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

<title>Daily Cartoon: Friday, January 3, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon: Friday, January 3, 2025

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

Gillette resident Matthew Hohnholt’s destiny was to put on a uniform.

One grandfather fought in World War II as a medic, and his grandmother worked in U.S. Army Intelligence directly with General Dwight D. Eisenhower during that war.

Another grandfather was a tank mechanic in Korea, and his father was a U.S. Marine who served with Task Force Delta on classified missions in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

Once he graduated from high school in Washington state, Hohnholt traded cowboy boots for combat ones in Marine Corps boot camp.

“I was a young kid, I didn’t have any skills, and it was kind of a golden ticket out,” he said. “I wanted to serve my country, and that meant a lot to me to be able to do it.”

Hohnholt’s enlistment in 2000, and an injury while going through infantry school, had him reassigned to learning electrical repair for generators and other equipment. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Then 9\/11 happened."}]

Hohnholt remembers being at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, when the base commander called all the trainees together to talk about the attacks and “kind of explaining to us what had happened and kind of the uncertainty of the future.”

He was put on a list to go to Afghanistan, but that tour was canceled.

In 2003, he was sent to Kuwait in support of a Marine fighter squadron as the invasion of Iraq was being staged. 

That led to a role in providing security for convoys into Iraq when the war got underway.

The 45-year-old now is a 100% disabled veteran who suffered more loss last year when his 19-year-old son, Garrett, took his own life. 

Hohnholt is still trying to pay off the funeral debt.

“I’ve been divorced for four years,” he said. “I kind of ran low on money and had to get rid of the house because I couldn’t afford to make payments on it anymore. 

"And then I moved in with my brother, and so, I just have been kind of helping with my brother and that’s kind of where I am at.”

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

He said he still owes $8,000 on his son’s funeral bill and is trying to save money for a gravestone.

Candy Morris, a Washington state friend who went to school with Hohnholt, started a GoFundMe campaign last October to try and help chip away at the funeral debt and also to assist with housing. 

She characterizes Hohnholt as an “all-around great guy” who is the best friend of her husband. 

Morris and her husband moved to Alaska 15 years ago, but Hohnholt has visited a couple of times and they stay in touch.

“He showed up for our family with care and love, spending hours with us and helping care for my newborn daughter,” Morris said. “He became her first babysitter, and I later named her after his grandmother, Faye, a woman who meant so much to him.”

Morris said she was recently contacted by Australian kindness and mental health social media influencer Samuel Weidenhoferl, who asked her to revise the 

as part of his “kindness” effort for a veteran in every U.S. state. 

Once she did, Weidenhofer made Hohnholt the Wyoming representative of his campaign.

Weidenhofer has helped raise thousands of dollars for veterans in other states. He typically meets with the veteran, does an interview and then posts it on his social media with a link to the GoFundMe.

Weidenhofer has 8.1 million followers on TikTok and 3.3 million on Facebook. His GoFundMe effort so far has raised $2 million nationally from 53,500 donations.

Hohnholt said Weidenhofer traveled to Gillette to meet the man at his son’s grave on Memorial Day. 

Hohnholt came away impressed and calls Weidenhofer and his cameraman “super nice guys.”

“I was blown away at him telling me I was selected,” he said. “It was a flattering, humbling experience.

"I have never really been recognized for anything before, and it was pretty emotional. I believe he even got me to cry, just a little bit.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Thankful For Recognition"}]

Hohnholt said any money he receives is secondary to just being recognized for his time in the Marines and trying to lead by example while he served. 

He said he appreciated “just having someone there and telling me that I was not alone.”

An attempt to reach Weidenhofer was not successful. 

Hohnholt said he appreciates people who have donated to the GoFundMe to help with his son’s funeral costs. 

Garrett Hohnholt struggled with depression for much of his life, but had seemed to have come of the tunnel of darkness that surrounded him, he said.

“He graduated from high school and had a couple of really good friends that he loved,” Hohnholt said. “It really shocked me. … I spent a lot of my time with him and I was really looking forward to getting to know him as a man.”

Born in Wheatland, Hohnholt’s Wyoming roots go back to time on a ranch outside of Guernsey until second grade. 

His family moved to Casper until he was in sixth grade and then to Washington state. 

Hohnholt said he returned to Wyoming every summer to work on his grandfather’s ranch.

Hohnholt said his war experiences left him with PTSD and definitely changed him. 

He has struggled with depression, anxiety and stress. He likes to socialize and has friends, but avoids crowds and busy places.

He also finds there are times he just needs to be alone.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Shock And Awe Stuff'"}]

While serving in Iraq, Hohnholt’s security role for convoys involved protecting their fuel, water, and supplies for a helicopter squadron at forward bases as well as other convoy missions.

“We saw a light amount of combat, and it was pretty much during convoy operations,” he said. “It’s not like we were staying and having big battles. But it was moving gear and stuff like that.”

After Iraq, he spent a year serving in his career field doing generator and electrical repair before getting out of the service. 

Hohnholt looks back on his Marine Corps service with no regrets, and while he does not like to dwell on specifics about incidents that led to his disability, he said they can be put into the category of “shock-and-awe stuff.”

Hohnholt left the Marines with an honorable discharge and campaign ribbons. He sees his younger self as a “just an average Marine doing average things who fought in a war.”

But if called upon, there is no hesitation about whether he would raise his hand to take the oath of service again.

“You know, absolutely I would,” he said. “It’s the good and the bad that has made me who I am. I have a lot of family and friends and people seem to like me. That’s just good enough for me.”

Garrett and Matthew Hohnholt

<title>Gillette Marine Vet With PTSD Struggles To Pay Off Funeral Debt From Son’s Suicide | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A 45-year-old Gillette Marine Corps veteran struggles with PTSD, along with paying off funeral debt from his 19-year-old son’s suicide last year. "I was really looking forward to getting to know him as a man,” said Matthew Hohnholt.

Gillette Marine Vet With PTSD Struggles To Pay Off Funeral Debt From Son’s Suicide

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Business & Tourism

Business

CHEYENNE — Patricia Miller was helping another customer when a smooth-talking gentleman came in and quickly grabbed some crystals that he said were a gift for his mom. 

“He was trying to small talk with me about how wonderful of a person he was, because he’s getting them for her,” Miller told Cowboy State Daily. “And he’s going to print out information about each one of them, and all this other stuff.”

Miller thought that was sweet and said so, but what happened next was anything but sweet.

“He handed me this $100 bill, and I could feel that something was different,” she said. “And I was looking at it, and I’m like, ‘Well, maybe it’s old?'”

That prompted the man to helpfully add that the bill was from 1996.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"That’s when things clicked for Miller."}]

“Like, who knows what year the bill is that you’re handing a cashier?” she said. “So that’s what really triggered my mind to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is counterfeit.’”

Not wanting to falsely accuse the man — or ignite a confrontation — Miller took a different tack. 

“I said to him, ‘I”m sorry, but I don’t have change for this. You’re going to have to maybe get change and come back. Do you have anything smaller?’" Miller said. “And he said, ‘No, I’ll go to Bomgaars and get change.’”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The man never returned for his items. "}]

Later, looking at the store’s video surveillance, Miller saw the man had several recognizable bags with him. When she visited those other stores, it confirmed her suspicion that the $100 bill had been fake. 

The same man with the same story and multiple copies of the same $100 bill, all sharing the same serial number, had hit all of the stores.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Same Serial Number All Over Town"}]

Miller’s social media post about the experience drew jeers from some skeptical online commenters who accused her of overreacting. 

She posted the bill so others would know what was happening, to prevent anyone from getting duped.

A manager at a discount store on South Greeley Highway in Cheyenne, who asked that her store not be named for corporate reasons, confirmed she’d encountered both the same man and the same $100 bill as Miller. 

The man came to the store on South Greeley between the hours of 3:30 and 4 p.m., she said, trying to buy some baby wipes and a gallon jug of water with the $100 — a classic, small-purchase, big-change tactic.

The cashier felt something was off with the bill, but couldn’t identify what. She used a traditional counterfeit detector pen. If the iodine ink, which reacts with starches in standard, wood-pulp paper, remains black, that’s supposed to indicate that a bill is real. 

But the manager has learned a different trick to identify counterfeits lately. 

“I swabbed it with rubbing alcohol, and the ink smudged,” she said. “So I told him it was fake and we were not going to accept it.”

When the cashier told the man the bill was fake, he said, “Keep it,” and walked out, by then visibly trying to hide his face from the camera.

“That confirms to me that it was fake,” the manager said. 

The bill has been turned over to Laramie County Sheriff’s Office for further investigation.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Bleached Bills Fool Counterfeit Pens"}]

The discount store manager said counterfeiters have come up with a smart strategy to fool the traditional iodine counterfeit detector pens.

What they do is bleach a $1 bill, and then print a $100 bill over the top of it. Because it’s genuine currency paper, the iodine pens won’t catch that the bill is fake. 

“The counterfeit pens are garbage,” the manager said. “You can write on that and it won’t catch it because it is in fact money paper, just not the right denomination.”

She prefers that her employees use rubbing alcohol to test the ink. If it smudges, that’s a huge red flag.

She also has them hold the bill up to the light, to look for water marks and other security features that $100 bills have that $1 bills do not.

The last check is the texture of the bill itself, which is slightly changed by the bleaching process. 

“When we held it up, it did not have a water mark in it,” she said. “It did not have a face in it, and I felt no texture on the bill itself.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"A Prop Money In Riverton"}]

In Riverton, meanwhile, funny money has taken a slightly different tack, with Hollywood-style prop bills circulating around town.

At Blossoms and Boba Cafe, owner Jesica Fritz told Cowboy State Daily a group of children roughly ages 10-13 came in for a shopping spree with what they thought was a genuine $100 bill, given to them by a friendly stranger who had encouraged them to spend all of the money in one place. 

“One of the girls who works for us thought it was real at first,” Fritz said. “It did look very realistic, unless you read it and looked closely at it.

"The other girl, my daughter, was like, ‘No, absolutely this is not real. Look, it doesn’t even say, ‘In God we trust.”

Instead the bill said, “In Prop we Trust,” and elsewhere, in tiny fine print, it identified the money as a film prop, not for legal tender.

Fritz said her cafe does use counterfeit detection pens and also trains staff to hold bills up to make sure the paper shimmers correctly, and to look closely at fine print and seals.

“If you’re slammed and super busy and someone just hands one of these to you, I can totally understand why some people would take it as regular money,” she said. “It looks very realistic.”

The children had already paid for their Boba teas before trying to use the fake $100 for extra items. When told the bill wasn’t real, they were crestfallen, but cooperative.

“The kids legitimately believed they had real money, and were super stoked about it,” Fritz said. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Staying Ahead Of Funny Money"}]

Fritz turned the bill over to the Riverton Police Department. 

The department did not return Cowboy State Daily’s request for comment, but Fritz said they told her that several other businesses in town had also seen prop money circulating.

Cheyenne police, meanwhile, said it has seven reports of counterfeit bills being passed around at local businesses so far this year. 

“The counterfeit bills we encounter the most are $20 and $100 denominations,” said department spokeswoman Alexandra Farkas. “Many of the fake $100 bills are novelty bills intended for film production and are marked with the phrase, ‘For Motion Picture Purposes.’”

That can be easy to overlook during a busy transaction, Farkas acknowledged.

“If counterfeit currency is seized and is not associated with an active local investigation, our Property and Evidence Division will send it to the U.S. Secret Service for further investigation,” she said. “For more information about identifying counterfeit bills, the Secret Service offers educational resources online at 

By policy, businesses are supposed to try to retain suspicious bills and turn them over to police. But both Miller and the discount store manager admitted they considered their own personal safety first and foremost. 

Fake 100 bill inset 1 6 6 26

<title>Fake $100 Bills Making The Rounds In Wyoming, Counterfeit Pens Don't Detect Them | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Counterfeit $100 bills are getting passed throughout Wyoming and store clerks say iodine counterfeit detector pens won't detect the fake bills. “The counterfeit pens are garbage,” said one store manager

Fake $100 Bills Making The Rounds In Wyoming, Counterfeit Pens Don't Detect Them

Jen kocher

Jen Kocher

Crime & Courts

Law Enforcement

Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part series on the infamous "Rawlins Rodeo Murders." Part two will be published Sunday and will focus on the suspects that have cropped up over the last 52 years.

It was the early 1970s and Rawlins was at the dawn of an energy boom. Oil and gas rigs studded the high-desert plains while Union Pacific trains hauled out coal around the clock. 

The population swelled to nearly 11,500 — many of those people transitory workers drawn to southwest Wyoming by high-paying jobs. 

New houses cropped up in the formerly empty fields around the county faster than downtown businesses could absorb the growth. It was a prosperous time. 

Then girls started to vanish before anyone could figure out what was going on. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The first two disappeared on Fourth of July weekend in 1974. "}]

They were 19-year-olds Carlene Brown and Christine “Christy” Gross, who had been visiting Rawlins from South Dakota. 

The pair had gone to the Little Britches Rodeo at the Carbon County fairgrounds, and just vanished.  

[{"type":"text","text":"Neither was seen again. "}]

Nine years later, Gross’ remains were discovered in a field 3 miles outside the neighboring town of Sinclair. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Brown has never been found. "}]

The third was 15-year-old Deborah Meyer, who disappeared on her way to the movie theater downtown. Meyer had been visiting her aunt from Red Lodge, Montana. She was last seen leaving her aunt’s house near Seventh and Spruce streets downtown.  

She told her family she was off to see a movie, but never made it to the theater. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Meyer also remains missing to this day.   "}]

Then the disappearance and death of 10-year-old Jaylene Banker at the Carbon County Fair in late August brought the community to a breaking point — the last in a string of losses that summer that the city has never fully recovered from.  

The culprit behind the disappearances and murders has never been identified, despite decades of investigation by law enforcement in what is now colloquially known as the “Rawlins Rodeo Murders.” 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Terrible Summer "}]

Ken Klouda, now 78, remembers this summer well. He was 25, fresh out of the Air Force and working in the mechanical department for Union Pacific Railroad.

[{"type":"text","text":"“The town was booming,” he said.  "}]

Klouda, who has lived in Rawlins for most of his life and is now president of the Carbon County Museum board, remembers the whirl of activity in the gas and oil field on top of coal mines with upward of five mines in the Hanna Coal Basin alone. 

The sudden 3,000-plus swell in population led to a bustling downtown that turned the once sleepy town into a thriving city. One friend fresh to town that summer told Klouda it reminded him of Las Vegas with all the blinking neon bar signs and active downtown. 

Up until that summer, they were used to bar fights and petty crimes, but not the disappearance of two 19-year-old girls. 

Klouda knew the Brown family and remembers people searching their yards and outbuildings when the teens vanished. People began paying careful attention to their surroundings, he said. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Everybody was talking about the missing girls. "}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Would Have Been Right Beside Her’ "}]

Details are vague about their disappearance. It’s not clear who last saw or spoke to them. 

Their van was found parked at the fairgrounds, former Carbon County Deputy Sheriff Jeff Faycosh said in a November 1983 Casper-Star Tribune article. 

Other unofficial accounts say the vehicle was found abandoned more than 200 miles north in Worland. 

Initially, police believed the teens may have run away despite their parents' belief that something was terribly wrong.   

Some thought Brown may have gone to her mother’s house in Colorado Springs. Her parents were divorced, with her father staying in Rawlins. Brown would float back and forth between the two houses. 

After a week with no trace of her, however, the grim truth set in that she and Gross were really missing. 

Mary Kay Albrechtson, now 71, was Brown’s close childhood friend who had planned to go with her that night to the rodeo and carnival.  

“I was sick and so I didn’t go,” she said. “Otherwise, I would have been right beside her.” 

It’s a guilt — and deep pain — she still carries more than five decades later. 

“It brings great sadness to me,” Albrechtson said, as she continues to search for her friend.  

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Who Is Christy Gross’? "}]

Oddly, Albrechtson said nobody knew Gross. That was the first question she and Brown’s friends asked after they vanished: “Who is Christy Gross?” 

Amateur sleuth websites offer little more, noting only that Gross was from Bowdle, South Dakota, was visiting friends or family in Rawlins at the time, and had been an active participant in high school life — band, choir, track, cheerleading. 

It’s not clear how Brown and Gross knew one another or who might have been driving that night. Albrechtson couldn’t recall if Brown had a vehicle and instead remembers her riding a motorcycle.  

The disappearances remained a mystery for nine years until October 1983, when Gross’ body was found in a field 3 miles south of Sinclair off Interstate 80.  

[{"type":"text","text":"She’d been killed by at least two blunt blows to the head.  "}]

The official cause of death was trauma to the head with the manner of death “pending investigation,” according to a docket report from Brittany Nyman, Carbon County coroner.  

Gross was identified through partial dental records and an “unusual ring” made by her uncle, stated news reports at the time.  

After Gross was found, Sheriff Faycosh was quoted by news media as saying that they “do have new leads and at least one suspect.” 

He further said that the suspect had been located but that a warrant would not be issued until more information had been gathered. He estimated it would take a month.

It’s not clear if that arrest ever came or whether that suspect was eventually cleared.  

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Not Afraid To Take Risks "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Brown, too, is suspected to be deceased though not yet located.  "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Albrechtson still misses her friend. "}]

After she vanished, Albrechtson had a reoccurring dream in which Brown turns up at her front door looking for her shoes.   

She described Brown as having a wild spirit who liked adventure. Brown’s “shenanigans” sometimes led the friends to getting in trouble, she said.

“We were opposites in that aspect but maybe that’s also why I liked her,” she said. “She had the nerve to venture out.” 

[{"type":"text","text":"She also wasn’t afraid to take a risk, Albrechtson said.  "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“Unfortunately, that is also what took her life,” she said.  "}]

She believes that Brown willingly got into a car with a stranger the night she disappeared. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Lasting Pain "}]

The next to disappear was 15-year-old Meyer, who vanished one month later on Aug. 4, 1974.  

Meyer had been visiting her aunt in Rawlins from Red Lodge, Montana. She set out on foot to go to the downtown movie theater but never made it. 

[{"type":"text","text":"She has yet to be found. "}]

Her disappearance sent shockwaves back home. Even today, her oldest friends find it too painful to drudge up the memories and declined to be interviewed. 

Others who knew Meyer posted their thoughts about her life and disappearance on a January 2025 post on a Red Lodge Facebook page. 

Her mother, Diane, had been a beloved teacher and her dad, Don, a crop duster pilot. Both have since died.  

They were Finnish, one friend posted, sharing her fond memories of using their sauna with Meyer and friends. 

Others expressed their shock upon learning she’d vanished and how terrifying and heartbreaking it was for all of them. 

“She is missed by all of us and we have never stopped hoping her remains could be found and put to rest,” wrote Jean Anderson Loyning. 

[{"type":"text","text":"It’s not clear why Meyer was in Rawlins at that time. "}]

One person posted that Meyer had been sent to her aunt’s while her mother was in the hospital for surgery. Another said that Meyer planned to spend the summer at her aunt’s to work at a restaurant her aunt either owned or worked at. 

Rare for a girl her age, Meyer had upper and lower dentures, several noted, which will make it easier for her to be identified should her body be found.  

Nobody back then, or today, thinks that Meyer willingly left on her own accord and suspect foul play.  

Janet Franson, then a cold case investigator for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), interviewed Diane before her death. Diane was adamant that her daughter would not have run away and had no reason to do so.  

Before their own deaths, Meyer’s parents had her legally declared dead with the date of her disappearance listed as the date of death. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Fourth Missing Girl "}]

Jaylene Banker, 10, vanished on Aug. 23, 1974, from the Carbon County Fair after becoming separated from friends at the rodeo grounds. The fairgrounds were less than five blocks away from the Banker home in Rawlins.  

The community instantly rallied around the family, pooling together nearly $14,000 — the equivalent of roughly $95,000 today — as a reward for information leading to her safe return. No one came forward. 

Former Carbon County Sheriff C.W. “Chuck” Ogburn organized multiple searches and volunteers went door to door in search of the girl.  

Desperate for answers, law enforcement even took tips from psychics all over the country. 

More than 50 years after four young girls vanished in what has become known as the “Rawlins Rodeo Murders," the case remains unsolved. "We lost our innocence. That summer we lost that. We were never again the same,” said one longtime resident.

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