By Chase Vialpando
Glenrock Independent
Via- Wyoming News Exchange

GLENROCK —Two Glenrock mothers who allege their teenage children were harassed and stalked for over a year by another parent within the community took their concern for their kids all the way to the Wyoming State Legislature.

Cathy Holman and Brandi Sorensen are working with Rep. Brian Boner, R-Converse/Natrona, and others to update Wyoming’s stalking laws after receiving what they claimed was a lack of justice in their children’s case.

“You stress out wildlife in Wyoming, it’s a felony. You stress out children — nothing, a slap on the wrist,” Holman said.

The current law on stalking (Wyo. Stat. 6-2-506) labels the crime as a misdemeanor, carrying up to a year imprisonment and $750 in fines unless one of multiple other stipulations are met, like causing serious bodily harm to the victim, which could then bump it up to a felony. 

Holman and Sorensen are proposing the state legislature change the law to make a distinction between adults stalking adults and adults stalking minors. 

Under their recommendation for a change to the law, an adult would face a felony, carrying up to 10 years imprisonment and $10,000 in fines, should they be convicted of stalking a minor 3 or more years younger than them.

Boner said Cathy called him on March 4 about updating the law.

“I wasn’t even aware that there wasn’t that distinction (in stalking cases),” he said. “Moving forward, it’s something we’d (the state legislature) consider in the coming months moving into our budget session. There may be some ongoing discussions about whether or not we should have different standards for an adult stalking a minor.”

The state senator said the legislature’s first decision is whether or not the law revisions will be an interim topic – and that would happen during its April 8 session. 

Should this happen and should the legislature create an official bill changing the law, the soonest it could go into effect would be next year.

Along with setting stricter punishments for offenses against minors, Holman and Sorensen also suggest the law define electronic methods of stalking or harassment to include social media, texting, emails and electronic account impersonation.

“So really fleshing out that law to include all these new ways you can now traumatize and stalk them – how you couldn’t before,” Holman explained.

The mothers said they’ve worked with Cyber Wyoming Executive Director Laura Baker to draft these technological updates to the law.

“(Stalking) looks different now than it did 20 years ago,” Holman said, “and we need to update that so we can protect people.”

The final change Holman and Sorensen are urging the legislature to make — albeit not a particularly hopeful one —  is to make the punishment fit the crime, so to speak. 

For example, the punishment for one year of stalking would equate to one year imprisonment.

 

While Holman and Sorensen hope the new threat of extended jail time discourages future stalkers of juveniles, the reason they initially got the ball rolling is because they fear a Glenrock woman, Marcie Smith, charged with stalking their two teenage children, won’t face an appropriate punishment if convicted.

 

The Holman/Sorensen case

Smith, born in 1983, is charged with two misdemeanor counts of stalking in Converse County Circuit Court. Her charges stem from alleged stalking of Glenrock teens Preston Sorensen and Gillian Holman, who are currently 17 and 16, respectively. 

According to court documents, Smith was first cited by the Glenrock Police Department Oct. 1, 2024 for stalking. 

The citation alleges, “(She was) stalking by sending anonymous messages with intent to harass starting Nov-2023.” 

She was issued another citation by GPD for stalking Dec. 17, 2024. While the citations don’t specify the victims and other court records only refer to the minor victims as P.S and G.H, Cathy said the October citation involved Gillian and the December citation involved Preston.

Both mothers and the teens agreed to go public because they believe the law needs changed, they said.

The Holman family was granted an ex parte protection order against Smith Oct. 1, 2024; the Sorensens were granted one Oct. 3. 

Meanwhile, Smith pleaded not guilty to her October charge with the request for a jury trial later that month and paid a $750 bond with the extra stipulations that she wouldn’t contact Preston or Gillian and would abide by any protection orders among other traditional bond agreements like notifying the court of an address change.

Cathy and Brandi said they worked with GPD for more than a year leading up to Smith being charged. 

The mothers said this collaboration included gathering evidence through various text message screenshots, email screenshots, social media screenshots, phone calls and multiple accounts of eyewitness reports.

“I can confirm there was an investigation,” GPD Chief Colter Felton said. “The investigation ended with the charges on that adult female (Smith).”

While Felton also confirmed the mother’s claims that detective Rachel Brurud was involved in the investigation, he said he couldn’t discuss further details of the report as it involved two minor victims.

 

 Background

According to the mothers, Smith allegedly began harassing and stalking Preston in July of 2023 while he was dating Smith’s daughter, another student at Glenrock Junior/Senior High School.

Brandi said she was first alerted to the situation in September of 2023 when she got a notification on a parent alert app about a text Smith had sent to Preston.

“I got this text that said (it was) from Marcie to my son that said, ‘Well just send her (Marcie’s daughter) an underwear selfie.’” 

Brandi later learned Smith had bought Preston and her daughter matching underwear and offered to let Preston live with them should his family move, she said.

Brandi, who knew Smith through their children’s relationship, confronted her about the texts over breakfast the next day. 

After this conversation, Brandi said she thought everything was fine. 

But Preston continued receiving texts from Smith for the next couple months, including during the GJSHS Homecoming Dance in September, at which Smith was a volunteer chaperone. Brandi claims many of these texts pressured Preston to be romantically involved with Smith’s daughter.

Around this time, the Holmans and Sorensens said Preston and Gillian’s long-standing friendship began to change into a romantic relationship. 

According to their parents, the two began officially dating in May of 2024.

Gillian said the harassment against her started in November of 2023 (she was 15) when disparaging texts made to look like they were from her were sent to Preston and another GJSHS student. 

The Holmans reported the situation to GPD but were advised they couldn’t take action unless Gillian or her family received these messages. Then on Feb. 7, 2024, Cathy said she and her husband received a text via an anonymous number about Gillian performing sexually vulgar acts.

“That’s when we could finally report it (and begin the investigation with GPD),” Cathy said.

Meanwhile, Brandi said Preston was also receiving texts from an unknown number in November of 2023, along with the anonymous messages meant to look like they were from Gillian. The Sorensens made their initial report about these anonymous messages with the GPD mid-November of 2023.

Gillian said she continued to receive anonymous messages throughout March, including from a social media account impersonating a peer at GHS. 

According to Brandi, Preston was then sent screenshots of Gillian’s discussion with this account through an anonymous number. Gillian was also receiving anonymous texts slandering Preston.

But these anonymous messages became even more alarming in April of 2024 during the Wyoming State FFA trip when Gillian said she received a vulgar text about the skirt she was wearing.

“I never wear dresses; I never wear skirts,” Gillian said. “So then I realized all of a sudden this person was actually at the convention center watching me, that they had ridden down on the school bus, (were) staying in the same hotel as us. It was not good.”

According to Brandi and Cathy, Smith had accompanied the FFA students on the trip.

Then on April 20, Cathy said she received an email from wyogal1974@gmail.com, which was impersonating a GJSHS staff member. The email slandered Gillian.

“That’s how we got her,” Cathy claimed. “Because you can’t trace any of the anonymous texts or Instagram (messages), but when she made a fake gmail account pretending to be (the staff member), then (Detective Brurud) could get a search warrant for Google.”

Cathy said they had initially thought the anonymous messenger was another teenager, but the depth of the harassment and use of dated lingo in the email suggested it was someone older. 

Cathy chuckled and remarked she even had to explain to Gillian what one slur used against her meant.

The teens’ mothers said they “kept quiet” the next several months while law enforcement “combined their cases,” reviewing information from Brandi’s earlier report from November 2023 and Cathy’s reports. During this time, the two mothers allege GPD received pertinent evidence against Smith, including a confession, but law enforcement did not substantiate these claims to the Independent.

This investigation led to Smith’s two citations in October, 2023 and December of 2024, according to Brandi and Cathy.

 

This week’s hearing

According to Converse County Circuit Court records filed by Smith’s attorney, Patrick Lewallen, Smith intended to change her plea today, March 19, during a hearing at the courthouse in Douglas.

Cathy said she and Brandi’s families have been communicating with Converse County Deputy Attorney Nathan Shumway, who, after discussions with Lewallen, advised the Holmans that Smith would only be facing a maximum of two years of probation (one for each victim) if a judge accepts her change of plea.

“She’s just going to get probation (if convicted). That is it and I think that’s terrible,” Brandi added. “. . . But what else do we do? We move forward and make sure others are safe.”

Smith did not respond to a voicemail left by the Independent. Lewallen was reached via phone call but said he couldn’t say anything about the case as he didn’t have consent from his client to do so.

While Smith’s change of plea hearing was scheduled for Wednesday, she is under no obligation to officially change her plea from not guilty to guilty or no contest until she is in court.

 

The impact/future

While Gillian said she and Preston haven’t had any notable contact with Smith since the protection orders were put in place, there was a potentially-close call earlier this month at the 2025 Wyoming State Wrestling Tournament, where Preston and Gillian were both participants for GJSHS.

While the stipulations of Smith’s bond kept her from attending the state tournament, Lewallen filed for a temporary amendment of bond conditions to allow her to attend to watch her niece wrestle for Natrona County. This was granted, but once the Holmans discovered this, Gillian’s father hand-delivered a letter to Lewallen stating the protection order was still in place and the police would be called if Smith appeared. 

While Smith didn’t appear at State in person, a poster sporting her face and the words, “I AM HERE,” was displayed by people in the Natrona County section of the grandstands.

While Preston was not interviewed for this article per his request, his mother spoke about the impact the year-and-a-half ordeal had on the teenager.

“He would hate me for saying he’s not like this bulletproof person,” she confided, “but just the mental stress (has been terrible) . . . That whole (situation is) affecting his trust in people, affecting how to deal with relationships. This is when he should be learning what a healthy relationship is. Unfortunately, he’s learned what not to do, what’s not normal.”

Brandi praised the extensive help from the Converse County Victim Advocacy Group, adding they helped her and Cathy’s families through the entire process.

Gillian echoed Brandi’s sentiments of the situation being insanely stressful. 

She explained she’s had to deal with rumors at school. She quit volleyball to avoid encountering Smith. In some cases, she’s generally not left the house since the ordeal started. She cited many other grievances forcing her to change her behavior.

“She ruined it, all of it,” Gillian admitted. “I don’t want to say she ruined high school for me, but she definitely ruined some major moments. I just want to see justice done for me and Preston. That’s all I want.”