https://www.jhnewsandguide.com...4d-8c080cab2d82.html


Jackson man hospitalized after hunting dispute

Local landscaper is eating through a tube and in need of trauma surgery after mix-up over carcass.
By Kate Ready Oct 19, 2022

A Jackson resident and local landscaper was badly beaten Saturday outside Alpine by hunters who believed he stole their elk carcass. The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office is looking for three men in connection with the assault.


A Jackson man was severely injured along the Greys River Road on Saturday evening when two unidentified men beat him up during a hunting excursion.

The man’s father, Noble Handley, has asked that his son’s name not be printed, out of fear of retaliation.

Handley said the incident happened at about 5:30 p.m. Saturday in the vicinity of Shale Creek, up the Greys River corridor outside Alpine in the Bridger-Teton National Forest.


His son, who’s in his early 30s and has lived in Jackson for a decade, had returned with his friend to their camp with an elk they butchered and tagged with one of their tags.

“They had discovered an elk that had been likely down for at least a couple hours,” Handley said. “[My son and his friend] proceeded to debate what they should do, and about 20 minutes later, they started butchering it.”

So as not to waste the meat, Handley’s son and hunting partner claimed the found elk as their own.

From what Handley could gather from his son, two or three unidentified men approached him at his campsite and “just started whaling on him.”

His friend who was at the campsite had his backpack stolen by the perpetrators. He was also beaten, although not as severely as Handley’s son. He drove Handley’s son from the Greys River area back to Jackson, where he was admitted to St. John’s Health at 8 p.m. Saturday with severe trauma.

Handley gathered from his son that he had spoken to the guys who attacked him earlier that day. The men told his son that they had shot a cow and also said they shot a four-point elk and that it was down the road.

The elk Handley’s son found was not down the road, Handley said, and it was a five by six, so the men didn’t connect the elk they found to the one the other men had shot.

Two men beat his son, and two agencies — the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Forest Service — are working to identify them.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department confirmed it is not involved in investigating the incident.



The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Three vehicles have been connected to the individuals, and “all three are of interest,” according to Handley.

According to his son, one of the vehicles is a white Ford F-150, probably from 2015. One is possibly a black Toyota Tacoma, probably from the early 2000s.

“The third vehicle sounds like it was a light-colored, white or silver, GMC or Chevrolet four-door pickup,” Handley said.

One suspect in particular is of interest: a man with a rifle-recoil cut on his nose.

“One of the perpetrators had been scoped,” Handley said. “The scope on his rifle hit in him the face when he pulled the trigger, so he had a cut on the bridge of his nose.”

The three men are believed to be in their late 20s or early 30s.

Handley’s son is going to be recovering for months.

“Both sides of his jaw are broken; multiple teeth are misplaced,” Handley said. “He hasn’t been able to drink or swallow until [Monday].”

He was released from St. John’s on Monday, and Handley transported him to Billings, Montana, Monday evening for further treatment.

“He’s doing OK. He’s just now getting to the point where the swelling is allowing him to swallow,” Handley said. “[The surgeons in Billings] are telling us he’s needing two surgeries for the amount of trauma repair, and they’re trying to coordinate that.”


Contact Kate Ready at 732-7076 or kready@jhnewsandguide.com.

https://cowboystatedaily.com/2...ing-wyoming-hunters/

Two Men Charged With Beating, Robbing Wyoming Hunters

Published on October 24, 2022 October 24, 2022 in Wyoming outdoors/News/Hunting

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By Mark Heinz, Outdoors Reporter
Mark@CowboyStateDaily.com

Two men – one from Colorado and another from Wyoming – have been charged with aggravated assault and battery in connection with the beating of two Wyoming hunters in Lincoln County on Oct. 15.

Jared Michael Olguin, 35, of Elizabeth, Colorado, and Shea Patrice Sanchez, 30, of Green River also have been charged with theft, according to documents filed in Lincoln County Circuit Court.

The charges stem from allegations that they assaulted a pair of Wyoming hunters, Dawson Handley and Joseph Boster, and stole Boster’s backpack, which contained several expensive hunting-related items.

Handley suffered multiple jaw fractures during the assault, according to court documents.

Dispute Over Elk

The altercation stemmed from a dispute over elk that the suspects claimed to have shot and also claimed that Handley, Boster and other members of their hunting party took. That’s according to an affidavit written by Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office Detective Jody M. Gardner.

On the morning of Oct. 15, Handley, Boster and others were hunting elk near Shale Creek in the Upper Greys River area, where they encountered another group of hunters that included the suspects, according to the affidavit.

The other group of hunters said they had shot a bull and cow elk. Handley told investigators that the other group of hunters were discussing how they had shot the elk from the road and also were contemplating cutting the bull’s antlers off with a chainsaw once they located the carcass, Gardner writes in his affidavit.

One of the younger men in the group had a cut on his face consistent with being “scoped,” Handley told investigators. That’s a common term for an injury that happens when a rifle’s recoil drives the edge of the weapon’s scope into the shooter’s face.

Found Carcasses

Handley told investigators that he later found the carcass of a cow elk that had been partially processed, but still had much of the meat left on it. So, he took the tenderloins off the carcass.

Handley and Boster said their hunting party also later found the untouched carcass of a bull elk. After contemplating what to do, one of the hunters in their party put his hunting tag on the bull’s carcass, the affidavit says. They processed the carcass and took the meat back to their camp.

Handley and Boster said they split off from the other members of their party and took Boster’s UTV to go hunting – Boster was driving and Handley was in the passenger’s seat, the affidavit says. When they were returning late that afternoon, Boster and Handley were “flagged down” by some of the members of the other party they had met that morning.

The pair told investigators that the man with the “scoping” injury was there, and the men were demanding that Handely and Boster tell them where their elk were.

Alleged Altercation and Theft

Gardner’s affidavit states that Handley and Boster claimed that two of the other men approached their UTV and started rifling through items in the back. When Boster got out of the driver’s seat and told them to stop, a fight broke out.

Handley told investigators that at some point during the altercation, he took a knee to his face, which probably caused the worst of his injuries, the affidavit says. The altercation ended when an older man, who had stayed inside the defendants’ truck, shouted at the defendants to stop.

Sanchez later told investigators that the older man was his uncle.

Handley and Boster said that as the two men who had assaulted them returned to their truck, they took Boster’s backpack with them, allegedly in an attempt get even over the perception that their elk had been stolen from them, according to Gardner’s affidavit.

Sanchez told investigators that the driver of the UTV had thrown the first punch but quit fighting after he as “double-legged” and knocked to the ground, according to the affidavit. Sanchez said he saw Olguin and the man on the ground “hockey punching” each other.

Investigators noted that Sanchez told them he had “scoped” himself while shooting at elk, according to the affidavit. Olguin’s right hand was “significantly puffy and swollen with two abrasions on his right index finger.”

The backpack and the items in it that Boster claimed the suspects stole from him were recovered from Sanchez, according to the affidavit.