Cowboy State Daily Radio News: Tuesday, September 8, 2026

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, September 8th.  I'm Mac Watson.

This newscast is brought to you by Google. This Wednesday, September 9th, Google invites you to a free community meeting at 5pm at the Metropolitan Downtown in Cheyenne. Come learn more about Project Tembo, ask questions, and meet your Wyoming Google team.

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A side-by-side rolled Sunday afternoon in the remote country between Casper and Muddy mountains, triggering a major emergency response. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that dispatch radio traffic carried a grim report from the scene: There was no pulse.

"Dispatch traffic confirmed that a woman was laying on top of the side-by-side and was no longer breathing when they called for a Life Flight service. The Natrona County Coroner's Office said they have identified next of kin, but did not confirm how many fatalities there were, and is not releasing any more information at this time. One witness who said they were camping at Bear Trap confirmed that they saw the fatal side by side wreck and that they had never heard so many sirens before."

As of Monday, the Wyoming Department of Transportation's 2026 fatal-crash map showed two fatal ATV crashes elsewhere in the state. The Casper Mountain rollover was not displayed in the database.

Read the full story HERE.

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Two teen girls from rural Crook County in a month have been targets of alleged sex predators. Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports that authorities say it's troubling how girls from small Wyoming towns are meeting older men online — and terrifying that the men turn up in person to meet them.

"What authorities find so frightening is the fact that these predators are so easily targeting teen girls in Wyoming and elsewhere. A lot of ways this is happening is through video games. So when you're playing a video game, there's also an easy way to go into chat rooms. Discord, the app, is one of those such servers where you can go and have private conversations. So this is how at least one of these incidents took place. The 36-year-old man got the 15-year-old girl to a chat room, and then the grooming begins. As a result of this manipulation, the 15-year-old believes this is her boyfriend, and believes it's perfectly normal and healthy to have a 36-year-old boyfriend."

Terri Markham, executive director and co-founder of the Sheridan-based anti-human trafficking nonprofit Uprising, describes grooming as the deliberate process of building trust and an emotional connection with a child or vulnerable person for the purposes of manipulation, control, exploitation, or abuse.

Read the full story HERE.