One of the worst Wyoming cases ever of an individual illegally killing big game animals in a single incident reached a plea agreement in July in circuit court in Jackson. As a result of 11 elk being shot out of season on a late-November 2003 day in the Gros Ventre Valley northeast of Jackson, a 20-year-old Jackson resident is currently serving one year in Teton County Jail and was fined $11,000. Circuit Court Judge Tim Day additionally ordered the man to pay $11,000 restitution, forfeit a .223 AR-15 rifle and his hunting and fishing license privileges for life, and placed him on five years probation. “This is the most flagrant wildlife crime I’ve dealt with in my 31-year career that didn’t have at least some sort of tangible motive,” said G&F wildlife investigator Fred Herbel.

The man was charged with nine counts of wanton destruction of big game animals and two counts of knowingly taking an antlered big game animal in a closed season, also known as the “winter range statute.”  A felony charge of destruction of property valued over $500 was dropped as part of the plea agreement. The agreement was negotiated between Teton County deputy attorney Clark Allan and attorney Robert Schroth who represented the shooter.

The case commenced around noon on the November day when the Game and Fish Department (G&F) received a report of rapid gunfire and wounded elk near the Red Hills Campground and a green sport utility vehicle in the vicinity. Game warden Bill Long responded and contacted the man, who was in a green Jeep Cherokee, near the crime scene. He claimed there was another green SUV in the area.
 
Due to the terrain interfering with radio contact, the man was stopped between Jackson and Kelly by another game warden, Jordan Craft, and also by a Teton County sheriff’s deputy. At each stop, he reiterated the story of another green SUV. On the north edge of Jackson, he approached Jackson policeman Scott Terry and asked if the reported green SUV had been located yet. He then consented to a search of his vehicle, and Terry found an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, a .30-06 rifle and other evidence including a videotape of some of the crime. Terry summoned game warden Doug Crawford and Herbel to the scene. Herbel interviewed the man at the G&F office, where the suspect continued to claim the occupants of another green SUV were responsible for the crime.

Wildlife officers found 11 dead or wounded elk – nine cows and two bulls – and recovered bullets from carcasses and shell casings along the road at the crime scene. The meat from 10 of the elk was salvaged during a snowstorm that day and donated to needy families in the Jackson area. Laboratory ballistics tests later determined the bullets recovered from the elk were fired from the suspect’s AR-15 rifle and the man was charged for the crime in late December. Interviews revealed he encountered the elk herd and commenced shooting. Officers are unsure how many shots were fired, but the reporting party said a clip was replaced in a semiautomatic rifle at least once. Schroth said his client’s actions were, in part, due to substance abuse problems and he needed treatment and counseling. Schroth recommended a sentence of six months in jail and $5,000 in restitution.  

In the multiple contacts the three law enforcement agencies had with him that day, the officers said the man did not appear to be impaired or intoxicated. In addition to the sheriff’s office and police department, Herbel also cites the help of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the case. “This was a classic example of every law enforcement agency recognizing the gravity of this crime and pitching in to help anyway possible,” Herbel said. “That help, along with the steadfast attention given by prosecutor Clark Allan, served to bring one of the most egregious wildlife cases in Wyoming history to a conviction.”