Accused of stabbing his mother then chattering happily about his hallucinations Monday, a Cody man could face up to 10.5 years in prison, if convicted.
Robert N. Rednour, 39, faces one count of aggravated assault, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $10,000 in fines, and another of domestic battery, punishable by up to six months in jail and $750 in fines.
Park County Attorney deputy Larry Eichele charged Rednour on Monday, hours after the man’s early morning arrest.
The case started overnight Sunday when Park County dispatch called sheriff’s Deputy Tom Caudle, who was the on-call deputy for that hour, according to an evidentiary affidavit Caudle wrote for the case.
A man later identified as Rednour had called dispatch saying he’d “accidentally” stabbed his mother, then he hung up and didn’t answer a return call, the dispatcher told Caudle at the time. Meanwhile, an ambulance was en route to the rural Cody address.
“I was familiar with Robert and have experienced his violent tendencies,” wrote Caudle in the affidavit. “Dispatch asked if I wanted her to contact another deputy as well, and I said yes.”
Rednour was convicted of breach of peace in 2018 and interference with a police officer in 2022, his court file shows.
An Episode
As Caudle drove, the dispatcher told him she’d made contact with Rednour’s mother, and that she said she wasn’t stabbed, she was fine, and that Rednour had “had an episode,” says the affidavit.
Caudle asked the dispatcher to connect his own phone with Rednour’s. The dispatcher connected the two men, and Rednour said something to the effect of the situation was bad and he’d stabbed his mother, the document alleges.
The deputy asked to speak with Rednour’s mother, and Rednour gave his mother the phone.
Rednour’s mother said her son had stabbed her, the deputy wrote in the affidavit.
“Well, there is no coming back from that,” Rednour said in the background, according to Caudle’s account.
Lethal Force Ready
Caudle asked to speak with Rednour again.
He told Rednour he and the other deputy were pulling up to the house, and Rednour needed to come outside with nothing in his hands and both hands in the air, says the document.
The affidavit says Rednour answered that both he and his mother were waiting in the garage.
Both deputies arrived at the same time. Caudle saw Rednour in a short-sleeved shirt and what looked like pajama bottoms, walking from the open garage with his hands in the air and a cellphone in one hand, the affidavit says.
The other deputy approached with “lethal force ready,” while Caudle approached with a weapon of less-than-lethal force ready, Caudle wrote.
Caudle and the other deputy secured Rednour’s cellphone and put him in the back of Caudle’s patrol truck for “investigative detention” — a way of confining him while they sorted out the situation and any potential harm Rednour posed.
Blood And Odor
Caudle approached Rednour’s mother.
Her head and face were covered with blood, he wrote later. Her abdominal area was showing, and the deputy “could see plainly” a stab wound on the right side, about 2 inches in length across her belly, the document says.
The ambulance arrived.
According to the affidavit, the mother said no one else was in the house, and the knife was probably in the kitchen.
Inside the house, Caudle detected “the strong odor of marijuana” and spotted several bongs, he wrote.
The kitchen was in disarray. A large countertop was overturned; there was blood on the floor and the countertop, and some of the cabinets, Caudle wrote.
A door post also had blood spots on it; a large amount of blood showed in the master bedroom, he added.
The ambulance took Rednour’s mother to the hospital. The other deputy found the knife — an 8-inch blade with a 4-inch handle, according to the document.
The affidavit doesn’t say where the deputies found the knife.
Including An MRI
Caudle told Rednour his Miranda rights and confirmed twice the man understood them, the affidavit says.
The deputy headed toward the Park County Detention Center, but then Rednour claimed he’d sustained a head injury during the scuffle and needed a medical examination, so Caudle pivoted toward the emergency room instead.
At the ER, personnel gave Rednour “a complete exam, including an MRI,” says the document, but the MRI came back clear and the injuries Rednour claimed to have received that night to his thighs and chest “were all deemed as old injuries by the hospital staff.”
There was one new injury, the staffers told the deputy: a scrape on Rednour’s left shin.
While waiting for results, Rednour talked nonstop, Caudle wrote. The man said he was upset with his mother because she told him she was selling the house in three days and he had to move out. She’d sell his belongings or put them out, the document adds.
Rednour claimed his mother had been aggravating him for days by making weird noises, hiding around corners or in the couch cushions. She’d brought in “little people” to annoy him as well, the document relates.
“Note: it would be impossible for (her) to hide in the cushions of a couch,” Caudle wrote in the affidavit.
During that hospital stay, Rednour showed signs of hearing voices, referenced a door opening in a wall with no door, and he asked Caudle if he’d seen things that Caudle knew to be nonexistent, the affidavit says.
The document says Rednour repeatedly said he’d smoked “weed” over the past few days, he mentioned stabbing his mother in the head, and he was so giddy he blurted, “I don’t know why I am so happy.”
Hospital staffers cleared Rednour and Caudle took him to the jail.
The Park County Public Defender’s Office did not immediately respond Tuesday to a phone message request for comment.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
