Jennifer Kocher

Cowboy State Daily • 19th July 2026

Barrel Found! Killer Had Told Cops Victims' Bodies In Barrels On Lake Bottom

FREMONT LAKE — High up on the western flank of the Wind River Range in a pontoon boat at an elevation of 7,400 feet, Bill Dohse is searching for dead bodies encased in old barrels on the stark black bottom of the state's deepest lake.

He’s got top technology, a determined team — and a fat chance.

Cowboy State Daily • 14th June 2026

After 32 Years, Suspected ‘Shafter Jane Doe’ Killer Avoided Justice By Dying

Lt. Doug Fisher had been about a week away from flying to Wisconsin to arrest Roger Durkee when he got the news: Durkee was dead.

The cat-and-mouse game Durkee had been playing with Elko County Sheriff’s Office (ECSO) detectives for the past few years was officially over.

Cowboy State Daily • 7th June 2026

Rawlins Rodeo Murders, Part 2: Did Ted Bundy Kill Four Wyoming Girls 52 Years Ago?

In the early 1970s, the small, rugged city of Rawlins, Wyoming, was in the dawn of an energy boom.

The summer of 1974 arrived like any other, but then between July and August, four girls vanished.

Two of then — 10-year-old Jaylene Banker and 19-year-old Christine “Christy” Gros...

Cowboy State Daily • 6th June 2026

More Than 50 Years Later, ‘Rawlins Rodeo Murders’ Of Young Girls Remain Unsolved

It was the early 1970s and Rawlins was at the dawn of an energy boom. Oil and gas rigs studded the high-desert plains while Union Pacific trains hauled out coal around the clock.

The population swelled to nearly 11,500 — many of those people transitory workers drawn to southwest Wyoming by high-paying jo...

Cowboy State Daily • 21st March 2026

Family Still Haunted By Mysterious 1983 Disappearance Of Rawlins Welding Student

When John Boutin vanished from Rawlins in 1983, the world kept churning as if nothing had changed.

At least that’s how it felt to his tight-knit family, who said it was as if nobody was taking his disappearance seriously.

Cowboy State Daily • 22nd February 2026

Part 4: Who Is D.B. Cooper? FBI’s ‘One-In-A-Billion’ Parachute Returns

On Thanksgiving eve in 1971, a mysterious hijacker flying under the name of "Dan Cooper" vanished into the night sky over the Pacific Northwest after...

Cowboy State Daily • 14th December 2025

Family Picks Up Search For Missing Gillette Cowboy After Nearly 20 Years

The last time Ann Vavra-Faris spoke to her twin brother Roy Vavra, she could tell something was off.

Roy, then 38, was living with a female friend on a small ranchette south of Gillette on Highway 50 that he’d just sold to her. A series of black-and-white billboards along the ice-scabbed, two-lane highway urge sinners to repent: “Trust Jesus,” “Jesus Forgives.”

Cowboy State Daily • 26th November 2025

Family, Others Question Finding That Chance Englebert’s Death Was Accidental

Authorities in Nebraska have determined that Chance Englebert’s death was likely an accident caused by falling from a great height.

But the official confirmation of Englebert’s death and probable cause is raising more questions than answers for his family and others who feel there’s more to his death than an accidental fall.

Cowboy State Daily • 13th July 2025

Former Wyoming Cop Forgives Bank Robber Who Shot And Left Him For Dead 43 Years Ago

For a minute, Mark Corbett thought he might get away with it.

As he sped from the Alpine Federal Savings and Loan in Craig, Colorado, toward the Wyoming border with around $10,000 stashed beside him, he felt a brief sense of relief when he heard on the radio that police were looking for a suspect in a red Fiat with Oregon plates.

Cowboy State Daily • 11th May 2025

Richard Pitt: Wyoming Pilot And Vietnam Vet Who Smuggled Drugs For Pablo Escobar

With George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone” blaring from the cockpit tape deck, Richard Pitt maneuvered the Cessna 404 onto the paved runway in the small southern Mexican border town.

Cowboy State Daily • 23rd November 2024

Who is D.B. Cooper? New Evidence May Crack One Of America’s Greatest Mysteries

This is the first of a two-part series. Part two is located here.

More than five decades ago, a mild-mannered passenger in a business suit boarded a Seattle-bound flight in Oregon under the name Dan Cooper on Nov. 24, 1971. He ordered a bourbon and soda, and once in the air, handed a stewardess a handwritten note demanding $200,000 in cash and four parachutes under the threat of what appeared to be a bomb in his ratty briefcase.

The plane landed in Seattle, and authorities complied with the hi...

Cowboy State Daily • 24th November 2024

Part 2: Who is D.B. Cooper? The Bombshell Discovery That Could Solve Infamous Hijacking

This is the second of a two-part series. Part one detailed how new evidence has been unveiled that may crack the D.B. Cooper case, America’s most notorious and only unsolved hijacking 53 years later.

For 53 years, the only unsolved hijacking in the nation's history has remained one of world's greatest mysteries.

On Nov. 24, 1971, a passenger who checked in as "Dan Cooper" parachuted out of a Northwest flight somewhere between Portland, Oregon, and Seattle with $200,000 in ransom he'd received...

Cowboy State Daily • 4th March 2025

Family of Missing Moorcroft Man Refuse To Give Up As They Revamp Billboard Again

The smiling face on the billboard along the two-lane highway in rural western Nebraska is a grim reminder of a family’s loss and their desperate pleas for answers.

It’s been nearly six years since Moorcroft, Wyoming, man Chance Englebert disappeared on a weekend trip to visit his in-laws.

Cowboy State Daily • 1st March 2025

Beleaguered Assisted Living Center In Gillette Trying To Earn Back Public Trust

GILLETTE — In the wake of two resident deaths still actively being investigated by police, the Legacy Living and Rehabilitation Center in Gillette announced Friday the facility will continue to not admit new patients until it’s fully staffed and has reduced the number of contracted staff.

23rd December 2024

For Some Wyoming Inmates, Prison Is Their Best Shot At Education

Cowboy State Daily • 3rd February 2024

Nearly 40 Years After Wyoming Man Went Missing, Family Copes With Proof Of His Death

Authorities tentatively confirm that a death certificate discovered by a Canadian genealogist and former journalist in November is that of Roque “Rocky” Najera, who disappeared from Rawlins in 1985 and has been missing for nearly four decades.

13th December 2023

https://ictnews.org/news/tangled-jurisdiction

The Wyoming Truth • 23rd October 2023

Parents of Missing Torrington Woman Request Help Finding Their Daughter

Azia Diane Saldana left her parents’ home in Torrington in the late afternoon on Aug. 26 and never returned.

The Wyoming Truth • 16th August 2023

Over a Year Later, the Question Remains: What Happened to Chris Mauk?

Over a Year Later, the Question Remains: What Happened to Chris Mauk? Gillette volunteer investigators hit the ground to look for missing Laramie man

Yellow Scene Magazine • 23rd March 2023

Survivor Helps Put Sex Trafficker Behind Bars in One of the Region’s Biggest Trafficking Busts (Part 1)

By Jennifer Kocher

Special to the Wyoming Truth (AP Storyshare)

The first time Breahannah Leary met Penny (Gallegos) King in her Denver office in May 2015, she asked her father to wait in the car with the engine running. Leary didn’t foresee the conversation going well, if at all, and wanted a quick getaway. At the time, Leary was out on bond

The Wyoming Truth • 22nd December 2022

THE SEARCH FOR IRENE: The Mysterious Life of Nathan Hightman (Part 5)

“I wanted to give her the ring with her close family together, because she would hate the grand public gesture I would prefer,” Hightman wrote.

The Wyoming Truth • 17th December 2022

THE SEARCH FOR IRENE: The Mysterious Life of Nathan Hightman (Part 4)

Hightman, now 39, told police that Gakwa, then 32, fled in a dark SUV in late February. He said hasn’t seen or talked to her since, according to court documents. Police have named Hightman a “person of interest” in her disappearance.

In the wake of Gakwa’s departure, Hightman was charged with five felonies, including allegedly transferring over $3,600 from her bank account and maxing out her credit card in over 90 separate transactions, according to court documents. He also has been charged wit

The Wyoming Truth • 15th December 2022

THE SEARCH FOR IRENE: The Mysterious Life of Nathan Hightman (Part 3)

GILLETTE, Wyo. – The blinds are drawn in the windows of the pale blue ranch house in northern Campbell County where Irene Gakwa once lived. The 33-year-old Kenyan moved to this single-story house in July 2021 with her fiancé, Nathan Hightman. She has since disappeared. Nobody has seen or heard from Gakwa since her last video call with her parents in late February.

The Wyoming Truth • 13th December 2022

THE SEARCH FOR IRENE: The Mysterious Life of Nathan Hightman (Part 2)

GILLETTE, Wyo.—Nathan Hightman is no stranger to tragedy.

Much has been said and written about the strange and troubling disappearance of his fiancé, Irene Gakwa, from this part of coal country in Wyoming. But lost in the hue and cry is who’s at the center of the story—Hightman himself—and the little-known fact that, when he was in his early 20s, his mother was murdered at her home by her estranged ex-husband.