Wesley Willow Jr., 29, was killed in the early hours of August 3, 2018, inside a trailer in north Casper, Wyoming. Police were dispatched to 1250 N. Center Street, Space 75, after a woman called to report that one person had shot another inside the home and that she had hidden the gun. When officers entered, Willow lay on the floor while the trailer's occupant, Jason Tsosie John, remained inside; officers ordered John out and tried lifesaving measures, but Willow was pronounced dead at the
scene. Investigators documented multiple spent rifle casings in the living room and found an AR-15/M4-style rifle in a bedroom, and the initial paperwork described John making spontaneous statements that, in officers' view, indicated he had fired the shots.
The confrontation, according to witness accounts summarized in the charging documents, began with escalating tension linked to Willow's then-girlfriend. A witness told detectives that the girlfriend received an upsetting text from John, after which Willow used her phone to call and demand John's location. John provided his address, and Willow said he was coming over to fight; the witness and the girlfriend went with him. As they approached the trailer, a flashlight shone from the porch area, voices were raised, and then gunfire erupted from within the trailer while the front door was open; Willow was struck and fell into the home.
Within days, prosecutors filed a first-degree murder charge against John, and reporting at the time captured the competing narratives that would shape the case: the state treating the shooting as criminal, and the defense framing it as self-defense. John, through his attorneys and public defender, asserted that he had received a threatening call and then shot when Willow and two other people arrived at his home in the pre-dawn hours; defense counsel pointed to self-defense, while prosecutors proceeded with the murder count.
As the case moved through court, it became a test of Wyoming's newly expanded self-defense provisions often described as “stand your ground.” In district court, Judge Catherine Wilking dismissed the prosecution after a hearing, concluding that the law required presumptions favoring the resident when an intruder is unlawfully and forcefully entering a home, and that the state had not overcome those presumptions sufficiently to keep the charge headed to trial; John remained free after the dismissal while the attorney general sought review.
The state's appeal ultimately failed. In April 2020, the Wyoming Supreme Court upheld the dismissal, affirming that the statute functions as a mandatory immunity from prosecution when its requirements are met and describing a framework in which the accused must make a prima facie showing before the burden shifts to the state to disprove immunity by a preponderance of the evidence. In that ruling, the court concluded the district court's decision to dismiss stood, leaving no trial, conviction, or sentence for Willow's death under the first-degree murder charge that had been filed.
