The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation says that a 34-year-old man shot and killed by U.S. Marshals during a manhunt last year may not be dead had an Evanston woman not deliberately blocked them from entering her home, where he was hiding at the time.
Kaylee Marie Simmons, born in 1993, also allegedly didn’t return the man’s cellphone and tablet after telling authorities she would and deliberately wiped his phone by forcing it to factory reset, according to an affidavit of probable cause written by DCI Agent Daniel Allison and filed in Uinta County Circuit Court on Tuesday.
DCI has recommended Simmons be charged with misdemeanor interference with a peace officer and felony compounding, or trying to delay or impede an investigation by withholding evidence.
The Uinta County attorney has charged her with just the misdemeanor.
The allegations go back to March 12, 2025, when Steven Sheesley was shot and killed in a confrontation with two U.S. Marshals Service deputies after climbing out a bathroom window in Simmons’ mobile home while authorities were at the front door with warrants asking to come in, the affidavit says.
One of the deputy marshals shot him in the chest, killing Sheesley, says a Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) report released to Cowboy State Daily in September 2025. The other one hit him in the arm.
The deputies were eventually cleared of any wrongdoing and deemed justified in their actions that day.
Shooting Justified
During the attempted arrest, Sheesley’s stance, statements, and gestures indicated that he was armed and would kill his arresting officers, according to a decision letter from Uinta County Attorney Loretta Howieson Kallas.
“It is substantially irrelevant to these factors that in retrospective 20/20 hindsight we know that Sheesley was unarmed,” wrote Kallas in the letter, addressed to Agent Allison, the incident’s lead investigator.
“Objective review of (Sheesley’s) actions clearly demonstrate he intended law enforcement to believe he was armed and dangerous,” added Kallas, “and he was effective in that ruse.”
Because Simmons delayed law-enforcement agents at her front door from coming in and apprehending Sheesley on active warrants for failing to register as a sex offender, she helped cause the escalation that led to his death, Allison wrote in the affidavit.
“Simmons’ actions at the door were indicative of knowledge that Sheesley was present, that she was delaying entry of law enforcement for the purpose of stopping Sheesley from being located and apprehended,” the affidavit says.
“This delay allowed for Sheesley to escape the residence through a window in the bathroom and flee from law enforcement on foot,” the document continues. "Had Simmons allowed law enforcement to immediately enter the residence and apprehend Sheesley, Sheesley may not be deceased as a result of her actions.”
Simmons told agents that Sheesley had been making statements that he wouldn’t go back to prison and that he’d force a suicide by cop if confronted, the affidavit says.
“Simmons explained that after Sheesley told her he wouldn’t go back to prison, she felt Sheesley was stating this because every time he came to Wyoming, Sheelsey failed to register or … would ‘screw up,’” the affidavit says.
He reportedly told Simmons — who authorities outline as a girlfriend, although she has said she’s just a friend — that “he would make sure that instead of being arrested, law enforcement would kill him to ensure he didn’t go back to prison,” the affidavit says.
He also said the law was out to get him and that “they always f*** me over, you know that,” Allison wrote.
Used Kids ‘As A Shield’
Agents from the U.S. Marshals Service, along with state and local authorities, knew Sheesley was staying with Simmons because they saw him enter her trailer home, the affidavit says.
They were staked out about 30 yards away and, with binoculars, watched Simmons pull up to her home in her Toyota with Sheesley in the passenger seat. They then watched him get out of the car and go into the home, according to the affidavit.
Armed with three warrants, two for his arrest and another to search Simmons’ home to apprehend Sheesley, three agents knocked on her door.
That’s when her alleged stall-and-defuse tactics began, including using her young children “as a shield,” Allison wrote.
“Simmons attempted to use a ploy of ‘just being woken up’ as her reason for taking longer to get to the front door, even though law enforcement had been surveilling her residence and observed her arrive at the house just a short time before,” the affidavit says.
She answered the door holding a young child, then beckoned another child over to position as more of a barrier to law enforcement, the affidavit claims. Simmons also appeared “fidgety.”
For her part, Simmons told investigators during a July 9, 2025, interview that she wasn’t trying to stop them, she just was demanding to see a warrant.
Simmons said she “asked the law enforcement officers to ‘show me the warrant’ and they refused,” the affidavit says. “Simmons stated, ‘Because I was standing there with my kids, trying to understand why the f*** my door was being beat down.
“No, you don’t wanna show me the warrant, like there was no reason, like, nobody could have gone out the front door because that front porch is condemned.”
She also said that she’s not large enough to block the doorway and get in the way of the officers if they really wanted to get inside.
It was while agents were trying to gain entry that someone spotted Sheesley trying to escape, and a deputy shouted, “He’s running,” the affidavit says.
The Showdown
Uinta County Sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Rowdy Dean called out for Sheesley to stop.
The man zigzagged as he ran, and said, “You’re going to have to f***ing shoot me,” according to an earlier DCI report of the incident.
Law-enforcement personnel got into vehicles and chased Sheesley. The latter fled into a tan maintenance shop associated with the trailer park.
A maintenance worker left the building with his hands up. That man later told investigators that Sheesley had crashed into the shop and said, “Get a gun so I can shoot these f***ing cops.”
The federal deputies and officers entered the shop ahead of Dean.
Inside the shop, ICE Officer Brett Layman made eye contact with Sheesley, and the latter shouted, “F*** you, let’s do this! You ready?” the DCI report relates from Layman’s interview.
The deputy marshals there gave commands like “hands up, hands up!” the report says.
Sheesley’s hand was inside his pants. He removed his hand from inside his pants “as fast as you can do it,” Layman said during his interview with Allison and Special Agent Eric Ford.
It looked as if Sheesley had something in his hand, said Layman. Other agents echoed that description in their own interviews.
A pair of glasses was later found on scene.
Layman heard one “big boom.”
One of the marshals had fired a shotgun, the report later concludes. The other had fired a Glock pistol. They both reacted “immediately” to what they cast as Sheesley’s gestures, according to the DCI report.
The officer who fired the shotgun later told investigators he “had no doubt at that time that Sheesley was armed.”
About That Wiped Phone
That same day after the shooting, DCI agents asked Simmons to produce Sheesley’s belongings for them as they were part of an active investigation, the affidavit says. She agreed, and gave them a bag with mostly clothing that night.
However, his cellphone, wallet and other electronic devices weren’t among the items she turned over, Agent Allison wrote.
It wasn’t until five days later, on March 17, 2025, after a family member of Sheesley contacted investigators saying Simmons told her she had his cellphone, wallet and other items that she finally admitted having them.
She agreed to turn them over, but suddenly left for a medical appointment, instead allowing a neighbor to go into her home to hand them over to agents, the affidavit says.
When DCI examined Sheesley’s cellphone, they discovered the SIM card missing and that the phone had been completely wiped of everything on it by a factory reset, Allison wrote.
Furthermore, DCI determined the factory reset happened that same day, March 17, before the agency retrieved it.
“It was apparent that on the same date the item was turned over to law enforcement, the device showed several of the empty folders in the data on the device displayed either created or last modified dates of March 17, 2025,” according to the affidavit.
In one of her interviews with DCI, Simmons admitted to resetting the cellphone, but said it wasn’t deliberate. She was trying to access the phone and kept entering incorrect passwords, and after a while the Samsung device automatically reset.
That account didn’t fly with investigators, who noted that it takes at least a dozen wrong passwords to force a reset, and that the Samsung phone warns the user multiple times that will happen if incorrect passwords continue to be entered.
Simmons estimated she tried “15 to 16 times to enter a password into Sheesley’s phone,” the affidavit says.
“Based on the warnings on the device any user would be notified that the device would be reset, therefore this action was intentional,” Allison wrote in his affidavit.
The data on Sheesley’s phone could have been significant to the investigation, but agents now will never know for sure, the affidavit says.
“The deletion of the data further hindered the homicide investigation into Sheesley, and as a result, the data sought in the cellular device which could have corroborated or dispelled Sheesley’s intent or other criminal violations … are no longer available for the investigation,” Allison wrote.
For the single misdemeanor charge of interference with a peace officer, if convicted, Simmons could face a maximum penalty of up to a year in jail, a fine of up to $1,000, or both.
She’s scheduled for an arraignment in Uinta County Circuit Court on Dec. 1.
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.
