Daily Darwin

"Day 52 of throwing a random object at my roommate while he tries to guess what it is...."

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

<title>Daily Darwin: Monday, June 10, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Darwin: Monday, June 10, 2024

 "Day 52 of throwing a random object at my roommate while he tries to guess what it is...."

You Still Here

Theatre critics all agree that the "rare samurai pen" scene is Ricardo Montalban's finest moment in cinema....

Today in cinema 7 10 26

<title>Today In Cinema: Friday, July 10, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Today In Cinema: Friday, July 10, 2026

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Crime & Courts

Courts

A Manderson, Wyoming, man and woman have been charged after the suspicious death of an infant in a case where investigators say a camper where the child lived was filthy, overheated, had no running water and was littered with human waste, animal feces and meth.

The investigation began just after 10 a.m. Monday, when agents with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation were notified of the suspicious, unattended death of an infant.

By the time Special Agent Anthony Giles arrived at Three Rivers Hospital in Basin, the baby's mother — 22-year-old Destynie Study — had already told investigators what she said happened that morning.

A newly filed affidavit in the case available Thursday says Destynie fed and changed the infant around 1:30 a.m. before putting the baby back to sleep in a crib inside the family's camper in Manderson. 

She told investigators she woke around 9:45 a.m. and found the infant unresponsive.

She immediately grabbed the child, climbed into her father's vehicle and started driving toward Three Rivers Hospital, calling 911 along the way. 

The affidavit says the baby lived in the camper with the mother, her father Travis Study, and another child who is just over a year old.

At the hospital, investigators said dirt covered Destynie's arms, legs and clothing, and what appeared to be lice eggs or significant dandruff near her scalp. 

"An overwhelming smell of body odor, urine and feces was coming from her person and the room," Giles wrote.

Investigators also documented dirt beneath the infant's fingernails and that "the same odor was permeating from the deceased infant's body."

"The infant's diaper was completely saturated in urine," Giles wrote, along with a small amount of feces and a live, moving insect inside the diaper after it was removed. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"5-Gallon Bucket Of Human Waste"}]

Armed with a search warrant, DCI agents later searched the camper where the family had been living. Outside sat several black garbage bags investigators believed had recently been placed there.

When agents opened the door, they were hit with the same overwhelming odor of urine, feces and body odor they had encountered earlier at the hospital, wrote Giles. 

Investigators described the camper as being in "complete disarray,” the affidavit says.

Old and moldy food, empty food containers and trash littered nearly every corner. Clothing, wrappers and garbage were piled throughout the sleeping area, the affidavit continues. 

The bathroom emitted what investigators described as an extremely strong smell of feces.

[{"type":"text","text":"The camper itself also was stifling hot."}]

Investigators measured the interior temperature at about 95 degrees with an air conditioner that didn't work. 

There also was no running water connected to the camper, and the sewage system appeared to have been unusable for some time, the affidavit says. The shower and sinks showed signs they had not functioned for an extended period.

The affidavit says investigators also found dog feces and mouse droppings throughout the camper.

[{"type":"text","text":"Inside the bathroom sat a 5-gallon bucket nearly full of human waste."}]

The toilet also contained human waste and appeared abandoned, investigators wrote, with evidence of insect infestation.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Warning Signs "}]

The crib where Destynie told investigators the infant slept was damp and smelled strongly of urine.

Investigators found urine-soaked bedding, a soiled diaper beneath the mattress, and liquid pooled inside the crib's frame. When they lifted the crib, more foul-smelling liquid drained from its support structure, says the affidavit.

Fresh trash outside the camper allegedly discarded before law enforcement arrived contained baby food along with a comforter investigators believed was heavily soiled with urine and feces.

Court records note the conditions inside the camper had raised alarms months before the infant died.

The document outlines four separate contacts between the family, the Wyoming Department of Family Services and Manderson police dating back to early April.

On one visit, officials said they were denied entry while investigating concerns about the family's living conditions.

Another welfare check involved reports that Destynie had missed prenatal appointments during what investigators described as a high-risk pregnancy.

During another visit, a caseworker reported the family's Jeep smelled strongly of cat urine and was littered with debris.

By late May, DFS had received reports that the infant had lost 11% of its body weight and that Destynie had missed a medical appointment.

When caseworkers and officers returned to the property, investigators say they again were refused entry into the camper.

Travis told them to "get the f*** off his property and never come back," alleges the affidavit. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Normal Grandpa Stuff' "}]

Travis remained on speakerphone while investigators interviewed Destynie at the hospital.

When agents requested Destynie's cellphone to establish a timeline, he allegedly warned that if anyone with "a badge or a gun" came to his property, "it would be a bad day for that individual."

Both Travis and Destynie told investigators that Travis regularly cared for the children when Destynie left the residence. Travis reportedly described it as doing the "normal grandpa stuff."

[{"type":"text","text":"The search of the camper also turned up drugs."}]

Investigators say they recovered more than 21 grams of suspected marijuana, marijuana paraphernalia and a glass pipe containing white crystalline residue.

A swab collected from inside the pipe tested presumptively positive for meth and was submitted to the Wyoming State Crime Lab for confirmation.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Criminal Charges Filed"}]

Following the investigation, prosecutors filed criminal charges Wednesday in Big Horn County Circuit Court.

Travis Study, born in 1969, is charged with felony child endangerment alleging exposure to meth, along with misdemeanor counts of reckless endangering, child endangerment, possession of methamphetamine and possession of marijuana.

Destynie Study is charged with misdemeanor reckless endangering of a child and child endangerment. She pleaded not guilty Wednesday.

Big Horn County Attorney Marcia E. Bean filed a demand for a speedy trial the same day, and the court appointed counsel to represent Destynie. A pretrial conference is scheduled for Aug. 3.

The affidavit does not identify an official cause or manner of death for the infant, and the criminal complaint does not allege either defendant intentionally caused the child's death. The investigation is ongoing.

Manderson police and sign 7 9 26

<title>Big Horn Grandpa, Mom Charged After Baby Dies In 95-Degree Feces-Filled Trailer | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Big Horn County grandfather and mother have been charged after a baby died Monday in a 95-degree trailer filled with feces, garbage and a 5-gallon bucket of human waste. "The infant's diaper was completely saturated in urine,” an investigator says.

Big Horn Grandpa, Mom Charged After Baby Dies In 95-Degree Feces-Filled Trailer

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Wildlife

Two experienced Wyoming outdoorswomen said a large black bear aggressively entered their camp in the Bighorn Mountains late Sunday and refused to leave, despite shouting, shining lights, firing a shot at its paws and four large dogs barking.

A second gunshot finally drove the bear away. The women, Shonna Kaye Dehl of Lovell and Maggie Bassett of Powell, retreated to their vehicles for about an hour.

Then they came out, grabbed their sleeping bags and headed to a cabin owned by Dehl’s family.

When they returned in the morning they discovered “the bear had come back and the night and had just completely ripped everything apart,” Bassett told Cowboy State Daily.

‘I Felt The Bear Hit The Side Of The Tent’

Dehl and Bassett are experienced campers, hikers and hunters. For several years, they’ve taken summer camping trips together in the Bighorns.

This year, they were camped on Fool Creek off Dayton Gulch Road with their dogs. Bassett has two German shepherds, and Dehl has a Labrador retriever and a German shepherd.

Bassett said they had just gone to bed in their tents when the bear came into camp at about 11 p.m.

“I felt the bear hit the side of the tent,” she said. “My dogs growled and I yelled, ‘Hey! Get out of here, bear!’ ” she said.

“It just hit the tent harder and I heard the tent starting to rip.” 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Total Chaos In Camp"}]

Bassett said she grabbed her flashlight and pistol and started to exit her tent.

She said her pistol is a .38 Special revolver “that is basically just a small, self-defense firearm” made to stop a human attacker, not a bear – but it would have to do.

“I fired a shot at the bear’s feet because I hoped that would scare it off, but it didn’t,” Bassett said.

By that time, Dehl was coming out of her tent with her flashlight and pistol. Her firearm, a 10mm semi-automatic loaded with hardcast ammunition, is much better suited for dealing with bears.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The campsite erupted into chaos."}]

“We were both screaming and yelling at it, being as loud as we could be,” Dehl said.

At first, the dogs were fiercely barking at the bear.

“That bear couldn’t give a crap about our dogs,” Bassett said. “They quickly understood that they were outmatched. They just went back over by the vehicle and waited quietly.”

Dehl and Bassett have both seen plenty of bears in the wild. And by their estimation, the bear was mature, large and most likely a boar, or male.

They added that because the bear was so aggressive, some people have asked if it was a grizzly.

There have been rumors of grizzlies in the Bighorns for years. But only one has been confirmed.

In April 2024, wildlife agents killed a grizzly bear that was attacking cattle 

Bassett is a wildlife artist and said she’s confident the bear was a black bear.

Dehl agreed that she got a good look at the bear in the light from the flashlights, and it was a black bear.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Shaking From Adrenaline"}]

Dehl said that despite having the more powerful firearm, she hesitated to shoot because she couldn’t get a clear shot.  

Bassett said she didn’t want to hurt or kill the bear. But because it just wouldn't leave, she fired a second shot “at it,” and the bear finally retreated.

She added that after her experience, she wants to get a 10mm pistol “like Shonna’s.”

The women likewise retreated to their vehicles and waited inside with their dogs.

“That’s one of those instances when you’re trying to recover from what just happened, and shaking with adrenaline,” Bassett said.

Dehl said she looked at the clock in her vehicle and it said 11:20 p.m. That means it had taken about 20 minutes to drive the bear out of their camp.

They waited for what felt like just a few minutes but was probably closer to an hour, she said.

“By the time we grabbed our sleeping bags, made it over to the cabin and got settled in, it must have been about 2 a.m. (Monday),” Dehl said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bear Never Got Food"}]

They returned the next day and found their camp completely torn apart.

They searched for blood or other evidence they'd shot the bear but found none, Bassett said.

Dehl said that after posting about her experience on social media “to get the word out and warn people,” she and Bassett have gotten flack about what they should have done, or what they did wrong.

They said that amounts to armchair quarterbacking by people who weren’t there.

Dehl said they followed all the same bear-safety protocols they would have followed in grizzly country, including keeping a clean camp and their food securely stored.

“The bear never got any food out of this,” even when it came back and trashed the camp, Bassett said.

One lesson the incident taught her was not to rely on dogs for protection from bears.

“I think they would still protect me if a strange human tried entering my camp,” she said.

She and Dehl noted that while their dogs didn’t confront the bear, they at least didn’t make the situation worse by trying to cower between their owners’ legs, as dogs sometimes do during bear attacks.

The dogs’ behavior matches extensive research into bear incidents involving dogs by bear biologist Tom Smith of Brigham Young University in Utah.

Smith previously told Cowboy State Daily that dogs will 

 during bear incidents rather than trying to fight the bears.  

The exceptions are specially bred and trained dogs, such as 

Dehl said that after their ordeal, she and Bassett are “rethinking” their approach to camping, and might stick to cabins and hard-sided campers.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Game And Fish Search"}]

Dehl and Bassett said they reported the incident to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

In a statement emailed to Cowboy State Daily, Game and Fish confirmed that an incident had been reported Monday afternoon.  

“Within an hour of receiving the report, three Game and Fish personnel were responding to the scene to investigate and begin setting traps. Four traps were set in the area. Signs were placed advising the public of active trapping taking place,” according to Game and Fish.

Game and Fish agents spoke to other campers in the area who didn’t report any bear conflicts.  

“The personnel remained nearby overnight to monitor the traps. The traps were left in place until the morning of July 8. No bear was captured and no further incidents have been reported as of this afternoon,” according to Game and Fish.  

Warning signs are also posted in the area, advising campers to secure food.

“Unfortunately, the warning signs indicating that bear trapping was taking place in the area were removed by unknown members of the public,” Sheridan game warden Jesse Niemeir said in the statement.

 “This could have created a safety issue for other members of the public who did not receive notice of bear trapping taking place. Additionally, it’s possible that by spending time in the vicinity of our traps, these individuals may have interfered with our ability to successfully capture this bear.”

“We need the public’s cooperation in situations like this,” he added. “This includes reporting any conflicts as quickly as possible to Game and Fish, Forest Service personnel or a local law enforcement agency.”  

Mix Collage 08 Jul 2026 04 14 PM 647

<title>Aggressive Black Bear Drives Women From Bighorns Camp Before Shredding Tents | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Two experienced Wyoming outdoorswomen said a large black bear aggressively entered their camp in the Bighorns late Sunday and turned it into "total chaos." When they returned the next day after escaping to a cabin, their camp was completely torn apart.

Aggressive Black Bear Drives Women From Bighorns Camp Before Shredding Tents

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

Renée Jean

Energy

Project Jade, Wyoming’s largest data center, is now Project Tembo, and the company behind the 2.7-gigawatt facility is a mystery no longer.

The data center will be owned and operated by none other than Google, giving Cheyenne yet another of the world’s largest tech companies in what is fast becoming an emerging tech frontier. 

Cheyenne has hosted Microsoft data centers for the past decade or so and that company has announced plans for a major expansion on a 3,500-acre tract of land 

 it was joining the Wyoming fold with an $800 million, 715,000-square-foot data center campus on a 960-acre parcel in the High Plains Business Park. That project, recently making headlines because of 

 that showed up in Cheyenne’s wastewater system, is set to open as early as 2027. 

Google’s new facility likely isn’t the last large tech company to show up in Cheyenne. In addition to its 10 existing locations, Cheyenne has five more under construction and another nine in advanced stages of discussion, according to data from Cheyenne LEADS. 

LEADS has also had 36 data center companies or site selectors express interest in Cheyenne or Laramie County, plus another 30 “tire kickers” that made at least one exploratory call.

Prometheus Hyperscale, meanwhile, has said it’s talking with “name-brand” companies for one gigawatt-scale data center 

Google’s project, according to planning documents filed with Laramie County, will be a 716-acre campus 8 miles south of Cheyenne in the Switchgrass Industrial Park, formerly used for seasonal cattle grazing. It is surrounded by rural, agricultural private and state-owned lands, as well as a solar field. 

The nearest residence is .1 miles east of the project. Single-family residences are also located .5 miles north and 1.34 miles south of the location. All of them are “low-density,” Google said in its filing.

Deeds filed with the application identify the owners as the Lazy D Grazing Association and Boyd and Allison Meyer. 

The application outlines a project that includes four data center halls and an office hub, as well as logistics and network buildings and new access roads off U.S. 85, with a planned completion date of 2031. The size of each data center hall is not mentioned, other than to describe them as “large-scale” facilities designed to support “a large number of computer servers operating simultaneously, along with associated mechanical and electrical equipment” for high-density computer workloads.

Google’s data center facilities are being built by Jupiter Star Holdings, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Google. Jupiter Star Holdings is replacing Crusoe, which last month told Bloomberg it’d been asked to “pause” construction of Project Jade at the customer’s request. 

That initially led some to believe the huge data center project, which can scale to up to 10 gigawatts, had been put on hold.

Subsequent statements, however, made it clear the project 

. Crusoe actually had been asked to pack up and leave by the data center client, which was taking over construction of the facilities. 

Tallgrass Energy executives told Cowboy State Daily at the time the project was “full steam ahead” and they would still be building out and delivering a bring-your-own power generation hub for the data center client. The client, Tallgrass added then, had not changed, though they declined to confirm who was building such a large data center.

Black Hills Energy also put out a media statement at the time, saying the project was continuing. In a subsequent interview with Cowboy State Daily about how the company is handling 

 coming to its Cheyenne-area grid, the company confirmed it is a partner in the project. 

That suggests the project will eventually be connecting to the existing electrical grid and infrastructure, even though it has been touted as bringing its own power.

Google’s application says Tallgrass Energy will “combine energy resources from Black Hills Energy, fuel cells, and its power plant” to a substation that will serve power to the data center campus.

Wastewater treatment, meanwhile, will occur on site with evaporative lagoon storage. Connection to Cheyenne’s municipal wastewater system was not deemed cost-effective. 

All wastes will be handled in accordance with applicable local, state, and federal laws, the document goes on to say, and disturbed areas will be revegetated with native or adapted dry-land perennial vegetation. 

Traffic studies will also be conducted, and efforts will be made to minimize noise, wildlife impact, and visual impacts.

Most of the new details about the former Project Jade aren’t coming from press conferences and ribbon cuttings right now. They’re from a June 30 site-plan amendment, filed with Laramie County’s Planning and Development, along with a stack of other documents.

The site-plan overview filed with the amendment identifies Google in its first sentence, publicly revealing the company behind the former Project Jade for the first time.

Google, through Jupiter Star Holdings, has also sent out a required “adjacent neighbor” notice identifying a 32.83-acre area where an office support facility is planned. That was not part of Project Jade’s original conditional-use permit, the letter says.

A hearing has thus been set for the required permit at 3:30 p.m. Aug. 13 in the Laramie County Commission chambers. 

Comments on the matter are to be accepted through July 31, and may be emailed to 

Taken together, the January approvals for Project Jade and June’s amended filings for what’s now being called Project Tembo show that Wyoming’s biggest data center has quietly shifted from a Crusoe-branded campus with an unnamed “hyperscale” client to a Google-owned build advancing through Laramie County’s land use processes. 

That evolution is happening alongside other large-scale tech build-outs in Cheyenne, a city once known as the Magic City on the Plains for its seemingly overnight growth when the Union Pacific railroad arrived.

Some local observers, including longtime Cheyenne attorney and Councilman Larry Wolfe, have begun questioning whether data center and power planning are keeping pace with the speed and scale of these projects. 

It’s a debate that’s likely to grow as Tembo and other campuses continue to converge on Cheyenne’s new tech frontier.

Google 7 8 26

<title>Say Hello To Google, The Mystery Owner Behind Wyoming's Largest Data Center Project | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The 2.7-gigawatt data center once called Project Jade 8 miles south of Cheyenne has been unmasked as a massive Google campus. Google’s project, according to planning documents, will be a 716-acre campus in the Switchgrass Industrial Park.

Say Hello To Google, The Mystery Owner Behind Wyoming's Largest Data Center Project

[{"type":"text","text":"Very helpful advice here....."}]

Fireworks safety no play 7 6 26

<title>Today In Fireworks Safety: Monday, July 6, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Very helpful advice here.....

Today In Fireworks Safety: Monday, July 6, 2026

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Wyoming Life

There is no speed limit reduction sign for travelers approaching Hiland. 

The drivers along U.S. Highway 20-26 have little reason to tap their brakes from 70 mph as they bypass the weathered and struggling buildings that were a home, a combination store, bar, post office, and little motel four-room motel that a century ago started as a family business.

But Eva Gunn, who inherited those buildings from her mom in 2022, hopes to resurrect the once noted Bright Spot store and lounge, a slice of the past in what now goes for a ghost town.

“I hope to have it open this summer,” she said. “The same as it was before, the bar and the store.”

Her mother received the properties as back wages from the Bright Spot’s previous owners, who operated it less than a decade ago, she said.

Gunn does not own the red-wooded building to the west of the little parade of white structures she said once held a dance hall. 

Natrona County records show the Supreme Grand Lodge of AMORC, or Rosicrucians, based in San Jose, California, holds title to it — and with walls collapsing and roof shingles missing it will likely soon join the destiny of the Temple of Karnak that the group reveres.

If the walls of these buildings could talk, there would be stories about how a farmer gave up his dairy to create the business in the 1920s, about notable robberies in later decades, and a woman who made ham sandwiches and wrote racy stories for romance magazines, garnering her invitations to appear on the TV shows “To Tell The Truth” and “Phil Donahue.”

Before that Hiland was a stop on the Chicago & North Western Railway that served Wolton more than a mile northeast and housed a community linked to a sheep operation run by former President Gerald Ford’s grandfather, along with several other businesses that brought life into central Wyoming.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Population 10"}]

These days, the Wyoming Department of Transportation roadway sign announces Hiland’s population as 10. It is fairly accurate.

Gunn said a couple of additional people could possibly be tallied in the number. The residents, who include Gunn, live in mobile homes and houses about one-quarter mile east of the Bright Spot and south of the highway on North Hiland Road.

“I am from Casper, but I would rather be out there than in Casper for sure,” Gunn said. “Driving when I have to go to town is the only thing I don’t like.”

She said she shops in Casper rather than Riverton because it has more stores.

Also part of the community are Alfred Dunihoo, 74, his daughter, Mandy Dunihoo, 47, and Bill Miller, 69.

Alfred Dunihoo purchased his 6 acres from the late Bright Spot owner Bob Steelman 25 years ago. Steelman lived just down from him on Hiland Road and died in 2022. He operated the Bright Spot from 1974 to 2006.

Alfred Dunihoo said met Steelman while working on an oil rig that was in the area.

“We had a man camp sitting down there by the Bright Spot and that’s how I got to know Bob,” he said. “I talked to Bob and bought this place.”

Even without the Bright Spot country store and lounge, Hiland, Wyoming, isn't a ghost town — just ask the 10 people still living there in the middle of nowhere between Casper and Shoshoni. In fact, the woman who inherited the store hopes to reopen it.

Daily Darwin: Monday, June 10, 2024

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