An Ethete, Wyoming, man pleaded guilty Tuesday to stabbing a woman to death on the Wind River Indian Reservation.
Kevin Joseph Mendibles, 37, changed his plea from not guilty to guilty Tuesday before U.S. District Court Judge Kelly Rankin in Casper.
He’s set for a Feb. 19 sentencing hearing, also in Casper, and faces a term of life in prison.
A grand jury indicted Mendibles on a first-degree murder charge in May, in the Feb. 25 death of Inez Whiteman, 37. She was killed nine days after Mendibles pleaded guilty in state court to beating another woman.
Mendibles beat and stabbed Whiteman with premeditation and malice, causing her death, the grand jury concluded at the time.
He’s charged federally because the federal courts system handles felony-level crimes involving tribal members that happen on the Wind River Indian Reservation.
Whiteman grew up on the reservation and would have been 38 in June.
But First, A Different Woman
In an earlier and different incident, a Lander police officer arrested Mendibles on Jan. 13 for domestic abuse.
Lander Police Department Officer Casey Tadewald responded to a local apartment that day on a report of domestic violence between a man and a 35-year-old woman.
When Tadewald arrived at the apartment door, he heard a man yelling obscenities inside the apartment and a woman screaming “help me!” according to an affidavit filed Jan. 16 in Lander Circuit Court.
The woman screamed for help again, says the document.
Tadewald found the front door to be unlocked, so he rushed in to help, followed the voices down the hall, drew his taser and ordered those yelling to show themselves, reportedly.
A man popped his head out of the bathroom, and Tadewald later wrote that he recognized the man as Mendibles from previous law-enforcement contacts.
“He showed me both hands at that time,” wrote Tadewald, noting the man’s hands were bloody.
Tadewald ordered Mendibles into the hallway and told him to face the wall, then the officer handcuffed and detained him. He turned to find a woman sitting on the toilet in the bathroom, bleeding from a three-quarter-inch laceration near her left eye, with her face, hands and clothes bloodied, says the affidavit.
Tadewald put Mendibles into his police vehicle then went back to interview the woman, who reportedly said Mendibles had threatened to kill her and had hit her in the face.
The affidavit says emergency medical personnel came to check the woman’s condition, and Mendibles was taken to the Fremont County Detention Center without incident.
Guilty
Mendibles pleaded guilty to one count of domestic battery in that case Feb. 16. He was released on an unsecured bond of $1,250 and ordered to avoid alcohol, and his victim.
He was scheduled to be sentenced March 19, but that case is now classified as “inactive.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
