Same Guys Dancing

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Gretchen Wilson -- Here For The Party"}]

Mix Collage 20 Jun 2024 04 37 PM 1618

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

<title>Friday Morning Dance Party: Gretchen Wilson -- Here For The Party | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Gretchen Wilson -- Here For The Party

Friday Morning Dance Party: Gretchen Wilson -- Here For The Party

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

Bessemer Bend, a true Wyoming ghost town, has been claimed back by nature and alfalfa fields. 

Before its demise, Bessemer was where Wyoming’s oldest cabin was built by desperate fur traders with the Pacific Fur Co. 

Decades later, Bessemer became part of the Oregon, California, Mormon, Pony Express, and Overland trails that all crossed at Red Buttes/Bessemer Bend.

Later, the famous Goose Egg was built on the spot. This extravagant stone mansion is said by some say to have inspired scenes in Owen Wister’s “The Virginian.” 

Today, Bessemer Bend is a broad loop of the North Platte River southwest of Casper that shows no signs of the failed city. 

The landscape is dominated by irrigated fields, ranchland, cottonwoods along the river, and the red hills and buttes that explorers and Oregon Trail emigrants knew as Red Buttes. 

The town of Bessemer, now long gone, had gained a reputation as the “Queen City of the Plains.” Her founders believed that their city would one day be the grandest in Wyoming. 

Their hopes were dashed by a rigged election and the railroad. 

Ultimately, Casper “stole” the honor from them when it became the seat of Natrona County instead and, one by one, the residents of Bessemer hauled their homes over to Casper.  

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Fur Traders "}]

Bessemer first appeared in written record in the 1812 diary of fur trader Robert Stuart. 

Stuart had been hired in 1810 by John Jacob Astor to work for the Pacific Fur Co. and was on the company ship, the Tonquin, when he became marooned at Fort Astoria.  

The crew had sailed first to the Falkland Islands and then around Cape Horn and up the western coast of North America, reaching what is now Astoria, Oregon in May 1811. There, they established Fort Astoria.

When the crew sailed farther north, to Vancouver Island, an interaction with Native Americans resulted in many deaths and the destruction of the ship. 

It was left to Stuart and a small group of men to return eastward overland. The party left Astoria on June 29, 1812, bound for St. Louis. With Stuart were Ramsay Crooks, John Day, Benjamin Jones, François LeClerc, Robert McClellan, and André Vallé.

They started up the Columbia River in canoes. Before they were out many days,  John Day became “demented" and was sent back to Astoria in the care of some friendly Indians. 

In a few days, they came across some men who had been separated from another party and gave them provisions. 

A man named Miller joined Stuart in Day's place according to Molker. 

The group headed east, through what is now Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Wyoming, traveling on what would later become the Oregon Trail. 

Highlights of their journey that Stuart detailed in his diary included paddling down the Snake River, crossing Teton Pass and seeing Jackson Hole, and discovering the South Pass.

By the time they reached Bessemer, the seven men were starving and weak, desperate to rest. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Refuge"}]

Described as “footsore, hungry, and utterly weary,” fur trader Robert Stuart wrote in his diary that he and his six companions had been following a river (the North Platte) for two days but had to find a place to stop and recuperate. 

The cabin they were soon to build would become the oldest recorded cabin in Wyoming. 

It was November 1812 when Stuart described how they had found a low point of land on a bend in the river and had selected it for their winter camp. 

There were cottonwoods and willows there for building materials and firewood and the area had plenty of wildlife to sustain them. 

The men had already seen the Grand Canyon and discovered the passage through South Pass. They had their horses stolen by the Crow and were on foot. 

Weakened by their trek, they had started missing shots and were starving when they had finally succeeded on killing an injured bull buffalo. 

Though tempted to eat the meat raw, Stuart had fed the men broth to regain their strength. 

Stuart describes their cabin at Bessemer as eight feet wide and 18 feet long. The walls were six feet high and the whole was covered with buffalo skins. 

The fireplace was in the center and the smoke found its way out through a hole in the roof.

“As the slaughter of so many buffaloes had provided the party with beef for the winter, in case they met with no further supply, they now set to work, heart and hand, to build a comfortable wigwam,” Stuart wrote. “In a little while, the woody promontory rang with the unwonted sound of the axe.”

He said that by the second evening, the cabin was complete. 

They rested and recuperated from the exertion and hunger they had suffered. They had been in their little cabin for five weeks when a small band of Arapahoe Indians visited them for a few days. Although the Arapahos did not harm them, Stuart was concerned that they might return in “another mood.” 

He packed up his men and some provisions and moved on toward the east, leaving behind their home on Bessemer Bend. When Stuart’s party arrived at Saint Louis they had shortened the route of Lewis and Clark, had discovered the Sweetwater and North Platte rivers and had discovered the most important gateway through the Rockies, South Pass.

Mary Lou Pence and Lola Homsher in their book, “The Ghost Towns of Wyoming,” said that some pioneers claimed the cabin stood for many years while others said the Indians immediately swooped down and burned it. 

Whichever the case, the cabin has long been gone when the Oregon Trail followed part of the same route first made by the small party of fur traders. 

The Goose Egg, or the Searight House, was built on Bessemer Bend and by 1888, a town had been planned, adopting the name of Bessemer. 

The founders had high hopes of being a metropolis. A sawmill and brick plant were brought in and homes and businesses sprung up quickly. 

When a brewery and liquor house were brought in by Max Jaensch, the residents of Bessemer saw a bright future.

“For as one citizen put it,” Pence and Homsher wrote. “Here the consumption of distilled waters was far above the average in American communities.”

In 1888 to 1889, the town promoters laid out 49 blocks and reserved land for what they hoped would become Wyoming's future capitol building. Bessemer grew quickly and attracted settlers, ranchers, and businesses. 

As Wyoming was preparing for statehood, Bessemer entered the race to become the county seat of the proposed Natrona County.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"However, it was not to be. "}]

According to Pence and Homsher, just as Bessemerites were sitting back “gloating” over the meager 304 pollings cast in Casper as compared to their 667 count, it was announced that some “skullduggery” had been perpetrated. 

The investigators ruled that Bessemer had cheated and had more votes than residents. Their count was thrown out and Casper became the county seat in 1890. 

Residents of Bessemer were still angry when they spoke to historians Pence and Homsher in the 1950s. 

“They say we cheated and voted every man, woman and kid,” one old-timer told Pence and Homsher. “Well, I know one of their men who voted three times. But they don’t tell about that!” 

The following year, the printing press for the Bessemer Journal was seized and moved to Casper to become the Natrona Tribune. 

The railroad selected Casper as the regional rail terminal and the end of Bessemer was official.

Many of the buildings were moved to Casper until only the Goose Egg and a few others remained. Eventually, even the stone mansion was torn down and Bessemer quietly faded into the past. 

“When they said the Goose Egg was no more, you could hear that awesome hush,” Pence and Homsher wrote. “You could almost see Chalkeye and Fingers and Honey Wiggin and Baldy and Missou wipe away a tear.”

Bessemer is now returned to pasture and agricultural land. However, the memory of the ghost town and the first cabin from 1812 remain. 

“You can rip a house to pieces, ’til it ain’t no more, but you can’t tear up the things that happened there,” an old-timer told Pence and Homsher in remembrance of his beloved Bessemer and the people that once lived there.

Bessemer Bend and inset 6 7 26

<title>Wyoming History: Once A Bustling City On Oregon Trail, Bessemer Now A Ghost Town | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Bessemer Bend, now peaceful ranchland, was once a stop on the Oregon Trail and a bustling city known as the “Queen City of the Plains.” Now it’s a true Wyoming ghost town that disappeared when Casper was picked as the county seat. 

Wyoming History: Once A Bustling City On Oregon Trail, Bessemer Now A Ghost Town

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

A woman born in Casper and raised on a ranch near Riverton, along with her young son, were among the more than 900 people who died at Jonestown, Guyana, in November 1978, when self-styled pastor turned messianic figure Jim Jones infamously commanded them to drink a poisoned potion.

Wanda Shirley Swinney moved to Jones’ People's Temple compound in Guyana in August 1977, reuniting with her husband and son. 

How Swinney’s life went from her Wyoming beginnings to ending with the command of a cult leader in Jonestown is a tale of family tragedy, an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, a father’s introduction, and years of brainwashing from the cult’s exalted leader.

The bottom line is Swinney was devoted to Jones. 

In a letter to him written in Guyana, she thanked her “precious Father” for providing their life in Guyana.

“There is no limit to what we can do if we follow your teachings and put them into practice,” she wrote. “Thank you Father for the privilege of being here with you.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"When It Came Tumbling Down"}]

A California congressman, along with journalists, flew to the jungle community in November 1978 to check on his constituents and other Americans who were at Jones’ compound, dubbed “Jonestown."

U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan had heard that people wanted to leave, but were not allowed.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"There was no heavenly outcome."}]

Headlines and history record 918 deaths in Guyana that included Ryan’s assassination and the murder of journalists who accompanied him at the hands of Jones’ deluded followers. Of those, 909 died by drinking the “potion."

Jones died by either self-inflicted gunshot or at the hands of an obedient assistant. Some followers slit their throats, but most of his congregants drank a cyanide-laced potion at his command.

In his now-infamous “Death Tape,” Jones tells his followers “how much” he loved them and tried to give them “the good life.” 

, he characterized Ryan’s visit as a betrayal by “a handful” of sect members “who have made our life impossible.”

Ryan and his party were to fly out with some cult members and children that Jones characterized as “stolen” from Jonestown. 

Jones said the actions of angry sect members at the airport to get their children back using weapons meant the only solution for the rest of the congregation was not to “commit suicide,” but to “take the potion as a revolutionary act.”

He quoted scripture “that no man takes my life from me, I lay it down” and then referred to himself as a communist.

“We can’t go back and they won’t leave us alone,” Jones said. “The best testimony we can make is to leave this (profanity) world.”

Born in Casper as Wanda Shirley Werner on Aug. 20, 1947, she was raised in the early part of her life on a ranch outside Riverton.

It was 31 years later when Wanda Shirley Swinney’s life ended when she — along with her young son — obeyed her “father” and drank Jones' “potion.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Temple Visit"}]

“We went to one of the meetings,” recalls Darlene Parrish, Swinney’s niece.

Darlene and her sister, Tina Parrish, of Carson, Nevada, are the closest living connection to Swinney. They are the daughters of Swinney’s older sister, Jeanie Lou Parrish. Their mother died in October 2023.

Darlene Parrish said that as a young girl, she accompanied her mother on a visit to see her sister in California. 

Her mother and aunt took her to the People’s Temple in San Francisco, where Jones preached and commanded his congregation.

She doesn’t remember a lot from that visit except that in addition to Jones and his followers, there was a monkey at the service.

“Mom told us she remembers Jim Jones getting up there, talking and everything,” Darlene Parrish told Cowboy State Daily. “He said he was ‘Jesus’ and the Bible was just a bunch of lies about him. 

"She said he took the Bible and stomped on it.”

Tina Parrish was 9 months old when her aunt took her life, but she heard the story about the temple visit several times while growing up.

“That was a big story in our family,” she said.

Wanda Shirley Werner was born to Chelsea Guy Werner and Jean Evelyn Werner, the youngest of siblings that including Leonard, Jeanie Lou, and Chelsea Jr.

The Parrish sisters said their mother was born in Missouri and the family moved to Wyoming where their grandfather and grandmother eventually ranched a few years after her birth. 

They believe their grandmother also was possible a teacher for a time.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Mother’s Death"}]

A Casper Star-Tribune article on March 17, 1958, recorded their grandmother’s death.

“Mrs. Jean Evelyn Werner, former Casper resident, died suddenly in a Riverton hospital according to word received here today,” the newspaper reported. “She was 43 years old. Mrs. Werner was born in Huntsville, Missouri. She lived in Casper from 1946 to 1949.”

Darlene Parrish said her mother was 15 at the time of her grandmother’s death and became a surrogate mom for Wanda and Chelsea Jr.

The Parrish sisters said one story their mother told about Wanda involved her as a young girl playing on a stump and disturbing a nearby beehive. 

The bees swarmed on Wanda and their mom, Jeanie, had to quickly run and grab the girl and pull her away, swiping bees off as the girls tried to escape.

After their grandmother’s death, their grandfather got a job driving trucks over the road and went through a succession of wives. 

The Parrish sisters said they did not know their grandfather well and visited him once after he moved to Grants Pass, Oregon.

Their mother’s life stayed centered in Wyoming and they don’t know why Wanda and their grandfather ended up in California.

But the Richmond Independent newspaper listed Wanda Shirley Werner as among the 751 graduates of Richmond High School on June 15, 1965. Richmond is in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Three years later on March 27, 1968, Wanda Werner’s photo is in the same newspaper as a graduate of U.S. Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina. 

But her military career was cut short by an out-of-wedlock pregnancy and birth of a biracial son, Darren Eugene Werner.

Darren was born on Sept. 8, 1968, in Oakland, California.

The Parrish sisters say that it was the stigma at that time associated with having biracial baby that led to Wanda Werner’s involvement with the People’s Temple.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"An Introduction"}]

“It was my grandfather who kind of got her in it not knowing what it was at the time, of course,” Tina Parrish said. “He was driving truck with a member of the People’s Temple and they also had a mixed-race child.” 

She said her grandfather thought that Wanda would find more acceptance with those people as friends. That introduction likely took place in late 1968 or 1969.

At the People’s Temple, Wanda Werner, then 22, married Timothy Swinney, 32, in 1970, after he had divorced his first wife. 

Swinney was considered a “pioneer” at the People’s Temple because his parents and family followed Jones from their home in Indiana as Jones moved from that state to California.

The Ukiah Daily Journal on Oct. 21, 1970, listed Wanda Swinney as the secretary of the Ukiah Area Council that met at the First Methodist Church. The group’s order of business was to make preparations for food baskets for people for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

San Diego State University, which hosts a website that contains information about Jonestown, and the People’s Temple lists Wanda Swinney as moving to Guyana on Aug. 10, 1977. 

Her husband had gone there on March 18, 1974, and it lists her son, Darren Swinney, as entering the country on Nov. 24, 1975.

Prior to Guyana, Wanda Swinney worked as a bus driver, accounting clerk, and had skills in animal husbandry, farming and cooking, the website states.            

Darlene Parrish recalls one thing her mother talked about was that as girls on the ranch in Wyoming, both she and Wanda enjoyed horses and horseback riding.

In Guyana, Wanda lived in a separate residence from her husband and was listed as being in charge of the livestock, the “piggery,” and large animals.

Although Wanda Werner was patriotic enough to join the Marines during the Vietnam War, undated letters from her to Jim Jones reflect she believed Jones' Marxist anti-American messages and preaching that came out of his pulpit in the years leading up to the Jonestown event.

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

A massive FBI file created after the Nov. 18, 1978, mass murder and suicide includes a Nov. 21, 1978, message from the Omaha, Nebraska, office to the San Francisco office that contained an interview with a woman who joined the People’s Temple with her then-husband in Los Angeles. 

They were told to move to Ukiah, California.

“(The woman) advised although the group on the surface appeared to be a religious group, it was actually politically oriented and Jim Jones professed a political philosophy adhering to the teachings of Marx and Lenin,” the FBI memo states. 

“All members of the group had to attend closed instructional meetings two or three days a week, each last several hours,” it continues.

Swinney’s letters to Jones were written while she was in Guyana. She wrote her “Father” that among the reasons she left the United States “were because it is a capitalistic nation and we are Socialists and trying to learn more of Socialism.”

Swinney wrote that the U.S. economy was not going to “exist much longer,” according to an economist, and that the nation was quickly approaching a day of “race war.” 

She foresaw a time when the “fascist government” would round up people and put them in ghettos and concentration camps that were already prepared.

“It is a known fact that train box cars are strategically located, just waiting for the signal for when people will be herded like animals into these camps,” Swinney wrote. “Nuclear war is a constant threat also and here in Socialist Guyana we are safe from the radiation fallout if war does break out.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Precious Father'"}]

Tina Parrish said because of her aunt’s involvement in Guyana, while in college she did a research paper on Jonestown and the People’s Temple. But she was unaware then of her aunt’s letters to Jones.

When told about the content, Tina Parrish said one thing was clear.

“I don’t think she would have gotten that from Wyoming or from her dad,” she said.

Darlene Parrish remembers the day her grandfather called her mother with the news of Wanda Swinney’s death.

“I felt bad for her. I didn’t know exactly what was going on. She got off the phone and she was just sobbing,” she said. “Mom said later on that he (Chelsea Werner Sr.) decided because it was such a mess out there that instead of bringing her home, he would just have her buried with the people there.”

Records from the San Diego State University website show that the remains of Wanda and Darren Swinney were eventually brought back to Oakland, California, and buried in Evergreen Cemetery.

“Next of kin could not be located,” the file states. “Buried by receiver on June 19, 1979.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Wanda’s Son"}]

A remembrance by Don Beck, a People’s Temple member who directed the children’s choir while Jones remained in Redwood Valley, California, characterized Darren Swinney as a boy who in second grade struggled until Beck directed the youngster to report to him each day on his way home regarding his performance.

“Darren was like many of our kids. They needed more of our attention, consistently,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, we were often too busy to give the extra attention our kids needed.

"This was one reason we wanted to build a community.”

While both Parrish sisters never knew their aunt or their young cousin who was a year older than Darlene, they still feel the ties and loss that a blood relation brings.

Darlene Parrish said people who make flippant remarks about happened in Guyana are not thinking about those who were left behind.

“Our family, it hit us pretty hard,” she said. "And none of us like the jokes that people make about 'drinking the Kool-Aid.' It’s ridiculous.

"think about (the fact) that there are family and friends who are still alive that knew those people and were affected by it a lot.”

Wanda and son Jonestown site in 2022 AFP via Getty 6 7 26

<title>Casper Woman, Son Among 909 Who Drank Poison At Jim Jones’ Guyana Compound In 1978 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A woman born in Casper and raised on a ranch near Riverton, along with her young son, were among the more than 900 people who died at Jonestown, Guyana, in November 1978, when self-styled pastor Jim Jones infamously commanded them to drink poison.

Casper Woman, Son Among 909 Who Drank Poison At Jim Jones’ Guyana Compound In 1978

Jen kocher

Jen Kocher

Crime & Courts

Law Enforcement

Editor's note: This is the second of a two-part series on the infamous "Rawlins Rodeo Murders." Part one 

 and focused on the disappearances of four young girls that remain unsolved 52 years later.

In the early 1970s, the small, rugged city of Rawlins, Wyoming, was in the dawn of an energy boom.

The summer of 1974 arrived like any other, but then between July and August, 

Two of then — 10-year-old Jaylene Banker and 19-year-old Christine “Christy” Gross — were eventually found dead.

The other two teens, 19-year-old Carlene Brown and 15-year-old Deborah Meyer, were never found at all.

All their murders and disappearances remain unsolved, and more than 50 years later law enforcement has yet to publicly named any suspects or persons of interest.

Carbon County Sheriff Alex Bakken, who wasn’t born at the time the murders took place, admits that his knowledge is limited on the cases. He took over as sheriff four years ago and inherited these among other cold cases.

He said the files are securely stowed in an offsite storage facility that he plans to retrieve.

other cash-strapped agencies throughout the state

 with large jurisdictions and limited staff, is “slowly but surely” working to digitize older case files in accordance with state statute passed in 2024.

It requires agencies to report cold cases dating back to January 1972 to the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation’s 

[{"type":"text","text":"To date, only Banker appears in the database."}]

This work is being done around their current workload, Bakken said, but it doesn’t mean that they’re forgotten, he said.

Retired homicide detective and Powell-based cold case investigator Janet Franson likewise believes there’s still work to be done.

She’s been looking into these cases for 25 years, specifically trying to locate the remains of the missing girls.

“I know people would say it’s so old,” Franson told Cowboy State Daily. “But two girls are still missing and need to be found.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Possible Suspects?"}]

The first two teens vanished on July 4, 1974, which was a big year for Rawlins.

Fireworks were returning to the town’s Fourth of July celebration after being absent for several years, according to local reporting at the time.

Two friends, 19-year-olds Carlene Brown and Christine “Christy” Gross, attended the Little Britches Rodeo, a local favorite annual event. Gross had been visiting from Bowdle, South Dakota.

Details surrounding their disappearances are vague, but former Carbon County Deputy Sheriff Jeff Faycosh reported that their van was found parked at the fairgrounds, according to a November 1983 Casper-Star Tribune story.

Gross’s remains were found nine years later near Sinclair, a small town of around 350 residents located about 6 miles from Rawlins along Interstate 80.

At the time, Faycosh said his office had turned up a “few new leads” from the crime scene and indicated that a suspect had been identified after looking at “all possible suspects,” according to local media reports.

He further stated that his office was in the process of attempting to locate the suspect, who he declined to name.

[{"type":"text","text":"Faycosh also said that he hadn’t given up hope of finding Brown."}]

“You spend nine years sweating a case like this and you think you are at a dead end. Then you get a new lead,” he told a Rawlins 

Times reporter in a November 1983 article.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Likely Not Bundy"}]

It’s not clear what “suspect” Faycosh was referring to or if any suspects have ever been publicly named.

Many in the community, including Brown’s longtime friend Mary Kay Albrechtson, believe that 

Theodore “Ted” Bundy may be responsible for the murders.

However, former Carbon County Sheriff Chuck Ogburn dispelled that speculation, telling reporters that his office had looked into Bundy, but he’d been incarcerated in Colorado when Gross and Brown vanished.

That timeline, however, appears to be off, according to 

 that say Bundy was not arrested in Utah until August 1975, when he was taken into custody for kidnapping and assaulting a teenager in that state.

He faced additional murder charges in Colorado and was moved to an Aspen jail in January 1977.

Bundy later escaped from the jail in June 1977 from a second-story window while using the jailhouse law library but was captured five days later.

Authorities believe Bundy’s killing spree began in 1974, as he confessed before his 1989 execution to the murders of more than 30 women and young girls.

In the second of a two-part series on the infamous "Rawlins Rodeo Murders" of 1974, many in the community believe serial killer Ted Bundy was responsible for the deaths of the four girls. Others pin the blame on long haul trucker Russell Royal Long.

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