs and other wheeled vehicles. 

The latest powered outdoor trend is people strapping on devices called powered exoskeletons and becoming faster, stronger cyborg versions of themselves.

Battery-powered knee and hip-assistance devices have been around for a while. 

But some reviewers say products like one called the Vastnaut One 4x4 have taken things to a new level by supplying additional support and power to the hips and knees simultaneously.

The company claims that its contraption can boost the wearer’s climbing power by 30%.

Its rechargeable batteries last 4.5 hours, enough to cover about 12.5 miles, according to Vastnaut.

Prices for the devices run from about $1,000 to $2,000.

Seasoned hiker John Housel told Cowboy State Daily that at age 73, he’s had to slow down somewhat, but he’s not sure he’s ready to strap on a set of robot leg boosters.

“I’m a great believer in self-locomotion,” he said. "I would be hesitant about exploring that (using an exoskeleton) much further.

“I can see if I got to the point where I was wearing out before I got to the top of one of my favorite local mountains, I might look into that,” he added.

Even so, he can see drawbacks, such as the batteries wearing out or the contraption getting damaged.

“What if I fell on my descent? The falling might bend a joint on that apparatus, and I’d have to get back down on my own,” he said.

Housel added that it could be better to accept the natural limitations that come with age.

“If I get to the point where I just can’t go somewhere, maybe I’ll just not go to that place anymore,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Shrinking The Land"}]

Housel said that exoskeletons could add to a trend that outdoor enthusiasts call “shrinking the land.”

In other words, the more means there are available to traverse territory more quickly, the “smaller” the land gets and the fewer places there will be where one can go to find utter solitude.

Housel said that over the years, he’s seen some of that happen as technology has improved ATVs and e-bikes.

 over whether they blur the lines between human-powered and motorized backcountry transportation.  

However, he’s skeptical that exoskeletons will have that much of an impact, at least not anytime soon.

The prices could be a barrier for many people, Housel said.

“I don’t think they’re going to be that popular. I think the pricing will be a factor,” he said.

He added that people might be hesitant to spend $1,000 to $2,000 on products that might be found primarily online, and not yet in retail stores.

“I think anybody who would be interested in that would want a demonstration” before spending the money, he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Mr. Gadget’"}]

The makers of Vastnaut and similar devices claim that they can increase users’ weight-carrying capacity.

That could be a selling point for people like northeast Wyoming resident Owen Miller. 

He frequently hunts deep in the backcountry, in places where killing an elk means facing a long trek out with heavy packs full of meat.

“This looks like a product for ‘Mr. Gadget,’” he told Cowboy State Daily.

“I can definitely see that there’s people that would use this, and it could be compared to the e-bike where you’re biking, but you’re not really biking,” he said. "(This is) like assisted biking, but this is assisted hiking/walking."

Miller said he favors simplicity in the backcountry. So, he’s skeptical about the possible complications of exoskeletons, such as limitations on battery life.

He noted that it might be good for “somebody with a leg injury, or even a back injury.”

Miller said he doesn’t think he’ll buy an exoskeleton anytime soon.

“In my opinion, everything can have its place and be useful for the right person. But as long as I’m healthy, I personally wouldn’t use it just to use it,” he said.

 Avid backcountry elk hunter Bruce Cooper of Bondurant also said he can see the usefulness of exoskeletons for those with injuries or mobility challenges.

He noted that his wife has had two knee surgeries.

“This would help her maybe keep pace with me and have less fatigue,” Cooper said.

“I personally would not have a use for it when hunting. I tend to go distances that would burn the battery, and through heavy timber. I would then have to carry it back when the battery is dead,” he said 

Where exoskeletons might shine in Wyoming is among people hiking for fun in the front country, Cooper said.

“I think it could be beneficial for those who are walking more on (established) paths and trails, and who may benefit from the knee support and need for assistance in walking or hiking,” he said.

Exoskeleton 2 6 14 26

<title>Powered Exoskeletons Could Turn Wyoming Hikers, Hunters Into Backcountry Cyborgs | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Forget about e-bikes, ATVs and other wheeled vehicles. The latest powered outdoor trend is people strapping on powered exoskeletons and becoming faster, stronger cyborg versions of themselves. One company says it can boost climbing power by 30%.

Powered Exoskeletons Could Turn Wyoming Hikers, Hunters Into Backcountry Cyborgs

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

Meeteetse resident and paranormal investigator Tami Currie has added another object to her collection of haunted objects: an 1880s Old West grave marker with a criminal history.

“I walked into the Hole in the Wall antique store in Meeteetse and the owner, John Fremlin, said ‘I have an object you might be interested in,’” Currie told Cowboy State Daily. “He showed it to me, and I immediately knew I had to have it. There was no question about it.”

Currie has added the grave marker to the eclectic assemblage of items she’s obtained during her career as a paranormal investigator. She holds onto anything that has “energy attached to it.”

“There’s a story with this piece, and I’m going to make sure it’s preserved and told,” she said. “I don't like it when people are forgotten.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Submitted For Evidence"}]

Currie doesn’t have a certificate of authenticity for her grave marker, per se. What she does have is documentation from the Ogallala Police Department in Nebraska, which once retained the grave marker as evidence of a crime.

“It was taken into the police department in 1965 and documented as evidence,” she said.

Determining whose grave the marker had been marking was easy. It was placed at the grave of Joseph Evans, buried in Nebraska’s Boot Hill Cemetery in 1882.

Figuring out how the grave marker was involved in the crime took some sleuthing. Currie called the Ogallala Historical Society to get the details on what happened.

“I guess you want to call it a reproduction of the original,” she said. “They did a renovation in the cemetery in 1963 and put new markers so they could preserve the originals. That marker was stolen sometime between 1963 and 1965.”

During a routine traffic stop in 1965, an Ogallala police officer found the grave marker in the trunk of a vehicle being driven by John Fincher. 

[{"type":"text","text":"He was charged with theft, and the marker was retained as evidence."}]

Currie isn’t sure when the grave marker got out of the Ogallala Police Department’s evidence room, but she’s confident that she’s legally obtained it. Furthermore, Evans doesn’t need it back.

“They actually gave him a really decent headstone, and he's not buried at that cemetery anymore,” she said. “I had to make sure it was completely legal for me to own it.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Reading The Energy"}]

For Currie, collecting paranormal artifacts is part of the allure of paranormal investigation. She’s been traveling the country, visiting haunted places and trying to communicate with the dead, for over a decade.

Her collection includes the original glass doors from the old Mount Maurice hospital in Red Lodge, Montana, and a key that locked a jail cell in Salt Lake City, Utah.

“That key locked people into that cell and never let them out,” she said. “They perished in that cell.”

She got one of her most unusual pieces in Meeteetse: an abandoned prosthetic leg.

“I found it in the basement of the Cowboy Bar, and the old owners let me keep it,” she said. “I think it’s from the 1930s.”

Collecting these objects is about more than morbid curiosity. Currie sees them as pieces of people’s stories that “deserve respect.”

Joseph Evans’ stolen grave marker is an excellent example of that. He had barely started to live his life when he died on Dec. 15, 1882, at age 19.

“A gentleman with the Ogallala Historical Society told me that Evans ‘perished by timber.’ I assume he was cutting wood or something when he died.”

Evans’s story is sad and was cut too short. That’s why Currie believes it’s important to preserve his stolen grave marker.

“These things belonged to somebody, and sometimes they are tossed to the side,” she said. “People deserve to be remembered.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Calls And Communications"}]

When you’re an experienced paranormal investigator in Wyoming, people want to talk to you, either over the phone or from beyond the grave.

Currie has done several paranormal investigations in Wyoming, including the Buffalo Bill Center of the West and Old Trail Town in Cody. 

She’s worked in the historic Irma Hotel, allegedly one of the most haunted places in the state, but hasn’t had much success.

“The Irma Hotel definitely has a lot of energy, but you're not going to find it because it's such an active place,” she said. “It's really hard to say something was paranormal as opposed to it was just somebody in a room.”

For Currie, the most haunted experience she ever had was on the upper floors of Meeteetse’s Masonic Hall.

“That’s one of the scariest places I’ve ever been to,” she said. “It’s primarily upstairs where they would perform their ceremonies. That building holds a lot of energy, and it's a lot of negative energy.”

Currie also travels to other states to meet up with other paranormal investigators. Her next trip will be exploring the old Washoe Club in Virginia City, Nevada, which has been featured on dozens of ghost-hunting television series.

Currie used to conduct and post videos of paranormal investigations with her friend, Kara McCoy, as 

Sadly, McCoy died on Dec. 4, 2025, after a long battle with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and a rare genetic cystic lung disease.

“I might need to change the name, because I’m not a posse anymore,” she said.

Nevertheless, Currie keeps her friend’s spirit alive by continuing to explore and indulge in the paranormal.

[{"type":"text","text":"“It’s something I’m extremely passionate about,” she said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Collection Of Curios"}]

Currie said she never aspired to be a collector of haunted artifacts. The stolen grave marker is another addition to her growing collection.

“I will collect anything that has an odd energy attached to it,” she said. “I started collecting creepy dolls for some reason. I don't like dolls, but I have one that is haunted, and I’d like to accumulate more.”

The Hole in the Wall antiques store has been a great place to acquire these artifacts. Oddly enough, many of the items she’s found there have come from Nebraska.

[{"type":"text","text":"“I don't know why they travel this far, but they do,” she said."}]

Currie would eventually like to open her own antiques store or museum of haunted objects to showcase her collection. Joseph Evans’s grave marker will have a prominent place in that display.

While she fully intends to preserve the grave marker, Currie hasn’t yet noticed any of its paranormal properties. With a history that unusual and intriguing, she’s confident it’s got a unique story to tell.

“I firmly believe people on the other side have stories that they want told, and they're always willing to talk to you,” she said.

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<title>Meeteetse Woman Adds Old West Grave Marker To Haunted Collection | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Meeteetse resident and paranormal investigator Tami Currie legally obtained an 1880s grave marker with a criminal history to her collection of haunted objects. “People on the other side have stories they want told, and they're willing to talk to you,” she said.

Meeteetse Woman Adds Old West Grave Marker To Haunted Collection

Jen kocher

Jen Kocher

Crime & Courts

Law Enforcement

Lt. Doug Fisher had been about a week away from flying to Wisconsin to arrest Roger Durkee when he got the news: Durkee was dead.

The cat-and-mouse game Durkee had been playing with Elko County Sheriff’s Office (ECSO) detectives for the past few years was officially over.

[{"type":"text","text":"Fisher called the news bittersweet."}]

He and ECSO Det. Alex Cox had been looking forward to finally putting the cuffs on Durkee, who had spent 32 years eluding authorities after allegedly murdering an unidentified woman and dumping her nude body at a remote desert exit off Interstate 80 in Nevada.

but both officers agree that identifying Durkee’s victim 

For decades, she was known only as “Shafter Jane Doe,” named for the highway exit where she was found in November 1993.

detectives finally identified her as Marion Hertha Alexander

, a 25-year-old German immigrant who had been living in Salt Lake City, Utah, when she crossed paths with Durkee.

The woman also had spent seven months in Afton, Wyoming, shortly before she was killed, which was determined in 2010 via a breakthrough isotope testing procedure. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Family Devastated"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Alexander’s mother was devastated, Fisher said."}]

He and Cox had driven to her California home in January to tell her in person. She had met her husband, a

She married him and returned to California with him and her children in 1972.

Alexander left home in her late teens — a free spirit, her mother told detectives, who drifted and grew distant from the family.

They had not known she was missing and were devastated 

Her mother is now working with the sheriff’s office to finalize the inscription on a new headstone 

 paid for by the Elko County Commissioners.

[{"type":"text","text":"After more than three decades, they finally has the answer."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“We want to make sure we finally get Mary laid to rest,” Fisher said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Little To Go On At First"}]

Many detectives have worked on Alexander’s case over the years. It was not their only cold case, Fisher said.

Along with Alexander, there are five other unidentified people in Elko County dating back to 1972, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs).

[{"type":"text","text":"At first, they had little to go on."}]

When Alexander’s body was discovered about a week after she was killed, it was already badly decomposed.  

She’d been shot in the chest and the back with a small

caliber firearm and had been severely beaten in the face.

There was little to no evidence left at the scene, leaving authorities to believe she’d been killed elsewhere and dumped afterward.

Apart from a partial right thumbprint that had no match in federal databases, detectives had little to go on. The only other identifiers were a tooth that was in the process of getting a root canal and a 2-by-4-inch burn scar or birthmark on her right calf.

To draw attention to the case, detectives reached out to the national media and also held a funeral for her.

Her story initially gained traction after it was picked up by the 

news program “Hard Copy.” but it ultimately yielded no results.

The sheriff’s office took advantage of technological advancements over the years, including having a forensic facial reconstruction done as well as stable isotope ratio analysis of a hair follicle that linked her to Afton, Wyoming, where it was suspected she’d spent the last seven months of her life.

Oddly, this was one detail that the detectives couldn’t track down upon finally learning her identity.

They found addresses for her in California, Oregon, Utah and southern Nevada, but nothing in Wyoming.

In fact, at the time of her murder, she had been living in downtown Salt Lake City near Durkee, Fisher said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Overlooked Evidence"}]

The biggest break in the case happened in April 2019 when detectives took a new look at existing evidence and realized they had DNA on a vaginal swab for both the victim and perpetrator.

It’s not clear how this evidence went overlooked for so long, Fisher said, but it appears to have been the result of a miscommunication between detectives and the crime lab.

still needed to figure out to whom they belonged.

Neither was found in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) or on genetic DNA databases, still leaving them with no answers, so they kept pulling threads, Fisher said.

approved a $10,000 expenditure that allowed the sheriff’s office to contract with Identifiers International for a forensic genetic 

This led investigators to Durkee in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who reached out to the FBI for help identifying him.

The FBI agents procured some items from Durkee’s trash and determined that profile could not be excluded from the one taken from the swab.

“Not being excluded” is as close as law enforcement and science can legally get to saying it’s a likely match.

[{"type":"text","text":"“That was a good indication that this is our guy,” Fisher said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Still, Alexander’s identity remained a mystery at that point."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Closing In On A Killer"}]

Even with Durkee’s identity as Alexander’s killer likely confirmed, it was not enough to collar him for the murder.

All it proved, Cox noted, is that the two had been intimate, but not that he killed her.

[{"type":"text","text":"So they kept digging, Fisher said."}]

In doing so, they learned Durkee moved quite a bit during the 1990s and early 2000s while working 

. This included stints in Nevada, Idaho and Colorado and Salt Lake City.

They also learned he’d been arrested for third-degree sexual assault in Wisconsin in 1978.

Along with moving frequently during this period, Durkee also changed his name, assuming aliases of James W. Kenedy and Carrol T. Hiel.

why he changed his name, he told detectives it was during a time in which he’d made bad decisions in his life and didn’t care to be known by his real name.

Then Fisher and Cox flew out to Wisconsin for the first of three interviews with Durkee in Milwaukee beginning in August 2024.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Pulling Out Teeth"}]

A couple things struck the detectives about Durkee during that first meeting. For starters, he was toothless.

This is because he’d pulled out all of his teeth over the years by himself, Durkee told them. With pliers.

[{"type":"text","text":"“That was a first for me,” Cox said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Fisher agreed."}]

“We’ve done thousands of interviews, and I can tell you that is the first time I ever heard anybody tell me they pulled out their own teeth,” Fisher said, wondering if it would have been 27 or 28 total 

Another thing that struck the detectives as odd is that Durkee had a collection of Faraday bags and cages, which are used to block electromagnetic fields and wireless signals.

“They’re used by law enforcement primarily when we take a suspect’s phone, so it can be protected for forensic analysis, but you don’t normally see these types of things in someone’s home,” Fisher said. “It was shocking.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Conversations With Durkee"}]

During this initial conversation, when asked about his potential connection to the still unknown Jane Doe who’d been murdered 

in Elko, Durkee shared that he remembered giving a .380 pistol to a woman named “Mary.”

the caliber of the pistol used to kill her.

During his second meeting with detectives 

pistol, Durkee recalled having “intimate relations” with a woman named “Mary Alexander” or “Mary Washington” on Halloween.

Later, when detectives learned Alexander’s name, they’d wondered if that was guilt talking or if Durkee was trying to give them a clue.

He didn’t kill “Mary” that night, however, Durkee told detectives, claiming to have instead dropped her off at a blue house in Salt Lake City and never 

“He sure knew a lot of obscure details about the case, though,” Cox said.

Durkee knew both about Alexander’s tooth that had been in the process of having a root canal as well as the isotopes in her hair that had traced her to Wyoming.

He claimed this was because he was a true crime buff, Fisher said, which forensic evidence would prove turned out not to be true.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Catching A Killer"}]

It was their third conversation with Durkee that convinced both detectives they had the right guy.

Prior to their trip out, they wanted to stir Durkee up and asked local Milwaukee detectives to pay him a visit under the ruse of questioning him about a local missing woman.

Durkee knew about the woman and also knew that she had already been found. He found that odd, he later told the Elko detectives, and wondered why the local cops weren’t better at their jobs.

[{"type":"text","text":"“He always had to be the smartest guy in the room,” Fisher said."}]

But the ruse worked in that it clearly worried Durkee that investigators were closing in on him, prompting him to do 90 internet searches of some derivative of “Shafter Jane Doe” over the course of two days as they later discovered when they procured warrants for his digital devices.

For Fisher, that was the final piece of the puzzle in a rapidly 

He figured they had enough — along with the DNA — to make 

“I don’t think you would be able to explain 90 spontaneous searches after two detectives are asking about a completely unrelated missing woman,” Fisher said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Too Late"}]

However, as Fisher, Cox and Det. Sgt. Crystal Cox made their travel plans to go to Wisconsin to arrest Durkee, they learned he was already dead.

Durkee died at age 77 after having multiple strokes over a period of days that led to cardiac arrest.

Due to some glitch in the Wisconsin Vital Statistics Department, Durkee’s death was not immediately reported, so it took months for the news to make it to Elko County.

This shocked investigators because every indication in their databases showed he was still alive.

And though their seven-year investigation did not ultimately lead to an arrest, the detectives were happy to finally identify both Alexander and her probable killer.

A detective was about to fly to Wisconsin to arrest the lead suspect in the 32-year cold case of a woman whose nude body was dumped along I-80 when he got the news the suspect was dead. The woman's time in Wyoming led to the breakthrough in the case.

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