It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Monday, October 12th. I’m Mac Watson.
Brought to you by Casper Medical Imaging & Outpatient Radiology –Early detection remains one of the most powerful tools we have in the fight against breast cancer. This Breast Cancer Awareness Month, KNOW your risk, SCHEDULE your mammogram, and GET SCREENED for breast cancer.
–
The Colorado State Patrol recommended seven criminal charges for the man accused of causing a devastating crash that killed a Casper father last year. Cowboy State Daily’s Zak Sonntag reports that the DA announced last month they would file none, leaving the man’s family frustrated, angry, and grieving.
“After they do the postmortem toxicology on Brendan Capellas and they find high levels of methamphetamine in his blood, the prosecutor says, ‘Here's the deal: If a jury sees that, it's going to be too hard for me to convince them that there wasn't a small chance that he might not have been also doing something that made that wreck come about. If there were video footage, if there were additional facts that they might have gathered, then they might be able to hold this person accountable, the DA was telling the family. The family, of course, rejected this logic. They can't believe it..”
Brennan Capellas was a Casper father and musician who was killed when another driver rear-ended him at high speed on Interstate 25 in Northern Colorado on Jan. 3, 2025
Read the full story HERE.
–
A farmer shot a wild video showing at least seven grizzlies scrambling like gigantic mice at the approach of his combine in a Montana cornfield near the community of Augusta. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that locals say this is common for the area known as a hotbed for grizzlies.
“They were driven off the prairies and into the mountains by settlement, but by nature they are a prairie species. Someone was running their combine through a cornfield and got this really awesome video of grizzlies just popping out of the corn and running from the combine. This time of year they're in hyperphagia or in their eat-all-you-can mode, and so it makes sense that a guy would find a bunch of grizzlies in a cornfield. Corns are really rich, you know, that they're trying to pack on fat, so they're gonna go for that corn.”
Grizzlies generally aren’t social animals. Mature males are frequently alone, and females will travel about with their cubs. However, they’re known to be tolerant of each other’s presence if there’s an abundant food source available, such as a ripe cornfield.
Read the full story HERE.
–
As maternity wards close, women in rural Wyoming aren’t always making it to delivery rooms, leading to roadside deliveries. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports that one Wyoming woman who delivered a baby boy along the highway trying to make it to a Casper hospital says, “I was very scared.”
“Skylar Clayson gave birth super fast back in February. She ended up having her baby en route to the hospital. It was about a 30-minute drive. She delivered her own baby in the passenger seat of their vehicle. Wyoming is a hotbed of maternity deserts. These are places that lack maternity care or care for pregnant women or women who have just given birth, where women have to drive sometimes an hour or more to get the care that they need. The Wyoming Legislature has tried to address this problem for a number of years, but there are no easy solutions. For one thing, women are having fewer babies, and for another, we don't have as many OB/GYNs as we have had in the past.”
According to an April 2024 Wyoming Department of Health report presented to state lawmakers, five Wyoming counties were considered maternity-care deserts. The situation has worsened since that report was released.
Read the full story HERE.
–
A drug-resistant, diarrhea-causing “superbug” that can spread through sex is surging across the U.S. It’s in Colorado and moving toward Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports Wyoming microbiologists and doctors say that isn't the most troubling part.
“There is a strain called XDR that is starting to pop up more and more around the country. There are 60 cases in Colorado, and the problem with XDR is that it's resistant to antibiotics. Doctors and researchers are becoming increasingly concerned with strains like XDR because they are so resistant to antibiotics. So 10 years from now, it's possible that what people are calling these super bugs are no longer treatable. So that means longer hospital stays, IVs, and watching people closely, just kind of to see if they make it or not.”
University of Wyoming microbiologist Bledar Bisha said the rise has his attention, adding that it doesn’t take a lot of cells to cause an infection. The CDC estimates about 450,000 Shigella infections occur every year in the United States.
Read the full story HERE.
–
I’ll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.
Cowboy State Daily News continues now….
–
Investigators hope new forensic DNA technology can help them solve the 1983 Fremont County, Wyoming, murder of Jannele Johnson. Cowboy State Daily’s Jen Kocher reports that the 23-year-old aspiring model was hitchhiking from Riverton to Denver and never came home.
“There was a tip that came in five years ago that was significant enough to prompt investigators to exhume Jannele’s body. At the time when they exhumed her body, they removed what they hope will be biological material with suspect DNA. This brings us to today. They've been sitting on this biological evidence because they wanted to make sure technology was sufficient enough to process this very degraded sample. They only get one shot.”
Jannele was last seen at a truck stop, near Rawlins, around 9 p.m. on Feb. 17, 1983. Nearly a week later, her body was discovered along a desolate stretch of road near Shoshoni, in central Fremont County. Johnson’s killer was never identified, despite four decades of investigation, countless leads and tips, and a trail that grew colder with every passing year.
Read the full story HERE.
–
For many Wyomingites, heating with firewood isn’t about saving money, it’s the satisfaction of working hard and the ambiance of a wood stove. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports that Sublette County resident Phil Loftus says it’s about instilling values through a woodpile.
“Loftus goes in with a buddy every year to buy wood by the cord, and they bring the big logs back to their property and cut them to you know lengths that would fit in a fireplace. Then he and his family, his children included, stack the wood, and his children would help to to bring the wood in when it's time to heat the home. He says this teaches them the value of hard work, and that you can reap the benefits of the work that you do. You know that you had a part in making that happen, and it wasn't simply by pushing a button and having the heat come on.”
Wood heat may be increasingly uncommon across the United States, but in some parts of Wyoming, it's still a way of life. Roughly 22% of occupied homes in Sublette County rely on wood as their primary heating source, compared to less than 2% of households nationwide, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data.
Read the full story HERE.
–
Yes, shake-a-day is technically illegal gambling in Wyoming. But Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that many prosecutors say they're reluctant to prosecute anyone for it.
“Loretta Kallas, the Uinta County Attorney, said that is going to be a very, very low priority. She talked about other potentially more harmful, more associated with fraud types of illegal gambling that are going on in this state, and as well as you know, violence, property crimes, theft, that kind of thing, always going on. To be honest, you're rolling the dice depending on who your county attorney is and who might want to report you for any reason and how willing you are to fight. It's a mix of factors, and so just like with Shake-a-Day, you're rolling the dice.”
The rules for shake-a-day vary from bar to bar but in some examples, a patron will pay $1 to roll five dice. Rolling a three-of-a-kind wins a free drink, four-of-a-kind means a free meal, and five-of-a-kind wins the pot.
Read the full story HERE.
–
A seasonal mechanic driving through Yellowstone National Park in darkness stopped so he wouldn't hit a bull bison standing in the road at Mud Volcano. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports the bison did not return the favor, opting to smash into his truck anyway.
“This is another incident from Yellowstone this year, where the person who got hit by the bison did everything they were supposed to. Kyle saw it on the road. He was driving slow enough that he could stop. He gave it plenty of space. There really isn't anything he could have done differently, because as you can see, the bison seemed unbothered and just decided to make a go for it and slam its head into the side of his car. And Kyle told me he's going to replace the headlight and the bumper at some point, but he thinks he's going to keep the dent on the side because how many people can point to a dent on their car and say, ‘Yeah, that's where a bison hit me.’”
The speed limit throughout most of Yellowstone is 45 mph, but the park encourages drivers to go slower in many sections. It’s especially important at night when the forest-lined corridors are nearly pitch black and full of bison.
Read the full story HERE.
—
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.
