The sister of the man who fatally shot a Sheridan Police sergeant before being shot to death himself last year is dropping her lawsuit against law enforcement, she told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday.
That’s because Genevieve Lowery’s lawsuit against Sheridan Police Chief Travis Koltiska, former Casper Police Department Officer Michael Chand, and other law enforcement officers was not about winning money, Genevieve said in a Tuesday interview.
According to her, the lawsuit was about getting more information about her brother William Lowery’s Feb. 14, 2024, death in residential Sheridan.
The case complaint echoes that concern, saying the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) and Sheridan Police Department resisted Genevieve’s attorney’s requests for reports on the incident.
After she filed the lawsuit complaint Oct. 6 in the U.S. District Court for Wyoming, DCI gave her its report on her brother’s shooting, standoff, and death, said Genevieve.
“Unfortunately, it came to (the point of) a lawsuit,” she said. “This is not about money. This is about a person I grew up with; this is a person I had Christmases with; I went on vacations with; I had a life with — before any of this happened.”
She said the report answered some, but not all of her questions about what had happened to her brother. It also brought “just more sadness.”
Genevieve said she’s also been told that there is no body camera video of her brother being shot.
Chand shot William Lowery the afternoon of Feb. 14, 2024, as William fled the Sheridan home where he’d engaged law enforcement for more than a day in a standoff.
Officers essentially destroyed the home during the standoff: they lobbed in gas grenades, flooded the home with water, and tore it open with excavators.
Lowery had shot toward officers during that standoff, according to the report of the incident.
Genevieve said she wasn't able to reach him during that time. She and her mother left for Sheridan, but neither can see well enough to drive at night.
"That was the longest drive of our life," she said, adding "It's kind of a blur."
They arrived shortly after William Lowery's death, and weren't permitted to see his body at that time, Genevieve recalled. She's not sure if his body was still in the open when they arrived.
They had to "lie low" while dealing with "Will's affairs" throughout the town of Sheridan in the aftermath of his death, she said, because "people were angry."
‘This Can Happen To Anybody’
More than a year later, Genevieve has ups and downs, she said.
Her brother, whom she calls “Will,” was about three years older than she, and he was her only sibling.
They were close throughout childhood, though less close in recent years after she moved out of Wyoming, she said.
Genevieve lives in Nebraska and works as a specialized probation officer for high-risk adults.
She’s been shocked at the public backlash – and even threats – that she’s received since last February, she said.
“I feel like people need to understand that this can happen to anybody,” said Genevieve. “Anybody.”
People’s online attacks on her lawyer Doug Bailey and his firm Bailey, Stock, Harmon, Cottam, Lopez LLP are “unacceptable,” she said, adding that he’s just been doing his job in representing her.
“The goal is not to exploit law enforcement by any means,” said Genevieve. “I think people are misunderstanding a family trying to figure out what happened to their loved one.”
The Wait
Genevieve detailed her attempts to obtain the DCI report that she now possesses, and which she has read twice – though haltingly through a wave of emotion.
Cowboy State Daily also sought to obtain the DCI report for months after the incident. The outlet was able to obtain it once a tangential criminal case, of William Lowery’s mother providing him with guns despite his felon status, was adjudicated.
Genevieve said no one told her the release of the report hinged upon her mother being sentenced.
DCI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Koltiska told Cowboy State Daily in a Tuesday phone interview that Bailey had requested information about William Lowery’s death, and that his agency told Bailey that more information about the case could be released once the relevant “investigations” were finalized.
“It was explained multiple times that records would be available upon completion of any investigations that were ongoing,” said Koltiska.
Chand, who shot William Lowery as a sniper for Natrona County’s tactical response team, did not immediately respond to a Tuesday text message request for comment.
Genevieve said she did not request body camera video that Krinkee wore as he was shot. That footage is known to exist, as Sheridan County Attorney Dianna Bennett referenced it in a decision letter by which she deemed Chand justified in shooting William Lowery.
“That is a very personal thing for him and his family,” said Genevieve. “I’m not trying to invade on what happened to their loved one. I just wanted to see what happened to our loved one.”
Genevieve said she’s praying for Krinkee’s family.
The lawsuit had also accused Chand, Koltiska, and other unknown “John Does” of wrongfully causing William Lowery’s death.
Bailey filed a “notice of voluntary dismissal” with the court Tuesday, in which he also called his client’s true mission “seeking to understand the facts and circumstances surrounding her brother’s death.”
Bailey elaborated in a Tuesday email to Cowboy State Daily, saying he and Genevieve have now had “many of our questions answered” and, “Genevieve believes it’s appropriate to dismiss the lawsuit.
“She feels for Officer Krinkee and everyone involved in this tragic event and hopes that others will give her and her family grace as well.”
The Journal
The only thing Genevieve still wants from the investigation, she told Cowboy State Daily, is a journal the DCI report references.
DCI agents who searched Lowery’s home during the standoff found a journal in a bedroom, “which contained suspicious writings about gun ownership and killing,” the report says.
They also found paraphernalia and “suspected drug residue.”
They took those items as evidence.
A later entry in the report says the journal appears to belong to William Lowery’s son. It contains song lyrics, but also writings by both father and son, says the report.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
