JOHN MORGAN Star-Tribune staff writer | Posted: Sunday, September 11, 2005 12:00 am
Shortly after snatching $100 from the cash register of a Buffalo gas station, a Texas man traveling with his ex-wife stopped at a nearby restaurant and paid for breakfast, officials say.
"We recovered most of the $100, except what he spent at Pistol Pete's," Buffalo Police Chief Mike Dahmer told the Buffalo Bulletin.
Dahmer said Christopher Baker, 28, a former Wyoming resident, reached into the cash register at the Short Stop on Sept. 1 while his ex-wife was asking the clerk for directions.
"The gal didn't know anything about it," Dahmer said. He said the ex-wife is not a suspect in the case.
Baker was arrested shortly after the robbery and booked into the Johnson County Detention Center, where he is likely to remain for some time.
"We have active warrants on him out of Casper for felony shoplifting," Dahmer said.
Missing dog is gone for good
A Montana woman who left her treasured purebred Lhasa Apso dog with her son in Gillette was shocked to learn that Gillette animal control officials had captured it and that it was no longer at the shelter for her to retrieve it.
Mary Jo Long sought to find its new owners and couldn't accept that it was just gone. She was crushed to learn that her dog Gizmo had been euthanized after being at the shelter for just a week, according to the Gillette News-Record.
Gizmo apparently got away from Long's son in early August and spent several days roaming the streets, but it took two weeks for the news to reach her.
Animal control supervisor Phyllis Jassek said it is the shelter's policy to not disclose what happens to the animals. But after Long got the police involved, Jassek said she is considering revising the policy to make an exception for persistent pet owners.
Long says Gizmo's last weeks will haunt her.
"All I can see is him looking at us when we drove away, wondering why we were leaving him," she said.
Cattle die in livestock trailer crash
Nine cattle died Aug. 31 in a gruesome crash on Wyoming Highway 30 near Granger in southwest Wyoming when the driver of a livestock truck lost control, causing the trailer to flip over.
Clay Yearous, 45, of Monona, Iowa, was pulling a trailer filled with heifers bound for Jerome, Idaho, when he got distracted and swerved off the road, reports the Rock Springs Daily Rocket-Miner.
Ten cattle escaped the crash unscathed and wandered onto the highway. Local cowboys helped to keep them contained.
The Green River Fire Department had to extricate the rest of the cattle from the trailer with the use of cutting equipment and winches. Two of the cows died in the accident, and seven others had to be put down because of the severity of their injuries.
Yearous was not wearing a seat belt and suffered lacerations and broken ribs.
Newcastle dollar store raises its prices
The Dollar Mania store in downtown Newcastle was recently forced to raise its prices to $1.25, due to rising global energy prices in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
"We have the choice of closing the doors or raising our prices," owner Tracey Schuh told the Newcastle News Letter Journal. "We don't want to close the doors."
Schuh said her freight costs have gone up 30 percent, costing her vendors more to ship the items from China. She said franchise stores like Dollar Discount in Casper are having to close their doors.
The store will keep its current name, as Buck Twenty-five Mania isn't too catchy.
Police blotter
He don't want none of your business: A Lander woman called police Aug. 30 to report that she was being harassed by another woman who was trying to "get with" her fiance, writes the Lander Journal. She said the other woman was mad because her man "denied her."
Mean girls: Thermopolis police responded to a report of yogurt spread all over the inside of a 17-year-old girl's car while it was parked in front of the high school on Sept. 2. After separating the girl from an intense argument with two teenage girls nearby, officers stood by while the 17-year-old cleaned out her car. Two dead fish were also found under the front seat, reports the Thermopolis Independent Record.
Assistant State Editor John Morgan can be reached at (307) 266-0614 or john.morgan@casperstartribune.net.