News briefs from around the state of Wyoming

From Wyoming News Exchange newspapers

SUV crashes into geyser

CODY (WNE) — All five occupants escaped their vehicle after it left a road and plunged into hot, acidic water in Yellowstone National Park on Thursday morning, July 11.

They escaped the vehicle on their own, and each one went by ambulance to a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The car had gone off the road “inadvertently,” according to the park.

The incident occurred at a thermal feature called Semi-Centennial Geyser located near Roaring Mountain between Mammoth Hot Springs and Norris Junction. The vehicle was fully submerged in about nine feet of water.

The geyser has acidic and hot surface water temperatures ranging around 105 degrees Fahrenheit.

The next day, law enforcement rangers temporarily closed both lanes of the road near the accident in order to safely lift the car out of the thermal feature. The road reopened after about two hours.

The incident is under investigation.

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Kidnapped man lands up to 14 years in prison

GILLETTE (WNE) — A Gillette man who pleaded guilty to the second-degree sexual abuse of a minor received has been sentenced to 10 to 14 years in prison.

Zackery Minard, 22, was found in bed with a 14-year-old girl by the girl’s mother, who called her boyfriend, Timothy James Ott.

Ott, 30, and a friend beat up Minard, put him in a car trunk and drove him out of town, eventually abandoning him on a country road. The temperature outside was about 35 degrees.

According to Minard, Ott told him to walk back to town and think about what he had done, according to court documents.

A sheriff’s deputy found Minard, who appeared to have been beaten up, after a passerby reported seeing a man looking disheveled and without shoes in the country east of Gillette. An ambulance took Minard to the hospital where he was treated for a broken nose.

Ott pleaded guilty in April to kidnapping and felony meth possession, with the kidnapping charge changed to clarify that he had voluntarily released Minard, according to court documents.

Prosecutors have agreed in a plea deal to recommend nine to 10 years for the kidnapping charge. Ott’s sentencing is July 19.

While talking to police, Ott was remorseful and said he had been impulsive and taken things too far, according to court documents.

The meth charge came after police were called Dec. 11 to Second Chance Ministries, where Ott had been staying. While workers cleared out his belongings, they found paraphernalia with trace amounts of meth, according to court documents.