The Wyoming State Hospital has about a month to offer an opinion on whether a Lyman man was too insane to know what he was doing when he allegedly killed another man last summer across from the Fort Bridger Post Office by shooting him about 10 times.
Skyler M. Gray, who turns 37 this year, faces one count of first-degree murder on claims that he fatally shot Jeremy Jaques, 48, on the evening of Aug. 31, 2024.
The charge is punishable by life in prison or the death penalty, but the prosecutor is not pursuing this as a death-penalty case.
Gray is scheduled for a May 9 competency hearing, where Uinta County District Court Judge James Kaste may hear the Wyoming State Hospital’s opinion on whether Gray was mentally ill at the time of the alleged murder, and to a severity that would have kept him from rationalizing his conduct or conforming it to the law.
Kaste gave the State Hospital 45 days from his Feb. 14 order, or about a month from this writing, to file a report on the nature of Gray’s mental state as of Aug. 31, 2024.
Behaving insanely due to one’s own self-induced intoxication or a pattern of criminal or antisocial behavior does not support an insanity defense in Wyoming, the judge’s order notes.
Gray had previously pleaded “not guilty” Oct. 10 in Uinta County District Court.
He asked permission this month via his attorney, Assistant Public Defender Kent Reed Brown, to add another alternate plea of “not guilty by reason of mental illness.”
Kaste allowed him to do that, then ordered the evaluation.
Gray can still go to trial on the mental-illness plea, as well as on his not-guilty plea.
When a Wyoming defendant takes a mental-illness plea to trial, a jury will acquit him if he can prove by a greater weight of the evidence that, due to an abnormal condition that grossly and demonstrably impaired his perception of reality, he couldn’t appreciate the wrongness of his actions or conform them to the law.
Owed
Court documents say Gray drove to a neighborhood in Fort Bridger the evening of Aug. 31 and accosted Jaques, yelling that the man “owed” him.
Gray closed the distance between them and shot at Jaques six times, then another four times once he was on the ground, according to court documents and testimony.
Gray drove away. Medical and law enforcement personnel arrived to find Jaques dead and 10 shell casings on scene, according to court testimony.
The Wife
Gray’s wife, Shadawn Marie Oehler, 34, is charged with a misdemeanor version of being an accessory after the fact on claims she helped Gray dispose of the gun.
Her case is scheduled for a June 4 jury trial in Evanston Circuit Court.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
