Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming, for Tuesday, May 6th. I'm Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - Brought to you by the Wyoming Community Foundation, who asks you to give back to the place you call home. "5 to thrive" is YOUR opportunity to leave a legacy for generations to come. Support the community nonprofits you care about with a gift through the Wyoming Community Foundation. Visit wycf.org to learn more.

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In the early months of 1992, two women were found dead in separate incidents along interstates in Wyoming. The murders remained unsolved for years. But in 2007, DNA results from another murder in Tennessee and a rape in Oklahoma City connected all four of the crimes to long-haul trucker Clark Perry Baldwin.

Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Baldwin's conviction on Friday for murdering a woman in Tennessee clears the way for his return to Wyoming for trial.

"About 2007 ish, maybe a little later, started improving their DNA tech and court documents say that they linked the Tennessee murder to the two Wyoming corpses… And then the other main key of the case is the one that got away. Mary Ann Newton says that Baldwin raped her, bound her, asked her to shoot him, and then let her go. … He's been convicted of murder in Tennessee, and he faces at least one more murder charge that's already filed in Wyoming…And then, you know, as long as the judge doesn't grant him a new trial. He will then come to Wyoming and face Sweetwater County Attorney Danny Erramouspe, who has been waiting five years to prosecute him."

Baldwin will reach Wyoming within about two months, and Erramouspe will prosecute him on a first-degree murder charge.

Read the full story HERE.

– The Bureau of Land Management has approved Pacific Soda's proposed $5 billion Dry Creek Trona Mine Project south of Green River in Sweetwater County.

The approved project allows Pacific Soda to build mining facilities and employ solution mining to extract trona 2,300 feet below the surface for processing into soda ash and baking soda. Cowboy State Daily's David Madison reports that the project could become a more than $5 billion investment.

"It's a big area. It's about 10,000 acres total, south of Green River, to the west of Flaming Gorge, and you know, it's a big deal for southwest Wyoming, for sure, with that many jobs, and probably professionals who know something about this industry, since it already exists… they talked about a couple thousand construction jobs and, you know, 300 high paying permanent jobs running a couple of decades. So if all goes as planned… then it's a major economic boost to the region."

Currently, Pacific Soda is working with the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality to obtain their mining permit, which must be approved before any work can begin.

Read the full story HERE.

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Hundreds of people reported seeing a huge purple-green fireball streak across several Western states Saturday night. The colorful meteor was seen as far north as Canada, south as Colorado, and west as the Pacific Coast.

Thanks to reports submitted to the American Meteor Society, it was determined that this was a Wyoming fireball. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that this meteor entered Earth's atmosphere somewhere over Yellowstone National Park around 9:20 p.m. Saturday, and could be seen over a thousand miles away before rapidly disintegrating.