The difference between an awkward encounter and a potentially dangerous one may have been a single closed door — and a large dog upstairs.
A Cody woman is raising concerns about home security after she says a FedEx driver briefly entered her home without permission while attempting to deliver a package requiring a signature.
Natalie Singer said the incident happened around 1:30 p.m. on April 1, while she was at home doing dishes. Her husband and children were also home at the time, although in other rooms.
It was an ordinary weekday afternoon. Dishes in the sink. Husband, kids, and canines upstairs in their rooms.
Singer said she had her back to the front door while doing dishes in the kitchen when she heard someone coming into her house through the mudroom.
“At first I thought it might be my brother-in-law,” she said. “Then someone said ‘hello’ and walked into the living room.”
Singer said she has a doorbell system, and while she was expecting a delivery that day, she did not anticipate the driver walking straight into her house to get her signature for it.
“He just opened my front door, closed it, came inside and yelled ‘hello,'” she said. “He seemed very comfortable doing it. He didn’t think it was a problem.”
Total Shock And Confusion
“I was shocked,” she said. “I went from thinking it was someone I know to someone standing there asking for a signature. It was so confusing.”
Singer said her husband came into the room shortly after the interaction began and was also surprised to find a stranger inside their house.
“My husband came around the corner fast and thought it was someone I invited in,” she said. “We were both shocked.”
She described the driver as a younger man with short blond hair who appeared about 5-foot-7 or 5-8 and slightly slouched.
Singer said she had never seen him before and had not experienced anything similar with deliveries in the past.
“I didn’t think he wanted to hurt me,” she said, “but it was very odd. I’m a mom. It caught me off guard.”
What stuck with her afterward wasn’t just the confusion — it was the realization of what could have happened if circumstances had been slightly different.
Singer said her household includes three dogs, including a tall American pit bull that was kept upstairs that afternoon.
She believes the delivery driver was lucky for that.
“He’s very lucky my dog was upstairs,” she said. “If that dog had been downstairs when he walked in without permission, it could have been a completely different situation.”
Since the incident, Singer said she has changed how she manages her pets inside the home, a shift that reflects a deeper change in how she thinks about safety in a place she once considered fully secure.
She said that now she considers keeping the dog downstairs whenever she is working in the kitchen or spending time on the main level.
The experience forced her to rethink everyday routines in a home where she never previously felt unsafe.
“It made me realize that even during the day, even when you’re home, things can happen that you don’t expect,” she said.
Singer said she and her husband contacted FedEx after the incident, but have not received any follow-up response.
As of publication, FedEx had not responded to multiple requests for comment from Cowboy State Daily about the incident, including questions about its delivery protocols and whether drivers are ever permitted to enter residential homes to obtain signatures.
Protective Instincts
Dave Patterson is a retired law enforcement officer who spent the last 10 years of his career serving in Cody, taught criminal justice for a decade and now lives in Powell.
His reaction to Singer’s encounter with the FedEx driver was blunt, saying that can be dangerous for everyone.
“Don’t come to my house unannounced,” Patterson said.
He said he could not think of a circumstance where a delivery person would be authorized to enter a private residence without permission.
At the same time, Patterson said determining whether a crime happened in encounters like Singer’s depends heavily on intent — a legal gray area that often shapes how these types of incidents are handled.
“A lot of people in Wyoming know their FedEx drivers, they know their route. That’s part of it,” he said. “I still don’t think, off the cuff, that I know there was necessarily a crime, but you have to look at intent.
"If it was chargeable, was there any intention of a crime? If it reaches a point where there are other factors, that’s when it becomes something more serious, like burglary.”
Another layer of risk involves animals, he said, especially in homes where dogs are part of daily life and protective instincts run deep.
“Usually, if there’s a dog involved anytime, technically you’re supposed to report it so police can make sure rabies shots have been administered and there’s no issue there,” Patterson said. “What’s the totality — who was there and where were they?
"I would venture to say there’s probably nobody that would charge a homeowner if that dog went after someone in their own home.”
In other words, a delivery gone wrong can escalate fast not because people are looking for trouble, but because homes are private spaces, and animals know the difference between a guest and an intruder.
“It falls under what’s the natural predisposition of most animals, period,” Patterson said. “They know their territory and how to protect it.”
It also raises the risk for an armed homeowner or resident to react defensively with a weapon, especially in a gun-friendly state like Wyoming.
Singer said she ultimately chose to share her story not to assign blame, but to raise awareness, particularly in small towns where familiarity can sometimes blur boundaries.
“Our town is small,” she said. “I just want people to be aware. If I had been alone, I don’t know how that would have gone.”
What happened inside her home lasted only moments.
But in a different house, with a different dog, or a different reaction from a startled homeowner, it could have ended very differently, Singer said.
Castle Doctrine
Under Wyoming law, “unlawful entry” happens when someone enters or remains in an occupied structure without authorization.
A delivery-related purpose does not automatically grant permission to enter a private home, as entry in those circumstances is generally expected to stop at exterior points such as a porch or doorway unless explicit consent is given.
A person who unlawfully enters or attempts to enter a home is generally presumed under statute to be doing so with the intent to commit an unlawful act.
In a situation like the Cody incident, where a homeowner says a FedEx driver briefly stepped inside while attempting to get someone's signature, legal standards turn heavily on consent and perception.
Under Wyoming’s Castle Doctrine framework, the focus is not only on whether an entry happened, but how a reasonable person in the homeowner’s position would interpret that entry in the moment.
Wyoming law applies an objective “reasonable belief” standard when evaluating self-defense situations: whether a reasonable person, knowing what the homeowner knew at the time, would have believed force was necessary to protect themselves or others from an unlawful intrusion.
State statutes governing self-defense (including Wyo. Stat. § 6-2-504) reinforces that an intruder who enters by force is presumed to be acting with intent to commit an unlawful act of violence, though that presumption is evaluated in context.
Under the Castle Doctrine, Wyoming homeowners have no duty to retreat within their own residence and may be justified in using reasonable force to defend themselves against an unlawful entry.
However, these cases are highly fact-specific and outcomes depend on the totality of circumstances — including the nature of the entry, the presence of perceived threats such as animals or other occupants, and how the situation unfolds in real time.
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
