Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Wyoming crime wave

So, you think you'll move to sleepy Wyoming to get away from all the crime? Maybe some other state would suit you better.


By Clair McFarland, Cowboy State Daily

Already the felony capital of Wyoming, Riverton is seeing a crime wave this summer, its police chief said Thursday.

In the past week alone, Riverton has had multiple alleged stabbings, an assault with a handgun, and a homicide investigation that began as a trailer house fire, Riverton Police Department chief Eric Murphy told Cowboy State Daily.

Before that, the town’s first shooting of the year was reported April 16. There was another reported April 23 and another on the 26th – all non-fatal.

On June 18, an unknown suspect shot two brothers behind the Loaf N’ Jug gas station on Riverton’s busiest thoroughfare, Federal Boulevard, police documents state.

The brothers were life-flighted to Casper and questioned in the hospital there, but they refused to say who shot them, Murphy told Cowboy State Daily in June.

The shooting remains unsolved.

There have been numerous stabbings and 23 weapons offenses in the past six months as well.

A weapons offense can range in severity, from a kid bringing a knife to school, to a violent act with a weapon. The majority of Riverton’s weapons offenses in past months have been violent in nature, Murphy said.

Although Murphy acknowledged the apparent crime wave now occurring in Riverton, he said upticks like these occur frequently and aren’t out of the ordinary.

Crime Capital

With a population just under 11,000, Riverton outstrips bigger Wyoming cities such as Cheyenne and Gillette for total crime per capita.

“Oh yeah, we’re by far ahead of the whole state,” said Murphy.

According to the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation’s 2021 uniform crime report, Riverton residents reported 1,944 crimes total that year, compared to the Cheyenne Police Department’s total of 5,811. Although Cheyenne showed a greater figure, the big city’s crime percentage was less than half the size of Riverton’s.

There were 18.2 crimes reported per 100 Riverton residents in 2021, compared to Cheyenne’s 8.8 crimes per 100 residents.

Gillette was on par with Cheyenne, with 2,893 crimes reported across its 34,267 population for a percentage of 8.4 reported offenses per 100 people.

Riverton also has a higher percentage of felonies across all offenses, Murphy said, referencing a 2019 FBI report showing felony crime percentages. About 68% of Riverton’s crimes were felonies, that is, offenses punishable by more than one year in prison.

Casper, Gillette and Cheyenne reported about 42% of their offenses as felonies that year, said Murphy.

But Murphy said criminal activity seems to be on the rise statewide, not just in Riverton, according to his observation.

“It’s not just us,” he said. “Lately, crime has just gone up in Wyoming totally and I think everybody is seeing it right now.”

He said he has “no idea” why the uptick is occurring.

“I wish I could tell you, because I would fix it. I literally have no answer to that,” he said.

Huge Party, Then Fire, Then Death

Last week, Aug. 24 at about 4 p.m. a fire alarm sounded inside a blue trailer house in residential Riverton, a couple blocks from two private elementary schools. At first reported to be unconscious, a 31-year-old woman was found deceased at the scene, according to the department’s call log.

Her death is being investigated as a homicide.

There was a “huge party” at the tiny trailer house earlier that day, with as many as 30-40 guests, said Murphy. But the deceased woman is the only person found to have suffered harm in the incident, so far, he added. The outside of the trailer house does not appear to be burnt.

A man and a woman, found intoxicated on scene, were taken into custody on public intoxication charges.

Riverton has its own ordinance against public intoxication, but state law doesn’t forbid it – unless the intoxicated person finds himself in a roadway.

The two detainees are now out on bond, according to Riverton Police Department detective Kingston Cole, who is investigating the homicide.

Three-Woman Knife Fight

Hours after the fire, police responded just after sunrise Aug. 25 to a knife fight involving three women in home a few blocks away.

Court documents allege that 18-year-old Autumn Yellowbear stabbed another woman’s fiancée, Catherine Topaum, in the chest and hand with a knife, after the pair got into a physical fight.

While Yellowbear was stabbing Topaum, Topaum’s fiancée got between them to stop the fight and the fiancée was stabbed in the leg, court documents state.

Yellowbear has been charged with aggravated assault and reckless endangering.

‘Mottled’

At about 1 p.m. that afternoon, Riverton officers were summoned to find a person with a “mottled foot” fleeing a motel after a reported threatening incident involving a handgun, according to the call log.

Motel staff had found four people in a motel room “in which they didn’t belong,” the log continues. Staff members told the alleged squatters to leave.

“A short while later when they were again told to leave a female subject, Nichole Yellowplume, became agitated and produced a loaded Glock 9 mm handgun and pointed it at (staffers),” the log said.

Yellowplume, 37, was arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault, which in Wyoming includes the act of pointing deadly weapons at others, and is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

One of the people who was with Yellowplume is reported to have taken the gun away from her before they all left the motel.

“After the dust had settled,” the narrative continues, two men also were arrested on municipal warrants: 48-year-old Martin Gutierrez from Casper and 41-year-old Daniel Manzanarez from Arapahoe.

Whose iPad Turn Is It?

The stabbing incidents continued this week.

A 16-year-old girl reportedly got into an argument with her 26-year-old sister Tuesday morning, regarding “the use of the iPad,” according to the call log from that date.

Then there was name-calling, the log said, after which “the 16-year-old grabbed a knife and stabbed her sister twice.”

The girl was arrested; police recommended a charge of aggravated assault.

“Condition of the victim is unknown for sure but it does not appear serious,” the log said.

Juveniles’ court records are not public unless prosecutors choose to charge those juveniles as adults. The decision does not hinge entirely on discretion: there are limitations in the law on charging minors as adults, depending on their ages and the severity of their alleged crimes.

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I seent Longmire...murder a week or better in just that county. Cesspool.

Sounds like Rip was taking care of a few things...

Influx of Norwegians?

Norwegians of the Native American variety.

Greasers and Injuns.

Well yeah, Riverton, a very high population of native Norwegians cause all the trouble. Doesn’t surprise me at all.

Prairie n*gg*rs and wetbacks.

Sounds like Klamath in the 60's and early seventies.

that area of Wyoming has always been awash in meth and associated crime

just think of all that wasted hunting lands we gave as reservations

Who would’ve guessed there is crime on the WY rez?

Likely Swedes.

Guaranteed those two boys are gonna clean up their own house.........

The article didn't say if this is an increase from past years. I think it's not. Always been more crime on the Res that also effects Riverton. All the names given in the article were Natives.

Riverton really wasn't that bad for whites back in the old days. Just stayed away from the liquor stores after dark or first thing in the morning. Sometimes they'd be lined up outside banging on the glass, especially on Sundays when the stores were closed. Alcohol and drug abuse was very common on the Res. FBI office in Riverton had two agents to keep an eye on the Res. There were always mules from out of state meeting up with res kids to deliver drugs. I recall that gas station being the site of a past bust by the PD. Gangs and graffitti everywhere in Fremont County going back 30 years. Left a while ago (last century). Nothing new. Hunting and fishing is great though. No reason to let a little crime bum your natural high.

Mottled foot?

Gimp?


I always throught mottled meant black, white, grey , orange color.

Like a mottled cat.

Actually it did, but didn't quantify it.

You don’t know nuffins


Don’t act all Tarquish about 1% groid influx

I lived north of Riverton up from Ocean Lake just south of the Rez for several years. I liked it.

If you hang out in the wrong tribe then you get what consequences deal you. It's not the whole town.

The common denominator in most of these is Riverton? Year in and year out Riverton is the #1 town for crime in Wyoming! Anyone venture to guess why!

That said, within a year (or so) of my moving to Western Wyoming, a head-case and his wife strapped bombs to themselves and took the Cokeville School hostage! It ended well, but I couldn’t believe that I left Louisiana to come to Wyoming and almost immediately experience this! Ya just never know! memtb