Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming, for Monday, December 9th. I'm Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - brought to you by the Cowboy State Daily Morning Show with Jake. From 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., Monday through Friday, Cowboy State Daily's Jake Nichols takes you deeper into the stories that matter - and keeps up with the news, weather and sports in your part of Wyoming. Just tune into Cowboy State Daily Dot Com and join the conversation.

–

A 23-year-old Michigan woman's TikTok video has gone viral after she announced an at-home DNA test kit helped lead to the arrest of a grandmother in Wyoming she had never met, in a decades-old Michigan infanticide case.

In a video released in late November with more than 1.6 million views, Jenna Rose Gerwatowski said she was shocked when the Michigan State Police called her at work to say her Ancestry DNA test kit linked to a cold case dating back to 1997. Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher is following this story.

"the granddaughter came forward and said it was actually her Ancestry DNA kit that linked to the grandmother… You know, she found out when she was in 14 or 15 that she actually had this grandmother who had since been living in Pinedale, Wyoming… she just did a DNA test without thinking that anything like this could possibly happen. And I think this speaks to a new generation of a the truth that will come out in families as more of these cases. You know, it's this is just the start."

Nancy Ann Gerwatowski is scheduled to appear in Michigan court for a hearing Thursday to decide whether to dismiss the concealing a death charge. If convicted on the murder charge, Gerwatowski faces the possibility of life in prison.

Read the full story HERE.

–

Wyoming House Speaker-elect Chip Neiman of Hulett said he was trying to be as fair as possible with his committee assignments for the upcoming 2025 legislative session announced Saturday.

That hasn't stopped some from giving him heat about his selections, especially Democrats, who told politics reporter Leo Wolfson they feel they're being left off important committees.

"There's two Democrats on the joint Education Committee currently. So that is quite a drop off to go from two to zero. However, the Democrats gained seats on certain committees like agriculture that they had not had membership on in quite some time… I spoke to House Speaker elect Chip Nieman, a Republican from Hulett, about this, and he said that he was trying to be as fair as he possibly could, and he was just trying to accurately represent the election results and the makeup of the body as best he could, which is what you're supposed to do with the committee membership."

Members of, and people politically aligned with, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus took over a majority of seats in the House this year.

Read the full story HERE.

–

A Canada wildlife preserve offers rental lodges where people can gawk at a pack of wolves just on the other side of giant ground-level picture windows and sliding glass doors.

It's billed as an up close and personal wildlife experience. While an intriguing tourism draw, Wyoming wildlife experts told outdoors reporter Mark Heinz that trying it with Wyoming's national parks would be a terrible idea.

"I did talk to one wolf researcher here in Wyoming… Her problem with doing something like that is it really habituates wolves into being into close proximity with humans. S