Accused of beating his wife nearly to death until she stabbed him in self-defense, a Moorcroft, Wyoming, man has agreed to plead “no contest” to two counts of aggravated assault.
Michael Hammond Jr., 43, is set for a June 13 sentencing hearing in Judge Michael McGrady’s court in Crook County.
After a violent incident with his wife, Hammond turned up with a stab wound at a hospital in Kimball County, Nebraska, last April, after fleeing from his home in Moorcroft, according to news reports at the time.
An evidentiary affidavit alleges he drove home from his job in Gillette “tipsy” on April 17, 2024, then launched a violent attack on his wife in which he threw her across the room, kicked her, spat on her, and choked her.
The document says Hammond weighs about 80 pounds more than his wife; and that he held her face-up over the sink and poured water down her throat so that she couldn’t breathe.
That was when she groped for a kitchen knife and stabbed Hammond in the neck, she told investigators at the time.
Hammond’s plea agreement, filed last month, says he’ll plead “no contest” to two counts of aggravated assault – each punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $10,000 in fines.
In exchange, Crook County Deputy Attorney DaNece Day agreed to drop the felony charges of strangulation and attempted second-degree murder – and a habitual criminal enhancement. The most serious of those, the attempted murder charge would have brought a potential penalty of between 20 years and life in prison.
The prosecutor and Hammond’s defense attorney, Wyoming State Public Defender Brandon Booth, can argue about Hammond’s potential sentencing within the confines of the two aggravated assault charges – meaning he could face no more than 20 years in prison if the judge accepts his plea agreement.
Day is recommending a fine of $3,000, plus normal court fees and costs, and victim restitution of $21,444.95 – roughly half of which would reimburse the state for the wife’s associated costs and roughly half of which would reimburse the wife for medical costs not already reimbursed by the state.
If McGrady rejects Hammond’s plea agreement, Hammond will not be allowed to withdraw his no-contest pleas, the agreement says.
Booth declined Tuesday to comment to Cowboy State Daily.
The Getaway
After Hammond’s wife stabbed him, says the affidavit, he fled in a dark green 2013 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Wyoming law enforcement released notices to Sundance, Campbell County and Spearfish, South Dakota, hospitals to be on the lookout for a man with a stab wound.
Police arrived at the Moorcroft home to find the wife covered in bruises and blood, the document adds.
One investigator retraced a fresh trail of blood from the driveway outside the woman’s yard, over her porch and into the front door, the document says. The inside of the door was covered with blood. Chairs and objects were overturned and strewn about. The kitchen contained a large pool of blood, the affidavit says.
The investigator found torn clumps of hair on the kitchen counter, sink and floor, and dried blood smeared on the kitchen cabinets and over the stove, the affidavit says.
It says the investigator found a large, serrated knife in the far corner of the kitchen with obvious blood trail marks on the blade and a large amount of dried blood on the handle.
Wherever Hammond was, he may be “severely injured,” the investigator told the other deputies present.
Ping
At 10:58 that night, dispatch told agents Hammond’s phone could not be traced.
Forty minutes after midnight, dispatch said they’d obtained a recording of Hammond telling the wife’s father that he would “f***ing kill” him, the affidavit says.
And by 3 a.m., Hammond’s phone pinged in the Wheatland, Wyoming, area – 120 miles northwest of the Nebraska county where Hammond ultimately surfaced.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
