Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming, for Monday, April 7th. I'm Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - Brought to you by Wyoming Community Gas. The Choice Gas selection period ends on Wednesday April 23rd – This is your opportunity to select your Natural Gas Provider for the coming year. For more information, visit Wyoming Community Gas dot ORG."

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It was a crime that captured national and international headlines in 1996, on the day after Christmas, when 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey was found murdered in the basement of her family home in Boulder, Colorado.

Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher spoke to Michael Vail, a retired music publicist and song writer living in California, who believes his childhood friend, Gary Oliva, killed the girl. He believes that because Oliva, a convicted pedophile, told him he did.

"He had called Michael Vail that night to say, I hurt a girl, and he was hyperventilating. And Michael said that he'd never heard anybody be that upset about anything. So that really struck him, and the next day when he opened the LA Times and saw that a little girl in Boulder had actually been killed, he was like, This is it. He's finally done it. So he called police, and then nothing happened. So this has been going on for years now… Gary Oliva is just absolutely 100% obsessed with John Benet, to the point where he has little altars to her, and he talks about her being the Messiah and him worshiping her. It's very bizarre. And, and Michael Vail is carrying this all around, and he just wants police to take a second look at this guy."

However, in a 2019 statement following an interview Vail did with The Daily Mail, the Boulder Police department seemingly ruled Gary Oliva out, saying they were aware of Oliva's confessions and have investigated his potential involvement.

Read the full story HERE.

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UW President Ed Seidel is facing backlash after the demotion of a popular dean of engineering.

The University's board says it demoted Cameron Wright because he lacked a compelling plan to use state funds to elevate the UW College of Engineering and Physical Sciences to nationally recognized levels of excellence.

But detractors told Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland that the president pushed for Wright's demotion because Wright refused to shift a half-million dollars from the engineering college's budget to a school run by Seidel's partner, Dr. Gabrielle Allen.

"His romantic partner runs the School of Computing, and there's been this talk now imminent, of a plan to spin the School of Computing out of the College of Engineering and make it its own thing. And the board's going to supposedly vote on that this month. So people recognizing what they call Seidel's enthusiasm for this project and the fact that his romantic partner runs that school, are … alleging, well that could be behind the firing of the Dean of the College of Engineering, who back in August, September, last year, refused to divert some college of engineering money into the School of Computing ...the Fallout has been huge, because the department heads from the engineering school lashed out like, this is terrible. You know this, this sudden, seemingly covert demotion of our dean."

The John P. Ellbogen Foundation – which gives hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to UW — announced a pause in grants to UW for the spring 2025 funding cycle and beyond. The foundation's letter cited a lack of transparency surrounding Wright's deanship dismissal.

Read the full story

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