CASPER, Wyo. — The Natrona County District Attorney’s Office says it will not prosecute a Casper man who brought a gun to his daughter’s house last March and ended up in a confrontation that led to the death of his daughter’s boyfriend, 47-year-old Casper resident Jeremiah Wayne Reyes.
A “no-prosecute” letter provided to Oil City News by the DA’s office says the man was responding suddenly to the suspicion that his daughter was being abused, and that there was nothing malicious in his conduct that led to a struggle with Reyes over the firearm and the fatal discharge.
On Wednesday, four months after the shooting death at a residence in south Casper, the Casper Police Department alerted the media that it had sent recommended charges to the DA’s office. The affidavit recommended charges of second-degree homicide for Clarence Lee Daniels, 74.
The district attorney’s office concluded that Daniels had acted lawfully when he went to the residence with a .44 Magnum to intervene on behalf of his daughter, Reyes’s long-time girlfriend.
District Attorney Dan Itzen told Oil City News on Wednesday that there was a documented history of domestic violence between the Reyes and Daniel’s daughter, including an aggravated assault conviction for Reyes in 2017.
On March 8, Daniels got a call from his daughter which revived his concerns about ongoing domestic violence, according to his statements in the case report. He said he went over to his daughter’s house on the 800 block of West 53rd Street.
Itzen noted that even on that snowy evening, Daniels had left home without shoes.
Reyes was found in a bedroom with a gunshot would to the head, according to the Casper Police Department’s affidavit also provided by the DA’s office.
The “no-prosecute” letter written by Chief Deputy District Attorney Blaine Nelson indicates that Daniels owned the home and was selling it to his daughter, who lived there with Reyes. Nelson wrote that there were no trespassing advisories or other reasons why Daniels couldn’t lawfully be at the residence.
This story will be updated.
