Wyoming

Inside Wyoming’s State Crime Lab, Which Was Just Named One Of Best In Country

Published

2 years ago

May 18, 2024

Inside Wyoming’s State Crime Lab, Which Was Just Named One Of Best In Country

A DNA analyst enters her area of the Wyoming State Crime lab with a digital key card, dons her lab coat, goggles and gloves, sterilizes her work bench and pulls a bagged pair of underwear from the evidence locker.

She’s sterilized her work bench with bleach and cleaned it off with ethanol, the two scents that hang about her like an aura. She spreads a fresh swatch of paper onto her desk and lays the evidence bag on it. If the bag is sealed and free of tampering, she’ll open it.

She writes notes: observations on the size, color, brand and staining of the garment. She screens it for body fluids with a special light. If she finds any stains of interest – blood, saliva, body fluid – she’ll report back to the investigator who sent the garment to her.

That investigator might be working for the public defender’s office trying to clear a defendant. He might be a police detective trying to put one in prison.

That doesn’t matter, but the science does.

If the investigator thinks the substance matters, the analyst shaves off a 5 millimeter by 5 millimeter flake of it and puts it in a test tube with an enzyme that breaks the DNA free from its other components. She separates the other cell debris, such as cotton.

If enough DNA remains, she amplifies it by putting it in an advanced heater called a thermocycler along with primers, loose nucleotides and an enzyme found in the Yellowstone Hot Springs just a half day’s drive to her northwest.

When warm, the thermus aquaticus enzyme loves to replicate DNA exponentially, turning one strand into millions, which the analyst will then pipe through a cramped tube with 15,000 volts of electricity.

Smaller “peaks” or identifying markers emerge from the tube quicker, while larger ones take longer, enabling her to see the size of each one.

It’s like echolocation, on a nanoscopic scale.

Later, she’ll plug the DNA profile into a database to see who left it behind.

Lindsey Human is a forensic drug chemist at the Wyoming State Crime Lab in Cheyenne. There’s close to $1 million worth of equipment in this lab, including six machines that separate and identify various chemicals. (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily)
Kim Ley, a forensic analyst at the Wyoming State Crime Lab in Cheyenne, works in the Screening Room, where evidence and items are analyzed for the types of substances that may be on them. This machine uses various types of light to show different bodily fluids that could be on something. (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily)
Amber Smith, a forensic analyst at the Wyoming State Crime Lab in Cheyenne, demonstrates how this Hamilton aparatus works. It can process nearly 90 individual DNA samples at a time. (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily)
A detail view of the Agilent 8890 GC System, right, combined with the Angilent 5977B GC/MSD, left, that work together to process and analyze samples to identify their chemical makeup. (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily)
The various laboratories at the Wyoming State Crime Lab in Cheyenne each specialize in a different science that helps identify substances, fingerprints and other clues that help solve crimes. (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily)

Top Six

Down the hall, fingerprint analysts are performing their own nuanced rituals. Ballistics experts are measuring grooves on metal shards. Chemists are scrutinizing murky powders and toxicologists are searching for tranquilizers in urine samples — as a stray example.

For performing these tasks with a more than 90% efficiency rate in using money and personnel, the Wyoming State Crime lab received the prestigious 2023 Foresight Maximus award earlier this month.

“We didn’t know we were going to get an award,” Scott McWilliams, Crime Lab director for the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, told Cowboy State Daily on Thursday.

He and two lab staffers attended a May 1 meeting for the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors in Birmingham, Alabama, months after sending a rigorous accounting of the Wyoming lab’s staffing, costs, uses and output to that group.

“We did this to see where we have inefficiencies and where we can make ourselves better,” said McWilliams.

When the forensics group presented the Wyoming lab with an efficiency award that only 16, or 7.6%, of the 211 applicants earned, McWilliams and the two staffers were “just shocked and really honored.”

The other 15 forensic labs awarded span another 12 American states, Puerto Rico, Costa Ric and Auckland, New Zealand.

“These 16 laboratories stand as beacons of innovation and efficiency, representing the very best in forensic science laboratories,” said ASCLD President Timothy Kupferschmid in a press release. “Congratulations to each winner for their outstanding achievements and unwavering dedication to the pursuit of scientific truth.”

It’s Been Half A Century

The Wyoming State Crime Lab began with the inception of the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) in 1973. The statewide agency works drug and organized crime cases, officer-involved crime investigations, and any other investigations to which it’s invited.

In the early days in 1973, analysts were called “scientist agents,” McWilliams said, qualifying that he knows these things despite not yet having been born.

“And they did some science,” he said with a chuckle. It was basic: fingerprint analysis, some forgery and document analysis.

The lab introduced DNA analysis to its repertoire in 2002 and criminal toxicology in 2018, McWilliams said.

Eaton, Of Course

In the same year it added DNA technology, the lab crew decided to plug an old, but important, bit of DNA from a stain found on a murdered woman’s clothing into a federal database.

Lisa Marie “Li’l Miss” Kimmel had been dead for 14 years by then. Search parties found her body in the North Platte River in 1988. Her autopsy revealed she’d been repeatedly raped, stabbed and bludgeoned.

The federal database yielded a match to a man already in federal prison on a weapons charge, Dale Wayne Eaton.

The Natrona County Sheriff’s Office and others converged on Eaton’s former home in Moneta, Wyoming, and eventually unearthed Kimmel’s car buried on Eaton’s property. A jury convicted him in 2004.

Now, McWilliams recalls this as the most notable DNA crime bust in which the Wyoming State Crime Lab had a hand.

The entrance to the Wyoming State Crime Lab in Cheyenne. (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily)
The Wyoming State Crime Lab in Cheyenne. (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily)
Forensic analyst Amber Smith shows an example of a sample vile for testing DNA at the Wyoming State Crime Lab in Cheyenne. (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily)
These aren’t futuristic microwave ovens, they’re among the specialize equipment used in the DNA testing area of the Wyoming State Crime Lab. (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily)
Lindsey Human is a forensic drug chemist at the Wyoming State Crime Lab in Cheyenne. There’s close to $1 million worth of equipment in this lab, including six machines that separate and identify various chemicals. (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily)
The Wyoming State Crime Lab in Cheyenne. (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily)
Kim Ley, a forensic analyst at the Wyoming State Crime Lab in Cheyenne, works in the Screening Room, where evidence and items are analyzed for the types of substances that may be on them. This machine uses various types of light to show different bodily fluids that could be on something. (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily)

Some Zoologist

McWilliams wouldn’t join the facility until three years later, starting as a DNA analyst, progressing to unit supervisor and becoming lab director in 2021.

His University of Wyoming bachelor’s degree is in zoology and physiology, he said, adding that he’d considered going into medicine.

But a tour of the crime lab he took in college sparked his interest, and when he applied for a job later, he “got lucky and got in.”

McWilliams would later acknowledge that DCI runs on more than luck: applicants undergo an extensive background and character check. The agency sends hiring agents to applicants’ hometowns to talk to the people who know them best, he said.

McWilliams later earned his master’s degree in forensic science and DNA.

Let That Not Diminish …

McWilliams has to check himself in conversation so he doesn’t rhapsodize the science of DNA too much and lose his listeners, he said.

But he also credited the lab’s other study areas as important to solving crimes: naming the drugs, identifying the poison, linking latent prints to the fingers that made them and matching spent ammunition to the gun that fired it.

The Western Identification Network and Next-Generation Identification databases are to “latent print,” or fingerprint analysists, what the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) is to DNA analysts, McWilliams said.

Most areas require a two-year training period, making it rare for an agent to cross into multiple forensics fields, he said. He deems those two years more important than the college degrees applicants receive before them.

“On-the-job training is the really critical part,” he said.

Here To Report

Also critical are lab purity, analyst accountability, DNA privacy and neutrality, he said.

McWilliams said analysts must have a laser focus on their specimens and their data.

“It’s not just about getting the bad guy, it’s about doing the right science,” said McWilliams. If the science doesn’t support an investigator’s hunch, “it sometimes disappoints people when we didn’t get what they want — but it’s the scientific truth that we’re here to report.”

Contact Clair McFarland at clair@cowboystatedaily.com

Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.

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Wyoming

This Small Wyoming Town Has The Best Downtown

Published

8 minutes ago

March 3, 2026

Press Room

This Small Wyoming Town Has The Best Downtown

If you’re planning on visiting Wyoming, for a truly authentic experience, you must include at least one of the state’s awesome downtowns in your travel plans. Positioned at the southern end of the 60-mile-long valley known as Jackson Hole, the character-rich town of Jackson is one such place to consider. A wonderful place to explore on foot, Jackson’s unique downtown, with its Old West vibe, spreads out from the intersection of Broadway and Cache Street. While it consists of just a few blocks, it is jam-packed with fun things to do, no matter what time of year you visit. Its impressive elk arch makes for an excellent photo opportunity, while the charm of its Old West heritage exudes from the historic buildings, cowboy-themed bars, and art installations across town. The wild past also comes to life in Jackson during the Jackson Hole Shootout at the Town Square, a tradition that has endured since 1957.

Town Square And The Elk Antler Arches

Tourists love to pose for pictures before the Elk Antler Arch at George Washington Memorial Park in Jackson, Wyoming.

Though Jackson’s Central Park is officially known as George Washington Memorial Park, locals and visitors alike prefer to call it Town Square. Dedicated in 1934, this centrally located public space occupies the block at Broadway and Cache and is famous for the elk antler archers set at each of its corners.

Made entirely from naturally shed elk antlers, the first arch was erected by local Boy Scouts and Rotary Club members in 1953, with the other three added a few years later. Each consists of around 2,000 antlers collected from the nearby National Elk Refuge and is among the most photographed landmarks in Wyoming.

Antlers on auction at the Elk Antler Auction during ELKFEST in Jackson, Wyoming.

For a truly memorable experience, try to time a visit to coincide with ELKFEST. Held in May, this community-wide celebration attracts visitors from across the country for events like the Mountain Man Rendezvous, a reenactment of the state’s early fur trading years.

The main event, though, is the highly anticipated Elk Antler Auction. Bidders from far and wide turn up at Town Square to purchase antlers, which are then used to make everything from furniture to jewelry (proceeds going back to the Elk Refuge).

Jackson’s Cowboy Heritage

Jackson Hole Shootout celebrations in Jackson, Wyoming.

From Memorial Day through Labor Day, Town Square becomes the backdrop of the famous Jackson Hole Shootout. This fun (and free) mock gunfight has been entertaining visitors since 1957 and includes several costumed outlaws and lawmen shooting it out (with blanks, of course). You can add to the experience by hopping aboard the Jackson Hole Stagecoach, a ride aboard a century-old coach that loops around downtown.

The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar in Jackson, Wyoming.

The Old West theme is evident in other spots around the downtown core, too. Steps from Town Square, the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar has been around since 1937 and is set in what was once the town’s first bank in the late 1890s. Highlights include its hand-carved bar top with silver dollars embedded in it, as well as its cool saddle barstools. Live music is regularly scheduled on the stage that has seen such legends as Willie Nelson and Hank Williams Jr. perform.

A cowboy mannequin in front of a photos store in Jackson, Wyoming.

The Wort Hotel is another downtown landmark you’ll want to include in your Jackson itinerary. A local fixture since 1941, it’s here you’ll find the famous Silver Dollar Bar with its custom-made S-shaped counter inlaid with 2,032 uncirculated (and therefore rare) 1921 silver dollars. You’ll also want to check out its priceless collection of original Western art.

Other Fun Stuff To Do In Downtown Jackson

Local businesses in downtown Jackson, Wyoming.

In addition to its iconic bars, downtown Jackson also boasts a world-class food scene. Highlights include Persephone Bakery, its old-fashioned stone hearth turning out delicious baked goods, including croissants and artisanal bread. Also yummy, Cafe Genevieve occupies an old log cabin and serves breakfast and lunch with a Southern-inspired menu.

The Mountain Trails Galleries in Jackson, Wyoming. Image credit: DXR via Wikimedia Commons.

Jackson’s art scene is also worth a mention. Art galleries are plentiful in the downtown area, with establishments like Astoria Fine Art and Mountain Trails Galleries, both on Town Square, featuring works by local, national, and international artists. The Center for the Arts is another cultural high point and features performance spaces, visual arts studios, and an outdoor sculpture park.

Snow King Mountain

Another unique feature of Jackson’s downtown is its proximity to some of Wyoming’s best (and certainly most accessible) ski hills. The base of Snow King Mountain is just six blocks from Town Square and has been in use since 1936, and really took off when Wyoming’s first chairlift opened here in 1946.

The chairlift ride in Snow King Mountain.

Dubbed the “Town Hill” by locals, Snow King now consists of 500 skiable acres, 41 named runs, three chairlifts, an eight-passenger gondola, and night skiing. In warmer months, the action shifts to a thrilling Cowboy Coaster, a zipline, a treetop adventure ropes course, and an alpine slide.

The Snow King Observatory and Planetarium is another excuse to head for the hills from downtown Jackson. Located at the summit of Snow King Mountain, in addition to its large telescope, this must-see attraction features a planetarium theater and a rooftop observation deck boasting incredible views over Jackson and the Jackson Hole Valley.

Explore Jackson’s Not-So-Wild Side

Downtown Jackson has so much to offer visitors seeking an authentic slice of Wyoming life. From its unique elk antler arches to its art galleries and cowboy culture, as well as its unique position steps from the ski hills, few towns in the USA’s Mountain Region can match the long list of fun things to do in Jackson’s downtown core.

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Wyoming

FROM WYOFILE: Company eyes Wyoming for massive crude oil pipeline

Published

12 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

FROM WYOFILE: Company eyes Wyoming for massive crude oil pipeline

A pipeline company has proposed a massive new “expansion” to ship Canadian crude to a storage facility and interconnect to other pipelines near Guernsey, potentially giving Powder River Basin producers a leg up in the North American market.Casper-based Bridger Pipeline formed a subsidiary, Bridger Pipeline Expansion to get Canadian crude to Guernsey. The pipeline would stretch 645 miles from Phillips County, Montana, to Bridger’s oil storage terminal and pipeline interconnect near Guernsey.
The expansion would open the spigot for 550,000 barrels per day of crude, the company says. Although the crude would mostly pass through eastern Wyoming, the venture opens opportunities for Wyoming oil producers in the region for more transportation access to U.S. refineries and shipping ports, according to Bridger and local industry officials.“It would be the biggest project in our history, if it comes to fruition,” Bridger Pipeline spokesperson Bill Salvin told WyoFile on Friday. “We are, however, in the really early stages of the project. But we’re very excited about it.”Industry trade groups speculate the Bridger Pipeline Expansion is part of a competitive scramble to fill a gap left by TC Energy’s Keystone XL project. That company, in 2021, abandoned the controversial project in the face of major opposition and protests. It would have transported Canadian tar-sands oil into the U.S. market via a route extending through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. Among many challenges for Keystone XL was acquiring new rights-of-way easements. Though the Bridger Pipeline Expansion proposal requires some new rights-of-way, that’s not the case for the 210-mile Wyoming segment, according to Salvin.“All of that distance is within, or parallel to, existing pipeline corridors,” Salvin said.

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The Wyoming segment would pass through Crook, Weston, Niobrara, Goshen and Platte counties.Bridger Pipeline, a subsidiary of Casper-based True Companies, submitted a notice of intent to the Montana Department of Environmental Quality in January and noted it will formally initiate environmental applications to the agency. Salvin told WyoFile he’s uncertain about the full spectrum of regulatory requirements in Wyoming.However, the company regards the Cowboy State as a great fit for the project, he said. “This [project proposal] just highlights how important the region is and how Wyoming is a very good place for energy projects like this.”Reached for comment, the Petroleum Association of Wyoming said the proposed pipeline only stands to benefit Wyoming producers and the state.“Investments like these, along with continued growth in areas like the Powder River Basin, show Wyoming will continue to play an important role in the nation’s energy markets,” PAW Vice President and Director of Communications Ryan McConnaughey told WyoFile. “Connecting in Guernsey allows product to be transported to refining hubs like Cushing, Oklahoma.” WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.

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Wyoming

Meyer’s Late Score Lifts Wyoming past Air Force – SweetwaterNOW

Published

1 day ago

March 2, 2026

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Meyer’s Late Score Lifts Wyoming past Air Force – SweetwaterNOW

Naz Meyer. Mandatory Credit: Troy Babbitt-UW Media-Athletics

LARAMIE — Nasir Meyer converted a three-point play with 35 seconds remaining to give Wyoming Cowboys men’s basketball the lead for good, and Wyoming held Air Force Falcons men’s basketball scoreless over the final two minutes to secure a 66-62 victory Saturday night.

The win marked the 13th home victory of the season for Wyoming, which improved to 16-13 overall and 7-11 in conference play.

“Air Force deserves all the credit and let’s talk about a team that has every reason not to fight, but thats why they are Air Force and the cadets and I have a lot of respect for them,” Wyoming coach Sundance Wicks said. “They were not going to quit, and I didn’t drive that message home enough and hats off to Air Force because they deserved to win. We snuck away with a win. Adam Harakow showed when we need him and he was massive for us. Simm-Marten was made big plays and Naz was clutch for us late.”

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Wyoming shot 35% from the field and went 7 of 28 from 3-point range, making just two from beyond the arc in the second half. Air Force shot 49% overall and 44% from 3, hitting eight shots from long distance. The Cowboys made 13 of 16 free throws (81%) and scored 22 points off 15 Air Force turnovers while holding a 39-36 edge in rebounding.

Damarion Dennis led Wyoming with 16 points and three assists, going 7 of 8 from the free-throw line. Meyer finished with 14 points and tied a career best with eight rebounds. Adam Harakow added 14 points off the bench on 5-of-6 shooting, his first double-figure scoring game since the first meeting with Air Force. Simm-Marten Saadi had nine points in 13 minutes, and Kiani Saxon grabbed seven rebounds.

Air Force opened with back-to-back 3-pointers to take a 6-0 lead. Meyer scored Wyoming’s first basket, and Leland Walker added a 3-pointer to make it 8-5 with 16 minutes left in the first half.

Wyoming responded with a 9-0 run over nearly four minutes, with Saadi and Harakow each connecting from beyond the arc to give the Cowboys an 11-8 lead with under 14 minutes remaining. Air Force regained a 12-11 advantage as Wyoming went scoreless for more than two minutes.

Harakow’s second 3-pointer pushed the lead to 22-16 with nine minutes left in the half, and Wyoming used a 6-0 run while holding the Falcons without a field goal for more than four minutes to build a 28-18 lead with six minutes remaining. The Cowboys closed the half on a defensive stand, keeping Air Force scoreless for the final two minutes to take a 35-25 lead into the break. Wyoming scored 15 first-half points off turnovers.

The teams traded 3-pointers early in the second half, and Air Force cut the deficit to 40-31 with under 17 minutes left before trimming it to seven 90 seconds later. Walker answered with a 3-pointer to make it 43-33 with 15 minutes to go.

Air Force used a 9-0 run during a stretch in which Wyoming went more than 3 1/2 minutes without a point to pull within one with nine minutes left. The Falcons later tied the game at 51-51 with 5:30 remaining after forcing six straight missed shots.

A pair of free throws by Meyer and a basket from Saadi gave Wyoming a 57-53 lead with under four minutes to play. Air Force answered with three consecutive 3-pointers from Kam Sanders to take a 62-59 lead with two minutes left.

Meyer scored with 90 seconds remaining to cut the deficit to one. On the next trip, he converted an and-one to give Wyoming a 64-62 lead with 35 seconds left. The Cowboys added late free throws to close out the 66-62 win.

Sanders led Air Force with 16 points and nine rebounds, going 4 of 5 from 3-point range. Eli Robinson added 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting.

Wyoming closes its home schedule Tuesday against Nevada Wolf Pack men’s basketball at 8 p.m. as part of a doubleheader with the Cowgirls.

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