Thirteen-year-old Owen Miles Lawson, a white male from Sheridan, Wyoming, died on December 22, 2022, in what authorities later determined was a homicide involving a firearm. He lived with his mother, 39-year-old Erin Nichole Johnson, in a small mobile home community on Mydland Road at the western edge of town, where the two shared a quiet life that revolved around school, family, and Erin's work from home.
Owen had been born on September 1, 2009, in Casper, Wyoming, to parents Adam and Erin, and his obituary paints a picture of a boy who filled ordinary days with the kinds of passions that anchor a childhood. He loved playing video games with his dad, golfing with his great-grandfather “Mac,” and watching WWF-style wrestling, and he was happiest when camping and spending time outdoors. Animals were especially important to him; he kept a pet snake he named Jake, doted on it, and talked about it often. His family remembered that his favorite color was green and that he never turned down pizza or Hot Pockets. Friends and relatives described an ever-present smile, a warmth and intelligence behind his eyes, and a gentle way of caring about other people that felt, to those who knew him, unusually pure for someone so young.
The violence that ended Owen's life did not come to light immediately. In late December 2022, the depths of a Wyoming winter, the mother and son were killed inside their home, but their deaths went unnoticed for days. According to Sheridan County Coroner Dr. Robert Byrd, a later investigation fixed their date of death as December 22, 2022, even though their bodies would not be discovered until early January. On the evening of January 6, 2023, around 6:52 p.m., Sheridan Police were called to 1511 Mydland Road, Lot 138, after someone reported a water leak at the residence and said they had been unable to reach the occupants.
Officers arriving on scene found a single-family mobile home with no response inside and signs that something was wrong. Determining that “exigent circumstances” existed, they forced their way through a door. Just inside, they discovered the body of an adult woman and that of a juvenile male. A press release issued through Sheridan Media and echoed in regional coverage explained that the initial assessment at the scene indicated both had died in what appeared to be a double homicide involving a firearm. The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation Crime Lab was called in to process the home, and the Sheridan Police Department began treating the case as a serious homicide investigation from the outset.
For several days the names of the victims were withheld as authorities notified family and began reconstructing what had happened inside the trailer in the days around Christmas. When the identities were finally released in mid-January, Dr. Byrd confirmed publicly that the deceased were 39-year-old Erin Johnson and her 13-year-old son, Owen Miles Lawson, both of whom, he said, had died on December 22 at their home. He stated that the manner of death for both was homicide, while noting that the exact medical cause was still under investigation at that time, and other local reporting summarized his comments by describing the case as a double homicide carried out with a firearm.
Even as the coroner was fixing the timeline, police were pursuing leads that quickly took them beyond Sheridan County. In their early statements, Sheridan Police said that the first phase of the investigation had already identified a single suspect. That suspect, however, was reported to have been found dead in Colorado, a fact repeated in both local news coverage and a widely shared post from the Sheridan Press summarizing the department's press release. Officers emphasized that, because the suspect was deceased, there was no ongoing danger to the Sheridan community, and investigators shifted their focus from locating an offender to documenting what had occurred and why. The involvement of the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation Crime Lab underscored that the case was being treated with the seriousness reserved for major violent crimes, but officials did not publicly release the suspect's name or describe the circumstances of the death in Colorado.
In the months that followed, the story of the killings appeared in obituaries, alumni memorials, and gun-violence databases, but the basic outline remained the same: a mother and son slain by gunfire inside their home, their bodies discovered only when a welfare check forced open the door, and an unnamed suspect already dead in another state by the time law enforcement pieced together what had happened. Public reporting has not described any arrests, charges, trials, or convictions connected to Owen's death, reflecting the fact that the only identified suspect died before being brought into custody or facing a courtroom. What survives instead in the record is a stark contrast: the dry language of press releases about a double homicide and a suspect who will never stand trial, set against the small, vivid details in Owen's obituary—video games with his dad, golf with his great-grandfather, a pet snake named Jake, and an easy smile—that hint at the life interrupted behind the crime.
