CASPER — An 18-year-old Casper girl apologized Friday for taking a more than 2-foot-long machete and stabbing it into another teen on Halloween 2024 before she was sentenced to serve four to six years in prison.
Gabrielle Kathleen Aultman was charged with aggravated assault stemming from the stabbing of an 18-year-old girl in the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center parking lot in Casper on Halloween evening.
Court records describe the scene as a gathering of about 20 vehicles and people in their teens and early 20s hanging out.
On July 24, Aultman entered into a plea deal with Natrona County District Attorney Dan Itzen for a six-year cap on her sentence.
The Video
A 15-second dramatic video of the altercation between Aultman, then 17, and her 18-year-old victim was shown in Natrona County District Court by Itzen on Friday.
He told Judge Joshua Eames that the weapon was not just a “large knife” but a “tactical machete.”
The video shows Aultman approaching the victim with the machete and screaming an obscenity.
Another person, possibly the victim, shouted “Bella,” Aultman’s nickname, as the machete went into the other girl, who put her hands around it to pull it out of her stomach.
Itzen characterized the stabbing as a “bowel dissection.”
“What was so important that the victim had to be skewered with that knife?” he asked. The victim "kicks the vehicle, although it didn’t do any damage to the vehicle.”
In addition to the stabbing, arguments at the sentencing also involved Aultman’s conduct afterward when she was given a $75,000 cash or surety bond, and while out on bond on June 19 crashed a vehicle and was charged with driving under the influence.
Jail Helpful
Defense attorney Ryan Semerad told the court that his client’s subsequent jail time for the bond revocation and DUI — which has stretched from June until Friday — has done her a lot of good.
“I have not heard her say, ‘Get me out of here,’” he said. "I have not heard, ‘What can we do to get probation?’”
He said his client has “grown up a lot.”
In his argument to Eames, Semerad acknowledged that the charge against his client was serious and that she “took a large knife and went after somebody.”
Semerad said a psychiatric evaluation of Aultman showed that she is bipolar.
He said that she was on medication as well as using alcohol and smoking marijuana on the night of the stabbing.
He told the judge that's not an excuse, but “context” for his client’s actions.
He also acknowledged his client committed “another crime,” the DUI, while on bond, so he wasn’t going to ask for a suspended sentence or supervised probation.
But he asked the court to recommend the Wyoming Department of Correction’s Youthful Offender program.
“Boot camp (completion) gives her the opportunity to come back to this court and say, ‘Now I am ready for probation,’” Semerad said.
‘Sincere Regret'
Aultman, who turned and smiled at her parents sitting in the courtroom and chatted with Semerad prior to the hearing, read a statement to the court.
She apologized to her victim and to the court for violating her bond in the DUI case.
Aultman said she has been attending Alcoholics Anonymous and other meetings while in the adult jail and would take advantage of any “opportunities” to better herself in the future.
“I want to express my sincere regret to all those who may have witnessed these events,” she said.
In The Victim’s Words
Although Aultman’s victim wasn’t in the courtroom Friday, she previously described the attack in an interview with Cowboy State Daily less than a week after it happened.
She said she initially thought the machete-like knife she was threatened with was fake.
But when she grabbed it, her hand got stuck on the blade — and it had already been plunged into her abdomen.
She told Cowboy State Daily that she’s grateful for those in the parking lot around her who acted quickly to help save her life.
“I just kind of think of the positives, like, I'm glad it wasn't worse,” she said. “I'm glad I thought it was fake at first, because if I thought it was real, I don't think I would have grabbed it and it would have went all the way through.”
The victim said she had been at the parking lot for a “truck meet” gathering with four of her friends for 10 or 15 minutes before “Bella” Aultman got out of the passenger side of a red Durango SUV and stabbed her.
Aultman was allegedly provoked when the victim kicked the SUV.
“Bella jumped out with the machete. I put my hands up immediately,” she recalled. “I was like, ‘Chill, bro, chill,’” Wagner said. “There's like, a video of it, because this girl felt that there was gonna be a fight.
“And then she, like, she stabbed me. I grabbed the machete, pulled it out of me. This happened really fast. And, like, she kind of like started yanking it, but my hand was still, like, stuck in the machete.”
In the moment before the stabbing, the victim said others there were telling Aultman not to do it.
“Everyone’s like, ‘Don’t do it Bella. Don’t! Stop!’” she said. “And then she stabbed me.”
As she saw the blood on her hand, the girl said she was asked by others if Aultman stabbed her.
That’s when she realized she was bleeding from her abdomen.
Parents’ Request
Aultman’s parents also stood before the court and her father, Harley Aultman, said that they have seen a change for the good since their daughter’s incarceration.
He noted that she has struggled with her bipolar disorder and asked the judge to consider a sentence that included “a path of treatment and support.”
“Whatever sentence is handed down, our family will stand by her,” he said.
Itzen argued for the four-to-six-year sentence but did not recommend the judge consider boot camp.
He emphasized the size and use of the “tactical machete” and the victim’s need for surgery to her bowels as well as surgery to her fingers that were substantially cut.
“She had to reach down and pull the knife out,” Itzen said.
He also pointed out that Aultman had been placed in a youth diversion program prior to the stabbing for being a minor in possession of alcohol.
All of Aultman’s opportunities, whether on probation or bond, resulted in “more victims,” Itzen said.
Eames said he believed the six-year cap on Aultman’s sentence was appropriate and told her that she had taken “responsibility” for her actions.
“But this is a violent act,” he said. “It is incredibly serious what happened. The victim will have to live with this for the rest of her life.”
Eames then sentenced her and told her he would recommend she be allowed to enter the boot camp program.
“Making the recommendation does not guarantee anything,” the judge said. “An opportunity is all it is. … I wish you nothing but the best of luck.”
Aultman turned and silently spoke “I love you” to her parents as she was led away.
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
