Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Thursday, October 16th. Bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily news center, I'm Mac Watson. "Brought to you by the Wyoming Business Council. Wyoming youth are our future, but they're leaving the state at ALMOST TWICE the national average. What would bring them back home? Share your bold ideas with the Wyoming Business Council at wbc dot P U B forward slash story."

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The recent discovery of a human skull in a cave in Carbon County has reopened a mystery for a woman who wonders if the find could be linked to her aunt, who has been missing for 107 years. Cowboy State Daily's Scott Schwebke reports a family member contacted Cowboy State Daily and related her story.

"So after that story published…we got an email from a woman who wondered if it might be her long lost aunt who disappeared or hasn't been seen since like 1918…she was a 16 year old girl, lived on a ranch near Gillette and eloped. Lied about her age to get married to, since she was 18, to get married to a guy who was a who was a sheep rancher, and they went to Utah and got married…allegedly, she decided she didn't want to be married, and she just either went somewhere else or came back.

Sherri Boatman of Mills, also tells Cowboy State Daily that in her research she discovered that in the 1920 census, the former husband of her aunt listed himself as a widow. The Carbon County Coroner's Office plans to consult with anthropological experts to find out more information.

Read the full story HERE.

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The case of a Uinta County man accused of using an artificial intelligence application to remake a photo of a teenage girl he knows into child pornography resurrects some lawmakers' concerns about AI deception. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that the issue isn't so cut and dry.

"So lot of moving pieces here, because in 2002 you had the US Supreme Court say, look, virtual child pornography is is protected under the First Amendment. And then you have the explosion of AI and deep fakes and really realistic. We're not talking about cartoons anymore, and we're sometimes talking about the faces of real people depicted in child pornography. Well, that's what's alleged to have happened in you in a county where you have a man who had a mostly benign photo of a teenage girl, and he is accused of using generative technology to turn it into child pornography. Now he's facing multiple felonies, but lawmakers in the meantime are like, you know, we've rejected efforts to legislate in this space in the past, maybe we should have a look at it again."

The case of Matthew John McDowell, who turns 47 this year, rose Tuesday to the felony-level Uinta County District Court. McDowell faces four counts of child pornography possession and each punishable by between seven and 12 years in prison and up to $10,000 in fines.

Read the full story HERE.

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A Laramie County Sheriff's Office detective report exposes graphic details about the "abhorrent" conditions more 100 hoarded animals were kept in, according to court documents filed in Cheyenne Circuit Court. Cowboy State Daily's Jackson Walker reports the animal's owner, Michael Ohern, who is accused of hoarding over 100 animals kept them in deplorable conditions at his Cheyenne-area home.

"Officers were saying things such as, there were feces all over the house. There were dead animals littering the place. It was covered with mice and insects, and that when they went into this residence, they had