Two women walking their dogs along Clear Creek outside Buffalo had already passed a stranger once Sunday morning when they crossed paths with him again somewhere between mile markers 2.5 and 3.
He asked their names.
Then, they told investigators, he grabbed them, shoved them down an embankment and began beating them with a rock. The fight carried the women off the trail, through Clear Creek and into the brush as they screamed for help.
“We fought him off,” one of the women later told a Johnson County sheriff’s deputy.
They told investigators they hit him with rocks and struggled with him. One later remembered pulling his hair.
By the time help arrived, both women had suffered significant head injuries that a doctor described to investigators as life-threatening.
Now, 30-year-old Buffalo resident Mitchell Robert Wilcox faces two counts of attempted second-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated assault and battery in connection with the attack.
The allegations are detailed in a newly filed affidavit that fills in the blanks left after law enforcement announced Wilcox’s arrest earlier this week.
A Walk Along Clear Creek
The Clear Creek Trail is not an isolated backcountry route.
Its interconnected trails run for more than 20 miles, beginning in and around Buffalo and stretching west along the creek toward the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains.
Mosier Gulch is a popular hiking and fishing area, and the trail there can carry hikers east toward Buffalo or west farther into the mountains.
That's where the two women were walking their dogs Sunday morning.
They told investigators they had walked down the trail and were on their way back when they encountered a younger man coming the other direction when they were stopped by Wilcox.
“He just met us on the trail,” one of the women told Deputy Randy Brown.
The man asked if they wanted him to walk with them, and they said no.
Then, said the other woman, “He grabbed us and hit us with rocks ... shoved us and kicked us,” the other woman told Brown.
The affidavit alleges Wilcox shoved both women over an embankment, causing significant injuries.
“He wanted us to be quiet,” one woman told Brown. “He wanted us to go across the creek and then he wanted us to keep going farther.”
She said they believed doing what he demanded might buy them a chance to get away.
At some point, they got a brief one.
The attacker left them but then came back, shows the affidavit.
‘Yelling At ’Em For Help’
They also tried bluffing. One of the women began yelling that she could see other people on the trail.
“She pretended there was somebody else on the trail and we were yelling at ’em for help,” the other woman told Brown. “I don’t think there was anybody there.”
Eventually, the attack stopped.
Brown wrote, “It is not clear as to why WILCOX terminated his assault."
The women made their way out of the area toward the Buffalo Outdoor Shooting Range on U.S. Highway 16.
Brown reached the shooting range at about 8:25 a.m.
He found one woman sitting upright and speaking, blood on her face and a cut on her forehead.
The second woman was on her back with a towel covering her face.
Brown removed it to find “major trauma” to her left eye and face and several lacerations to her head and face, he wrote.
An ambulance arrived as deputies began hunting for the man the women had described.
‘Must Be The Wrong Guy’
As officers searched the area, Buffalo Police Chief Sean Bissett told them the description resembled someone from a suspicious-person call the previous Friday.
A name had been associated with that call: Mitchell Wilcox.
Not long afterward, Johnson County Sheriff's Sgt. Schultze spotted a white Acura coming out of the Mosier Gulch parking area.
The driver matched the physical description the women had given, Brown wrote.
Schultze stopped the vehicle at about 8:48 a.m. and identified the driver as Wilcox.
The women had described their attacker wearing gray jogging pants, tennis shoes, a navy quarter-zip sweater with red and white designs and a backward ball cap.
Wilcox was wearing shorts, a long-sleeve shirt, a brown stocking cap and sandals when Schultze stopped him, the affidavit says.
There was also a fresh abrasion or scratch on his nose.
As Schultze radioed that Wilcox was wearing shorts rather than jogging pants, Wilcox allegedly volunteered:
“Must be the wrong guy ... he's out there somewhere.”
Brown noted Wilcox appeared alert and oriented and did not appear to be under the influence of alcohol or controlled substances.
Both Women Picked Him Out
At the hospital, investigators began documenting the women's injuries and collecting evidence.
Brown spoke with one of their attending physicians.
Ultimately, the doctor described both women's injuries as “life threatening.”
Investigators collected the clothes the women were wearing. They were wet, covered in sand and littered with burrs or stickers — evidence Brown believed fit their account of being forced through the creek and brush.
There also appeared to be blood on both women's clothing.
Investigators separately showed the women a six-person photo lineup.
One pointed to Wilcox's photograph.
“He had a hat on, but number three,” she said.
The other independently selected his photograph as well.
Investigators also collected swabs from the women's hands and fingernails. A judge later authorized investigators to take DNA swabs from Wilcox's hands and fingernails.
He Came Back
Location data placed Wilcox near the scene of the alleged attack around 7:20 a.m., then back near his Buffalo home by 8:24.
Ten minutes later, he headed back toward Mosier Gulch.
Investigators said they believe Wilcox went home and changed clothes. When deputies stopped him at 8:48 a.m., he wasn't wearing the jogging pants, sweater, tennis shoes and ball cap the women had described.
A search of his home turned up clothing matching that description — all of it was wet.
The shoes and pants had sand and the same sort of burrs found on the women's clothing. Investigators also reported apparent blood on the sweater and hat.
Brown concluded Wilcox attacked the women, forced them through the creek and brush, went home and changed — then returned to Mosier Gulch.
Three minutes after deputies stopped him, he was under arrest.
He declined to speak after being read his Miranda rights.
Already On Probation
Wilcox was already on probation.
His previous case began before dawn Dec. 29, 2025, when Buffalo police were called to a report that Wilcox had a knife and might hurt himself.
During a phone call, officers could hear a family member repeatedly telling him to “put the knife down.”
“I’m not gonna do it right now, I’m just thinking about it,” Wilcox responded, court documents say.
Police said Wilcox eventually put the knife to his neck and leaned into it, then fled into a Buffalo neighborhood where temperatures hovered between 5 and 10 degrees.
The search shifted when a neighbor reported banging at a nearby house. The home was supposed to be empty; its most recent resident was described as “very elderly” and had moved into a care facility.
An officer spotted someone moving inside.
It was Wilcox.
Police said he had smashed a window in the door to get inside. He eventually emerged shirtless, barefoot and “shivering uncontrollably,” with a significant cut at the base of his throat. Officers found blood on surfaces throughout the house.
Wilcox pleaded guilty in June to misdemeanor criminal entry. A property destruction charge was dismissed, and he received 30 suspended days in jail and six months of probation.
What's Next
Johnson County Prosecuting Attorney Tucker Ruby has now charged Wilcox with six felonies.
Two counts of attempted second-degree murder allege Wilcox took a substantial step toward killing each woman by repeatedly striking them in the head with a rock.
Two aggravated kidnapping counts allege he forcibly removed the women from where they had been on the trail and moved them across the creek to facilitate another felony, inflict injury or terrorize them.
The remaining two aggravated assault and battery counts allege Wilcox caused serious bodily injury or injured the women with a deadly weapon.
Wilcox remains held on a $2 million bond.
His next major step in Circuit Court will be a preliminary hearing, where a judge will determine whether prosecutors have shown enough probable cause for the felony case to proceed to District Court.
A date for that hearing was not immediately available.
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
