CHEYENNE — A federal court on Wednesday sentenced a mother to one year and one day in prison for supplying guns to her son, who in turn killed Sheridan police Sgt. Nevada Krinkee in 2024.
The federal courtroom at the U.S. District Court in Cheyenne was packed with Krinkee family and friends, along with several uniformed police officers and Wyoming Highway Patrol troopers.
Eileen Hurley, 71, was convicted on one count of transferring a firearm to someone not allowed to have them, and another of making a false statement while buying a firearm.
The guns she supplied to her son William Lowery were involved in a Feb. 13, 2024, incident in which Lowery reportedly shot Krinkee to death, then fled into a local woman’s home, sparking a 36-hour standoff.
After that, Lowery was shot by a Casper Police Department officer while trying to escape the home in which he’d barricaded himself.
Krinkee’s widow Karla Krinkee made a powerful victim impact statement Wednesday, saying she will “forever live with the agony” of what happened to her husband. She also said that she often finds it difficult to quell the “rage and bitterness” that remain with her since his death.
Several family members in the audience became visibly emotional as she recounted her immense feeling of joy on their wedding day.
While Karla Krinkee acknowledged Hurley was not the one who pulled the trigger, she claimed Hurley was “undeniably accountable” for trusting her son’s judgement with a firearm.
Krinkee’s young daughter was also at the hearing, and the mother noted that the girl will now grow up without a father.
The Charges
Hurley was originally accused of providing a Stoeger 9 mm pistol, Taurus 9 mm pistol and Heritage Rough Rider .22-caliber revolver to her son, a felon and domestic violence convict, while knowingly pretending she was buying the two 9 mm pistols for herself.
The first three charges each carried a penalty of up to 15 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. The fourth charge was punishable by up to five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines.
Hurley had accepted a plea deal which saw two of her four counts dropped in exchange for entering a guilty plea and agreeing to surrender all her firearms. That deal also specified that the prosecution would recommend a sentence of no more than 18 months in prison. The court was not bound to the agreement.
U.S. District Court Judge Alan B. Johnson also adjusted her sentence given Hurley's several complex health conditions, which he said would complicate prison life.
Hurley’s Health
Hurley’s public defense attorney Jordan Deckenbach began by recounting that medical history, which includes diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease and high blood pressure. Hurley told Johnson she takes between nine and 13 medications per day to manage her conditions.
Hurley, according to Deckenbach, is also approaching heart failure and may need dialysis in the future.
Her combined conditions, he added, give Hurley an expected mortality rate of over 50% in the coming years.
A prison sentence would accelerate Hurley’s rapidly deteriorating health and be akin to a death sentence, he argued.
Deckenbach called for leniency and argued home confinement would be more than sufficient as punishment. Johnson later argued some of these claims were not substantiated by medical evidence and called for “doctors, not attorneys” to present them.
Johnson acknowledged Hurley had also painted a “devastating picture of personal violence” caused by a lifetime of abuse at the hands of men in her life. He acknowledged she appeared to have “very little self-value” given this turbulent past.
Ticking Time Bomb
Assistant U.S. Attorney Paige Hammer said Hurley was responsible for having “lit the fuse on a ticking time bomb” by providing her son firearms and had “earned every day of an 18-month sentence.”
The prosecutor played audio from an interview with Hurley in which she admitted to hiding a gun for her son, which he had used to pistol whip someone.
Hammer also argued that Hurley’s health conditions were compounded by her excessive smoking habit, lack of exercise and failure to take her medications as directed.
She paused in the middle of delivering these arguments as Hurley was overcome by a coughing fit.
The prosecution then played an audio clip of a phone conversation between Hurley and an investigator during which Hurley admitted to having played “a little game with you” when being questioned about the case during a previous conversation.
Hurley cradled her head in her hand as that audio played.
While investigators say they knew Hurley had attempted to lie during the investigation process, Hammer argued the audio illustrated her “arrogant, crass” nature and her unwillingness to accept blame for the incident.
Sentence
Before hearing the sentence, Deckenbach read a letter penned by Hurley in which she apologized to the Krinkees and said she thinks of them every day.
The letter described the ensuing legal proceedings as disorienting, leading Hurley to feel as though she were trapped in a “wooden box with the lid nailed shut.”
Johnson then applauded the prosecution for making a “compelling, obvious argument” on gun violence.
He noted that gun violence is a major factor in suicide and the deaths of children. These “devastating statistics” show the country has a lot of work to do in confronting gun violence, he said.
Johnson also addressed Hurley’s evasive behavior and repeated lies to investigators, which he said was not a substantial obstruction to the case. Though her attempts did not throw the officers off her trail, he argued it was indicative of her guilt.
He also addressed Karla Krinkee, saying “if this court could bring her peace, it would, but that is not its role.”
In acknowledging the courtroom full of uniformed law enforcement officers, Johnson said violence toward police officers has a “ripple effect” in communities across the country.
Sgt. Krinkee, Johnson said, had substantial training on when to use deadly force, something Hurley’s son had not received.
Johnson sentenced Hurley to one year and one day in prison, followed by a year of probation. He also assigned her the special condition of seeking mental health treatment and required her to submit to a reasonable search to locate firearms on her property.
Johnson acknowledged that the U.S. prison system sometimes does not provide adequate medical care and called on the federal government to uphold its duties to the incarcerated. He added, however, that imprisonment would require Hurley to give up her “beloved cigarette habit,” which could improve her odds of improving her health.
Deckenbach recommended that Hurley be placed at FMC Lexington, a federal prison in Kentucky which specializes in medical care. Johnson seconded that recommendation and asked Hurley to self-surrender for her sentence on Nov. 17.
Johnson acknowledged that Hurley should take care to arrange her own transportation to Kentucky as U.S. Marshals would not be able to provide her medical care should she seek their transportation services.
The judge added that the occasion was a “sad day for all” and a time to remember gun violence victims and officers killed in the line of duty.
Outside the courtroom, officers embraced one another.
Jackson Walker can be reached at walker@cowboystatedaily.com.
