Pease facing 10 felony charges between Park and Big Horn counties

Not long after he fled from sex crime allegations in Big Horn County last fall, Anthony Pease penned a lengthy letter to a family member in Powell. In it, Pease reportedly offered life advice, detailed how he was surviving on the run and predicted he would die in prison.

“I think about turning myself in, I am so ashamed, so unhappy with myself,” he reportedly wrote in the November message. “(T)o grow old in prison, to be treated the way I would be is part of the punishment, but I am considering doing so.”

Pease kept running, however, only getting caught when an associate tipped off authorities, charging documents indicate. Thanks in part to that tip and license plate-tracking technology, police in Fort Collins, Colorado, arrested Pease on January 9, catching him in a truck he’d reportedly stolen from a Cowley farm.

Authorities brought Pease back to Big Horn County late last month to face not only the sexual assault allegations he attempted to dodge but new counts related to burglaries and thefts he allegedly committed in rural Powell and Cowley while on the lam.

As Pease suggested in his letter, the stack of charges now pending in Big Horn and Park counties could keep the 39-year-old behind bars for the rest of his life.

An assault on parole

Pease has multiple prior felony convictions and spent more than five years behind bars after he strangled his then-girlfriend in rural Cody in 2019.

Pease was released from prison and put on parole in May; charging documents quote him as telling an extended family member in late October that “he had changed and was not the person he was before.”

However, the following day, Pease is alleged to have raped a teenager in Byron.

Charging documents quote the girl as saying that Pease made her drink alcohol, force-fed her his prescribed Adderall, gave her marijuana and showed her pornography in the lead-up to 
the sexual assault.

When the girl screamed for him to stop, Pease “raised his fists to her and told her to ‘shut up’ or he would beat her and hurt her ‘really bad,’” Big Horn County Sheriff’s deputy Jeff Angell wrote of the teen’s account.

The girl said she was scared to fight or leave but managed to text a teenage friend, the affidavit indicates.

“Help,” she wrote in one message. “Please hurry.”

When the friend and their parent arrived at the location in Byron, they reportedly found Pease naked and called the sheriff’s office. However, Pease apparently ran away before deputies arrived.

Days later, the Big Horn County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office filed six felony counts against Pease: four of first-degree sexual assault plus third-degree sexual assault and sexual exploitation of a child.

Because of his four prior felony convictions and because some of the pending charges qualify as violent felonies, County Attorney Marcia Bean is seeking to have Pease designated as a “habitual criminal.” It’s a sentencing enhancement that could bring a mandatory life sentence if Pease is convicted.

Living on the run

Pease’s November 1 flight wound up triggering a manhunt that drew in law enforcement agencies from around the region and the U.S. Marshals Service. Despite a concerted search, he managed to evade capture for over two months.

In charging documents filed in Park and Big Horn counties, authorities have laid out a partial picture of what they believe Pease did during his time on the run — allegedly hiding in partially vacant residences in rural Powell, living off stolen food and getting around in a stolen truck.

Searchers were aided by a journal in which Pease appeared to have documented his “activities and hardships encountered during his time as a fugitive,” Park County Sheriff Darrell Steward wrote in an affidavit. Pease reportedly went as far as writing about how he’d used a partially deflated football as a makeshift pillow — a Franklin Grip-Rite model that authorities later found among Pease’s possessions.

As for the journal itself, it was discovered in a trailer house south of Garland, in eastern Park County, Steward wrote.

The owner had been using the trailer for storage, according to the affidavit, and the journal entries indicate Pease camped out in the mostly vacant home from November 17 to 21.

The owner didn’t realize what was happening at the time but later came to suspect that, “On at least one occasion … Pease might have gone out the back door of the trailer as (the owner) was entering the front door,” Steward wrote.

Squatting near Garland

During his stay at the trailer, Pease is alleged to have stolen a variety of items that include a backpack, a fishing rod, tackle, camping equipment, coins, a variety of food — including three packages of elk tenderloins — plus a Ruger Super Redhawk .44 magnum revolver.

Meanwhile, he allegedly left behind various items, including bottles of Cook’s Champagne, Smirnoff vodka and Jagermeister, vape canisters and the journal.

In that log, Pease wrote that he wanted to see some of his family members “one last time” to say goodbye, Steward said, and the fugitive reportedly stopped by their Powell home on November 21. In a brief visit, he allegedly dropped off a set of handwritten letters and some of his possessions, the affidavit says.

“... I have been blessed with food, water and shelter with transportation,” Pease reportedly wrote in one letter. “It helps to bring peace to the situation I have created.”

His family notified authorities, and Steward said the items Pease left behind included various coins, honey sticks, a bar of soap and a few other objects that had been taken from the Garland area trailer.

As for the Ruger revolver, a citizen reportedly found the weapon near Powell High School on December 1 while they were walking their dog around Homesteader Park; Steward said the discovery lined up with Pease’s journal, in which he’d indicated he would go to Homesteader Park before visiting his family.

However, it was some time before authorities discovered the full significance of the finds, as the gun and other items weren’t reported stolen until late December. Around that same time, another Garland area property owner reported finding evidence that Pease had camped out in his unfinished shop house, as well. The owner reportedly found a cot and a bucket of urine staged inside a closet, along with beer cans, a glove, headlamp and a document that appeared to have been taken from the neighboring trailer home.

The owner of the shop explained that he’d seldom looked in that closet and didn’t know how long Pease had lived there, the affidavit says.

“(The owner) was concerned, as he believed this person may have been inside the closet while (he) was working in his shop,” Steward wrote. 

Stealing a truck

By the time Pease’s alleged break-ins were discovered and reported, he had apparently moved on.

On December 13, officers spotted Pease near a residence on Wyoming Highway 32, southwest of Byron, but charging documents say he managed to escape again.

It was around that time that authorities believe Pease stole a 2000 Ford Ranger from a farm off Highway 32. He also is suspected to have swapped the Ranger’s license plate for one he allegedly stole from a truck in Byron around December 14, an affidavit from Big Horn County Sheriff’s Sgt. Craig Shidler indicates.

Equipped with a vehicle, Pease continued to evade law enforcement until January 8, when authorities got a big tip: A man in northern Colorado reported that Pease had gotten in touch and said he was going to be in the area later that night, the affidavit says.

Armed with the information about the stolen Ranger and the stolen license plate, agents with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation and U.S. Marshals accessed data logged by license plate readers and verified that a matching vehicle and plate had been detected on Interstate 25 in both Wyoming and Colorado, Shidler wrote.

Then, on the morning of January 9, U.S. Marshals and  Fort Collins Police spotted Pease in the stolen Ranger, wearing a Cabela’s sweatshirt that appeared to have been stolen from the Garland trailer. He was arrested without incident and returned to Big Horn County on January 23.

Heading toward a trial

In addition to the six felony sex crimes, Pease is facing felony counts of theft and receiving or disposing of stolen property in Big Horn County related to the alleged theft of the Ford Ranger. He’s also facing felony counts of aggravated burglary and burglary related to the alleged thefts of the revolver and other items from the Garland trailer and a misdemeanor count of criminal entry for allegedly entering the neighboring shop house.

Pease has yet to answer to the Park County charges, but last week he agreed to waive his right to preliminary hearings and let his two Big Horn County cases move toward trials in district court.

He remained in the Big Horn County Detention Center on Wednesday, Feb. 4, with bail set a combined total of $600,000 cash.