CASPER —The Natrona County Coroner’s Office released the name of the 42-year-old man involved in a five-hour standoff with law enforcement Wednesday in a south-central Mills neighborhood.
A statement posted on the coroner’s website by Coroner James Phipps reported that his office along with the Wyoming Department of Criminal Investigation are investigating the death of Zachary Thomas Albrecht during the standoff that occurred in the 500 block of Bison Circle.
“An autopsy has been scheduled and next of kin has been notified,” Phipps reported. “The investigation is ongoing and further information surround the circumstances of death will be released later.”
NCSO spokesperson Kiera Hett said Wednesday that a shot had been fired in the dwelling about 1:15 p.m. and that none of the law enforcement officers involved which included members of the NCSO Special Response Team discharged their weapons.
At 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Hett reported that the “active” situation had been “resolved” and the “preliminary investigation shows there was no discharge of a firearm by law enforcement during the incident.”
Hett said Wednesday that Mills Police tried to serve a felony arrest warrant between 11 and 11:30 a.m. when the occupant of the home refused to comply and barricaded himself inside.
Hett on Thursday pointed all questions to DCI and said DCI was investigating the incident due to the several law enforcement agencies involved. Those agencies included NCSO, Mills Police and members of the Casper Police Department.
A DCI spokesperson said the investigation was just starting and they had no information they would be releasing related to the felony charge or the cause of death or anything else.
Searches of Natrona County court files for both Casper Circuit Court and Natrona County District Court returned no criminal files on Albrecht.
However, a Casper Star-Tribune article on April 17, 2010, listed an “order for discharge from probation” for him.
Newspaper files show that Albrecht was shot in the stomach by a 36-year-old Casper man in 2015 during a confrontation in a park and underwent surgery. The shooter was convicted of attempted second-degree murder and aggravated assault and battery.

Apartment Dispute
Natrona County civil court files show he recently had been involved in a landlord/renter dispute with Amber Valley Estates about an apartment at 918 Badger Lane, directly across the street from where the standoff took place on Wednesday.
At an address in the 500 block of Bison Circle, which houses two-story condominium-type structures, the home on the corner had a contractor pulling glass out of a second-story window on Thursday afternoon. He confirmed it was the residence where the standoff took place.
A piece of plywood covered the front door.
A woman who answered the garage door said she could not talk about the incident.
Civil court records show that on July 28, 2025, Amber Valley Estates filed for a “Complaint for Forcible Entry and Detainer” against Albrecht and a woman who occupied the 918 Badger Lane apartment with him.
The woman listed in the civil filing is the same woman who Albrecht was living with and named in a Casper Star-Tribune story in 2015.
Attorney Keith Nachbar in the filing outlined how Albrecht and the woman failed to pay their $1,137 monthly rent and that they owed $1,182 for unpaid rent and rent fees.
He wrote that Albrecht and the woman also failed to keep terms of the lease agreement related to not disturbing the peace or creating “a nuisance in the neighborhood which would interfere with the peaceful enjoyment of others.”
‘Increased Police Presence’
“Defendants Zachary Albrecht and (the woman) have failed to comply with the terms of lease agreement by increased police presence, yelling and making loud noises after hours and by yelling vulgarities after hours,” Nachbar wrote.
He asked for the court to “remove the defendants from the premises located at 918 Badger Lane” and for a judgment against the pair.
A notice to quit, leave and vacate filed on July 15 in the court file stated they were to leave because of “non-payment of rent, multiple lease violations, numerous police calls.”
A Mills Police Department spokesperson declined to answer questions regarding the felony warrant the department tried to serve Wednesday on Albrecht and department responses involving Albrecht while he was at 918 Badger Lane. She said they would let DCI first handle its investigation.
In addition to the housing issue, civil court files show that the Wyoming Department of Family Services had filed a court action against Albrecht seeking child support for three children that were in state custody.
A summons for a hearing on Sept. 22, 2025, was served on a woman who lived at the Bison Circle home where the standoff took place.
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.