A Gillette man accused of holding a woman against her will, chasing her down a street and choking her until she thought she might die told police she might have caused her own injuries.
The bite mark on her back was harder to explain.
Christopher McNeece, 31, appeared Thursday in Campbell County Circuit Court facing five felonies — kidnapping and four counts of strangulation — and five misdemeanor domestic battery charges. A judge set his bond at $750,000 surety.
It isn't his first domestic violence case involving the same woman. McNeece was convicted of domestic battery against her in August 2025.
‘Will You Help Me?’
Just before 2 a.m. Wednesday, someone driving along Boxelder Road reportedly saw McNeece "dragging" a woman through the street.
She told police the woman was crying and asking, “Will you help me?”
At the hospital, the woman told police the night started with dinner and drinks.
She and McNeece were in an on-again, off-again relationship for years.
They had dinner at Old Chicago, stopped at Lakeside Liquor and planned to meet friends at another bar, the affidavit says.
Then they began arguing in the car.
The affidavit says near Lakeway Road and South 4J Road, she asked McNeece to let her out but he reportedly refused.
She asked again near the Campbell County Sheriff's Office.
Again, she said, he wouldn't let her out.
Instead, the woman told investigators, McNeece slammed her head into the passenger-side window.
She said she tried more than once to get out of the Jeep, but he sped up to prevent her from leaving.
The woman told Officer Levi Winegar she would have jumped from the moving car “if I had to.”
Honking For Help
McNeece eventually stopped along Boxelder Road and got out to urinate, the affidavit says, but he still had the remote to the Jeep's push-button ignition.
The woman slid into the driver's seat, locked the doors, turned on the hazard lights and began repeatedly honking the horn to try to get someone's attention.
She told police McNeece would move far enough away that the Jeep stopped detecting its remote, preventing her from starting it. When she tried to get the vehicle going, he would run back and try to get inside.
She kept hitting the horn.
Two or three vehicles passed, she estimated. None stopped.
The woman decided to make a run for it to a nearby home where her family was staying, but McNeece caught her.
She said McNeece began shoving her as she tried to get away.
After they crossed Boxelder at Skyline Drive, he allegedly grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her into a chain-link fence.
She got up and kept going.
McNeece, she said, grabbed her by the hair and back of the head near an electrical box, bent her over it and punched her four or five times at the base of her neck.
She told investigators she felt her neck crack.
'Die Like A Dog'
The woman told police she got up and tried to run again, but McNeece — who court records describe as a 6-foot-4 man weighing about 250 pounds — put her into a headlock chokehold, and threw her back to the ground.
She says McNeece choked her two or three times.
“You’re going to die like a dog,” she recalled him saying before sinking his teeth into her left ear and back.
Eventually, another vehicle came along, and this one stopped.
McNeece reportedly tried to convince the driver the woman was simply drunk.
Then he stood over the woman, grabbed her by the head and screamed at her.
“This is all your fault," she recalled him saying, and “I’m going to go to jail.”
When police arrived, McNeece told police, “I’ve been drinking. I don’t know what happened."
He acknowledged some physical contact, saying, “I picked her up one time when she kept throwing herself on the floor.”
Asked who bit her, McNeece responded, "“No, no, no. Maybe (another woman) bit her.”
Police arrested him.
Not The First Time
It wasn't the first time McNeece denied assaulting the same woman after police documented injuries on her.
On April 8, 2025, Gillette police were called after the woman's mother received a troubling text from her daughter.
The woman had locked herself and the couple's then-2-year-old child inside a bathroom, shows a separate affidavit.
“If I don't call you by 5:45, call the Police,” she told her mother.
Her mother called immediately.
In that time, McNeece used a "dab tool" to unlock the door and get inside the bathroom.
The woman said McNeece struck her three times with the back of his hand while their child yelled, "Daddy stop."
When officers arrived, they described the woman's face and neck as red, puffy and irritated.
She whispered that McNeece had instructed her to tell police everything was fine and that she didn't need help.
The woman also said McNeece threatened to kill her.
McNeece acknowledged the couple argued but denied making threats or committing physical violence.
Police arrested McNeece for domestic battery and false imprisonment.
He was convicted of domestic battery involving the woman on Aug. 14, 2025.
What He Faces
The allegations against McNeece this time include five felony charges — kidnapping and four counts of strangulation of a household member — along with five misdemeanor domestic battery counts.
Under Wyoming law, strangulation of a household member is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, meaning the four strangulation charges carry a combined maximum of 40 years if convicted and sentenced consecutively.
Kidnapping can carry a sentence of 20 years to life in Wyoming, although the law provides a lesser maximum of 20 years when a defendant voluntarily releases the victim substantially unharmed and in a safe place before trial. Which provision would apply if McNeece were convicted would depend on the case.
His preliminary hearing is set for Sept. 10.
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
