On July 18, 2015, inside the Volunteers of America Center of Hope detoxification center on West Adams Avenue in Riverton, a 29-year-old male, Northern Arapaho tribal member and Native American, Stallone Winter Eagle Trosper, was sleeping on a green floor mattress when a gunman came in through a back door and opened fire. Another Northern Arapaho man, 50-year-old James “Sonny” Goggles Jr., slept nearby.
Witness accounts and reporting describe the shooter carrying a.
40-caliber handgun and firing into the heads of the two men as they slept; the 29-year-old male, Native American, Stallone Winter Eagle Trosper died at the scene, while Goggles survived with critical injuries. The attack unfolded in daylight, just before late afternoon, shocking a town already strained by divisions between reservation and border-town life.
Police identified the suspect as Roy Clyde, a 32-year-old white city parks employee.
According to court filings and police statements reported in the days after the shooting, he walked past staff into the clients' area, fired, then called police himself and was arrested nearby without incident.
A judge ordered him held without bond on counts of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder, with an initial hearing set for late July and the case bound to district court soon after.
In the aftermath, authorities confirmed the basic facts of the crime and the custody status while the community mourned the loss of Stallone Winter Eagle Trosper.
As investigators and prosecutors assembled the case, the town and the Wind River Reservation wrestled with motive and meaning.
The suspect told police his actions weren't “race-based,” saying he'd targeted people he viewed as transients, “park rangers” in local slang,yet both victims were Northern Arapaho men seeking help at the detox center, and the killing ignited debates about racism and public safety in a border community.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation opened a preliminary civil-rights probe after tribal leaders pressed for a hate-crime review, noting Wyoming's lack of a state hate-crimes statute; federal charges were discussed but the state case moved fastest.
Through it all, remembrances centered on Stallone Winter Eagle Trosper, even as residents and leaders confronted the tensions the shooting laid bare.
In October 2015, the defendant pleaded guilty to murdering Stallone Winter Eagle Trosper, and to the attempted murder of James “Sonny” Goggles Jr.
The following January, a Wyoming judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder, and imposed a second life sentence for the attempted murder.
The pleas and sentences closed the question of arrests and accountability in the case, while family and community efforts turned toward healing and remembrance of the 29 year old, Native American, Stallone Winter Eagle Trosper whose life ended on a floor mat meant for recovery.
