CASPER — The 17-year-old girl who was stabbed Halloween night in the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center parking lot said she initially thought the machete-like knife another teen girl was threatening her with was fake.
But when she grabbed it, her hand got stuck on the blade — and it had already been plunged into her abdomen.
Willow Dymond Wagner told Cowboy State Daily that she’s grateful for those in the parking lot around her who acted quickly to help save her life.
“I just kind of think of the positives, like, I'm glad it wasn't worse,” Wagner said. “I'm glad I thought it was fake at first, because if I thought it was real, I don't think I would have grabbed it and it would have went all the way through.”
Wagner said she had been at the parking lot for a “truck meet” gathering with four of her friends for 10 or 15 minutes before Gabriella “Bella” Aultman, also 17, got out of the passenger side of a red Durango SUV and stabbed her. Aultman was allegedly provoked when Wagner kicked the SUV.
Wagner said she recognized Aultman sitting in the vehicle because they went to middle school together. She characterized Aultman as a “friend” in middle school, but they had drifted apart.
Now a senior in the Natrona County School District virtual learning program, Wagner said she was talking with friends as Aultman’s SUV driven by her friend “backed up really, really quickly and almost hit me and three others” and their windows were closed.
So, Wagner said she kicked the truck to let them know that people were behind it.
‘Chill, Bro., Chill’
“Bella jumped out with the machete. I put my hands up immediately,” Wagner said. “I was like, ‘Chill, bro, chill,’” Wagner said. “There's like, a video of it, because this girl felt that there was gonna be a fight.
“And then she, like, she stabbed me. I grabbed the machete, pulled it out of me. This happened really fast. And, like, she kind of like started yanking it, but my hand was still, like, stuck in the machete.”
Wagner said the knife cut through two tendons in her hand as well as entering her abdomen.
At first it was hard to understand just what happened, Wagner said, adding she also did not know if Aultman recognized her because other people later told her she may have been drunk.
In a police affidavit about the incident, Aultman allegedly admitted to drinking vodka and smoking marijuana.
What Wagner learned later was that the knife went into her small bowel.
In the moment before the stabbing, she said there were those telling Aultman not to do it.
“Everyone’s like, ‘Don’t do it Bella. Don’t! Stop!’” Wagner said. “And then she stabbed me.”
As she saw the blood on her hand, Wagner said she was asked by others if Aultman stabbed her.
That’s when she realized she was bleeding from her abdomen. She was wearing a costume that included a white corset and black skirt with fake blood, but now her real blood was soaking through it.
“Everyone was just either leaving or just staring at me,” she recalled. “So, I was like, ‘Somebody do something. Somebody wrap it, help me. I can't die. I was just kind of like, snapping everyone back into reality while bleeding out.
“And then there were a couple people who helped and called the police and stuff. And that was really great.”
15-Year-Old Responder
One of those people who helped save her life was a 15-year-old sophomore at Glenrock High School named Raelee Blaylock.
Blaylock said she had arrived in the parking lot about five minutes earlier and was talking with people with her back to the incident when she heard that someone had been stabbed. She estimates she was 15 or 20 feet away.
Blaylock said she ran over and saw Wagner’s hand and the blood on the stomach.
“I took my shirt off and wrapped it around her hand and applied pressure,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “I started praying right there with her as she was telling me, ‘Don’t let me die, I can’t die’ repeatedly.
“And right there and then I realized it was all in God’s hands, I was just a factor in the moment. … And then 911 showed up.”
Blaylock said both her parents are in the medical field. Her dad is a former EMT and her mom a former sheriff’s deputy. She remembered her parents’ words that with wounds “you just want to put pressure on and keep them conscious until somebody else gets there.”
Blaylock said somebody else had already placed a jacket around Wagner’s abdomen to try and stem the bleeding there.
“I really wasn’t paying much attention to that, I was just trying to keep her conscious,” he said.
‘Didn’t Deserve To Be Alone’
The 15-year-old said she knows every one of the teens who have been involved in a rash of violence in Casper recently and that Wagner “didn’t deserve to be alone as she fought for her life.”
When she arrived in the parking lot, Blaylock said there were about 20 vehicles in the lot, but after the stabbing everybody started to leave.
She said her understanding was that the event was a “truck meet” for young people to get together for kids to look at trucks. She stopped to say “hi” but did not plan to stay long.
“It wasn’t two minutes until someone was screaming that she just got stabbed,” Blaylock said, adding she was interviewed by police about the incident.
The sophomore said she has been talking with Wagner through her hospitalization and has come to realize “how crazy this town has gotten.”
“We’re in high school. We should not be walking around with weapons just waiting for something to happen and then harming one another,” she said. “There has to be a change or it’s going to keep happening over and over again.”
Wagner said she has undergone two surgeries, one to remove 6 inches of her small intestine, another on her hand. She was told by medical personnel that she almost died. Wagner faces another surgery on her hand next week.
The 17-year-old looks back at the night and still tries to understand why Aultman did what she did.
“The fact that she could do that to anybody, I think that justice is her being away for a long time,” she said. “I don’t want anyone else to be put through what I was.
“I was glad that it was me because I know how to cope with hard things. And it hasn’t been too bad because I know that I didn’t do anything wrong.”
A preliminary hearing on a charge of aggravated assault and battery is scheduled for Aultman on Thursday in Casper Circuit Court. The felony charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
