The Crook County coroner has identified the man killed in a deputy-involved shooting Saturday in Sundance, Wyoming, as 48-year-old Joseph Keith Neimeyer.
Crook County Coroner Mike Frolander was on his way to Neimeyer’s autopsy in South Dakota on Tuesday when he spoke with Cowboy State Daily. He said he’d know more after the autopsy, but believed the cause of death was “going to be gunshot wound.”
Niemeyer has almost no Wyoming state court criminal history; just a couple infractions for speeding.
His court file describes him as a white male with blue eyes, standing 6 feet tall and weighing 250 pounds.
Niemeyer leaves behind a wife and adult daughter, also of Sundance.
Neither woman could be reached by publication time.
“I’ll miss you forever,” wrote Niemeyer’s daughter in a public post to her Facebook page Sunday. “It still doesn’t feel real that you’re really gone.”
The Initial Statement
The Crook County Sheriff’s Office announced Sunday that agents responded to a home in Sundance for a report of an armed home invasion and heard a report that someone had fired off a shot in the home.
They went seeking the suspect, Niemeyer, and found him walking down the road about a block from the home.
“The subject pointed a firearm at one of the deputies,” says the statement. “In response, the deputy shot and hit the suspect who was pronounced deceased at the scene.”
Sheriff Jeff Hodge later clarified to Cowboy State Daily that the suspect had lived at the home prior but was not welcome there during the reported home invasion.
The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation is investigating the incident, as is customary for officer-involved shootings.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
