A longtime Jackson resident has agreed to plead guilty to killing a local photographer by hitting her on her bicycle on June 21 in a drunken driving collision on the South Park Loop.
Jody Utter, 53, will receive a sentence next Tuesday of between 10 and 12 years in prison, if District Court Judge Joseph Bluemel accepts the plea agreement filed this week in Utter’s case.
First charged June 23, Utter is now agreeing to plead guilty to one count of aggravated vehicular homicide, and another count of driving under the influence.
“He’s taking full responsibility for what happened,” Utter’s attorney Jack Edwards told Cowboy State Daily on Friday. “He’s very sad about what happened… Contrite. Very contrite.”
Edwards noted Utter hasn’t had a DUI before this.
A Cowboy State Daily search of Wyoming state court records did not reveal any DUIs.
The case prosecutor, Teton County Attorney Dick Stout, declined Friday to comment publicly, citing the ongoing case.
The photographer killed in the crash was Florence McCall-Phillips, 58, who was well-known in Teton County. Hundreds of people turned out to celebrate her life at a memorial for her a week after she was killed.
The Constitutional Battle
Before the parties reached the plea agreement, Edwards and his firm’s attorneys Branden Vilos and Kaden B. Canfield disputed the validity of some of the case evidence on constitutional and legal grounds.
Vilos asserted in a Sept. 23 filing that a warrant for vehicle diagnostic information, which Jackson Circuit Court Judge Erin Weisman signed early in the case, was invalid.
She’d already announced she was conflicting out of the case when she signed the warrant, the filing says.
“Because Judge Weisman lacked the jurisdictional authority to issue the warrant in question, the June 24, 2025 warrant is simply void,” wrote Vilos. “Because evidence seized from (Utter’s) 2023 Ford Explorer was done with a void warrant, a warrantless search and seizure occurred and the Defendant’s Constitutional rights … were violated.”
That argument, countered Teton County Deputy Attorney Andrew Hardenbrook, “ignores the fact that law enforcement did not actually obtain any data from the (vehicle’s) restraint control module” using Weisman’s warrant. Law enforcement pulled data from the module after Lander Circuit Court Judge Jefferson Coombs signed a separate warrant, Hardenbrook added.
Defense attorneys also argued that investigators obtained a roadside breath test without consent, and that a sheriff’s corporal didn’t conduct Utter’s breath-alcohol test at the jail properly.
Prosecutors argued back that both tests were done lawfully.
Bluemel set a motions hearing for Nov. 13 to address these arguments.
Canfield asked the judge on Nov. 9 to postpone that hearing: saying prosecutors and defense attorneys were gaining momentum on their negotiations.
Bluemel reset the hearing for Dec. 9. That setting has now been converted to a change-of-plea and sentencing hearing.
Court Docs Say…
The afternoon of June 21, Teton County Sheriff’s deputies responded with Jackson Hole Fire and Emergency medical personnel to the area of South Park Loop and Melody Creek Lane.
Responders were performing CPR on a bike rider who’d been struck by a white Ford Explorer, court documents say.
Sgt. Justin Jenkins, who was among those responding, identified the Ford’s driver as Jody Utter. Jenkins noticed the “strong odor of alcohol” on Utter’s person and breath while speaking with the man, the case evidentiary affidavit says.
“Utter also admitted to Sgt. Jenkins he had consumed alcohol before this incident,” adds the document.
Utter said he was driving west, and the cyclist came onto the roadway, and it was too late for Utter to see her, the affidavit says. During this talk, Deputy Cody Call also smelled alcohol emanating from Utter, and he asked the man how much he’d had to drink.
Three pints of beer, Utter responded, according to the document.
The affidavit says deputies had Utter perform standardized field sobriety tests, which he failed.
Deputies arrested him and took him to the Teton County Detention Center.
About four minutes after Utter’s arrest, McCall was pronounced dead at the scene.
“Evidence showed Utter was driving at a high rate of speed when he collided with the bicyclist,” the document says.
Investigators found debris where the bike path intersects South Park Loop, directly east of the entrance of Melody Creek Lane. The bicyclist was lying about 200 feet from the first point of impact, says the affidavit.
Investigators also found tire marks, the document says, showing Utter’s vehicle leaving the westbound lane of travel and entering the eastbound lane of travel, where the crash happened.
A citation filed in the case says Utter’s blood- or breath-alcohol content reading was 0.215%.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
