Wyoming
The woman who torched Wyoming’s lone, full-service abortion clinic is about to be sentenced
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A woman who says anxiety and nightmares led her to set fire to Wyoming’s only full-service abortion clinic, setting back the facility’s opening almost a year, is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday.
Lorna Roxanne Green could be sentenced to 20 years in prison for burning the Wellspring Health Access facility in Casper. She pleaded guilty to a federal arson charge in July.
Green said at that hearing she regretted what she did and took full responsibility.
“I knew right after” setting fire to the clinic that it was wrong, she told U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson.
The May 2022 fire happened weeks before the clinic was to open. Extensive damage to the building being remodeled for the clinic kept it from opening for almost a year.
Green admitted to breaking in, pouring gasoline around the inside of the building and lighting it on fire, according to court documents.
The Casper College mechanical engineering student showed no sign of anti-abortion views on social media but told investigators she opposed abortion.
She told a U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent she bought gas cans and aluminum pans the day before the fire, drove to Casper, and carried the cans and pans to the clinic in a bag, matching security video and a witness account, according to a court filing.
She admitted using a rock to break glass in a door to enter and pouring gasoline into the pans in several rooms and on the floor before lighting it, according to the document.
Investigators said they made little progress finding who started the fire until a reward was increased to $15,000 in March, leading several tipsters to identify Green.
The clinic, which opened in April, provides surgical and pill abortions, making it the first of its kind in the state in at least a decade. Only one other clinic in Wyoming — in Jackson, some 250 miles (400 kilometers) away — provides abortions, and only by pill.
Laws passed in Wyoming in 2022 and 2023 sought to make abortion in the state illegal but a judge has kept abortion legal while a lawsuit challenging the new laws proceeds. One of the new Wyoming laws to ban any drug used to cause an abortion would be the nation’s first explicit ban on abortion pills.
Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens has expressed sympathy with arguments that a 2012 state constitutional amendment guaranteeing Wyoming residents’ right to make their own health care decisions conflicted with the bans.
Though abortion in Wyoming has remained legal, women in the rural state often go to nearby states, including Colorado, for abortions.
Wyoming
Wyoming Sells 640 Acres of Land to Feds for $100M
Wyoming has sold 640 acres of land to the federal government for $100 million after what the WyoFile calls “decades of political maneuvering.” The Kelly Parcel has been owned by Wyoming since the state was established, but USA Today reports it became part of Grand Teton National Park in 1950. (Other outlets, however, including Cowboy State Daily, report that the parcel abuts the national park and that the sale adds the land to the park.) The sale follows years of discussions over what to do with the parcel, with the state’s Board of Land Commissioners having previously considered putting it up for public auction, which would have meant private developers could have bought it. The sale to the federal government will prohibit private development on the land. (More Grand Teton National Park stories.)
Wyoming
Skier killed after group triggers avalanche in Wyoming National Park
An avalanche killed one skier and injured another after the group they were in triggered the large snowslide while ascending a mountain in western Wyoming.
The avalanche happened on Saturday in a backcountry area about 20 miles east of Grand Teton National Park.
As the group of four people went up a steep slope at an elevation of 10,400 feet, a large slab of snow about five feet thick broke away and slid, fully burying the victim and partially burying a second skier, according to Teton County Search and Rescue and the Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center.
Authorities received an alert about the accident just before noon. It took rescuers almost four hours to reach the scene by skis after a helicopter tried to reach the site but had to turn around because of stormy weather.
A series of snowstorms have swept through the area in recent weeks, including one on Saturday, said National Weather Service forecaster Jason Straub.
The skier’s death marks the fifth person to be killed by an avalanche in the U.S. this winter.
Wyoming
Skier killed, another injured after avalanche triggered in Wyoming
A skier was killed and another injured after the group they were in triggered a large avalanche while ascending a mountain in western Wyoming.
The large snowslide happened Saturday in a backcountry area about 20 miles east of Grand Teton National Park.
The Teton County Search and Rescue said it received a call to respond to a known avalanche burial on Togwotee Pass just before 12 p.m. on Saturday.
As the group of four people, according to authorities, went up a steep slope at an elevation of 10,400 feet, a large slab of snow about 5 feet thick broke away and slid, fully burying the victim. The second skier was partially buried and had an injury to his leg.
It took rescuers about four hours to reach the scene by skis after a helicopter tried to reach the site but had to turn around because of “challenging” weather conditions.
“(Teton County Search and Rescue) extends its most sincere condolences to the family and friends of the deceased skier,” it said in a Facebook post.
The Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center is investigating the avalanche.
A series of snowstorms have swept through the area in recent weeks, including one on Saturday, said National Weather Service forecaster Jason Straub.
The skier’s death marks the fifth person to be killed by an avalanche in the U.S. this winter.
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