Natrona County man pleads guilty to charges in crash that killed 3, injured 1

CASPER, Wyo. — A Natrona County man pleaded guilty on Tuesday to four felonies resulting from a fatal crash north of Casper in May 2022, and could face a sentence of up to 67 years’ imprisonment.

Steven Gale Spearman, 26, entered the pleas before Natrona County District Court Judge Kerri Johnson, who ordered a presentence investigation.

After the hearing, Natrona County District Attorney Dan Itzen said the plea agreement was a cold plea, which did not recommend any sentences for the four crimes. Johnson will determine the sentences after reviewing the presentence investigation. A sentencing date has yet to be set.

Spearman is charged with driving drunk and abandoning his crashed vehicle, resulting in three counts of aggravated vehicular homicide, with each count punishable by up to 20 years’ imprisonment, and one count of driving under the influence with serious bodily injury, punishable by up to seven years’ imprisonment.

He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in February.

Spearman remains in custody on a $300,000 cash-only bond. 

Friends and families of the victims filled about half the benches in the courtroom at the Townsend Justice Center, 115 N. Center St.

Early on May 7, 2022, four occupants in a GMC Yukon came upon Spearman’s disabled vehicle, swerved to avoid it and crashed, according to court documents.

The victims were 22-year-old Peterbilt employee Dalton Foos, 19-year-old Midwest High School graduate Justin Robles and 17-year-old Abigail Helms. The sole survivor, Tahayla Kohtala, born in 2004, was told she narrowly avoided having her leg amputated. For her injuries, Spearman is also charged with driving under the influence resulting in severe bodily injury.

Law enforcement contacted Spearman on foot near the crash scene. A blood draw at the hospital that morning showed Spearman had a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.173%, over twice the legal limit, according to the Natrona County Sheriff’s Office report.

A sheriff’s office spokesperson told Oil City News that deputy investigators were called to assist state troopers in March 2023. The case was formally handed over to the NCSO in the weeks before Spearman was charged in November 2023.

Investigators say Spearman was driving a borrowed Toyota and headed to Midwest when he crashed into the cable median near milepost 194 on Interstate 25 near Bar Nunn.

The GMC Yukon with the four occupants came upon the scene about five minutes later and sideswiped the crashed Toyota. The SUV then went off the road and rolled several times, ejecting all four occupants.

Kohtala was adamant that Foos, the driver of the Yukon, had not been drinking and that there was nothing going on in the vehicle to distract him. She recalled Foos had swerved after coming suddenly upon the disabled Toyota, which was facing the wrong way and had no visible lights.

Investigators later found that the Toyota’s hazard light switch had been toggled, but there was front-end damage from the initial crash that apparently left the lights inoperable.  

Spearman initially told investigators that the Toyota he’d been borrowing had suffered some mechanical failure, NCSO Investigations Corporal Ken Jividen said at the preliminary hearing. The owner told authorities that it had recently been serviced and was in good working order. Jividen said there was no evidence of mechanical failure.

At the preliminary hearing, Spearman’s public defender, Dylan Rosalez, challenged whether Spearman could be called the “proximate cause” of the deaths and injury resulting from the Yukon swerving to avoid the disabled Toyota.

Wyoming Supreme Court case law concerning a fatal Natrona County crash in 1999 states: 

To be the “proximate cause,” the accident or injury must be [citation] the natural and probable consequence of the defendant’s wrongful conduct; a “substantial factor” in bringing about the injuries or death.