It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Thursday, March 19th. I’m Mac Watson.
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A 14-year-old accused of shooting his mother in the head after she called him “retarded” and a “thief” over a stolen electronic tablet was bound over to felony court Wednesday. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that Havoc Leone has been charged as an adult with first-degree murder.
“The 14 year old team was brought in wearing the, you know, the juvenile jail garbs, most people adults, they wear the, you know, the bright orange jump seats. He was wearing a tan one. And he's rather small, so it looked very big on him. He came in and he sat down. I didn't see much emotion from him, but he just sat there quietly and watched the testimony. Some of it was pretty gruesome, but he just didn't, he didn't react.”
Laramie County Assistant District Attorney Kelly Strickland argued during Wednesday’s preliminary hearing that the boy expressed a long-simmering hatred for his mother, and had thoughts about killing her. Conversely, the defense argued that Leone is an emotionally vulnerable child who had been subjected to a pattern of degrading treatment by a mentally ill mother.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Wyoming reporter posted bond and left jail Wednesday in a case claiming she submitted forged documents and lied to a state panel about a controversial wind project near Chugwater. Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that April Marie Morganroth faces 10 felonies and up to 65 years in prison if convicted.
“April Morganroth, who's also known as Marie Hamilton, in court documents. Got out of jail today. Her attorney was able to convince the judge to reduce her $50,000 cash bond of $5,000 and so she left the jail, according to jail personnel, and they waived her preliminary examination on those 10 charges, so she now faces arraignment in Platte County District Court. We also know that her husband posted online to a fundraising website that they're asking for people to help out in the defense saying that there may be, quote, unquote, some political things going on in her prosecution.”
Morganroth, 40, faces three counts of possession of forged writing, three counts of forgery and four counts of perjury in judicial, legislative, or administrative proceedings.
Read the full story HERE.
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U.S. House candidate and Casper businessman Reid Rasner has sued three more people for defamation. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that one of the persons said she welcomes the lawsuit.
“One of those is another former legislator, Kit Jennings, and then two are Natrona County residents, a man and his ex wife. So that's Dan Sabroski and Michelle St Louis. He claims that Kit Jennings has been accusing him of sexual misconduct, and that Dan Sabraski and Michelle St Louis have been waging a social media and whisper campaign that has damaged his business. But Michelle St Louis said, ‘Yeah, bring it on.’”
The three new lawsuits are in addition to his July 2025 defamation lawsuit against former state Sen. Anthony Bouchard, a Republican who represented parts of Laramie and Platte counties.
Read the full story HERE.
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With over 750,000 acres of agricultural land destroyed by wildfire, Nebraska ranchers are facing tough decisions about where to graze their cattle. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports that one expert says Wyoming is also in a drought, so we can’t offer much pasture.
“Jim McGagana is the executive president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association. He said that he hopes and he encourages Wyomingites to help out where they can. But he also said Wyoming is in a drought of its own, and that leaves good pasture land at a premium. The Nebraska cattle men's association has set up a district resource page on its website. Cattle ranchers say the damage is done. They're out of hay. A lot of the fences have burned down. They don't have any land, really, that they can graze their displaced cattle on.”
According to wildfire.gov, neither the Cottonwood nor Morrill fires grew notably beyond their current perimeters Wednesday, despite Tuesday’s strong winds. But for many ranchers, the damage is already done.
Read the full story HERE.
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I’ll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.
Cowboy State Daily news continues now…
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Hunters in northern Wyoming say the BLM destroyed some of the best pheasant hunting in the entire region by removing entire strands of Russian olive trees near Greybull. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that the BLM says it's an invasive tree species.
“Some hunters, a group, at least four hunters, that I took out of the Cody area, really loved it, because that provided really good cover for pheasants, primarily for bird hunters. But the BLM and the county weed and pest district came through there and just wiped out all just basically laid the land bare of Russian olive trees. And these hunters are saying it was like the coolest spot to go bird hunting in this whole area, you know, because Wyoming's kind of a challenging place to find good bird hunting as it is.”
Russian olive trees are widely regarded as an invasive species and the general rule among land management agencies is to get rid of them.
Read the full story HERE.
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Rep. Ken Pendergraft, a member of the Freedom Caucus who wants to defund the Wyoming Business Council, is running for an open Senate seat in Sheridan County. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Pendergraft faces Wyoming business owner Melissa Butcher who says defunding isn’t the answer.
“He's now hoping to ascend to the Senate from the house, saying he can, he can bridge some discord between the two chambers, saying he would like to see true conservative fiscal restraint. And Butcher, meanwhile, said that she wants to really listen. She said she's seeing a lot of ideology, not as much good policy, and she wants to listen and to reform things, rather than, in her words, ‘burn it down.’”
That Sheridan County seat, Senate District 21, won’t have an incumbent in the Aug. 18 primary election, since it belongs currently to Senate President Bo Biteman, who announced last week that he’s running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives instead.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Lander community is rallying to help an 11-member family recover from a devastating house fire. Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that the mother of the family says, “People have been so generous. Every little bit helps.”
“On Thursday, March 12. The Sweeney family and lander woke up to a huge boom. That's what the dad, Owen Sweeney, told me. He said when they looked outside, they saw that their deck was on fire and by the time they got outside, it was on the roof. And they had, they called the fire department. The fire department showed up. And the fire chief told me when he got there, everybody was outside, so they quickly exited the house. The fire chief says he believes it's a total loss.”
Lander Fire Department Chief Eric Siwik tells Cowboy State Daily that at the peak of the blaze, there were 36 firefighters representing both Lander and Fremont County Fire Protection districts on the scene.
Read the full story HERE.
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A cow elk walked out onto the roof of a building in Gardiner, Montana, just outside of Yellowstone National Park to the amazement of onlookers. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that apparently, she wanted the roof’s sod all to herself.
“It's an inoperable or maybe empty, old business building, but this building is kind of built into a slope, and then it has a sod roof. So they surmise that this elk was just, you know, kind of walking along the slope beside that, and saw the sod going out across the roof. And that looks good. I guess I'll go get that.”
Gardner residents Dan and Cindy Buell tell Cowboy State Daily that normally, elk are just part of the spring scenery but that’s the first time they’ve seen an elk on a roof.
Read the full story HERE.
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And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for watching - I’m Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.
