Two men charged with killing a former Star Valley resident with a bow and arrow will have their case continue to be prosecuted. According to the Cowboy State Daily, Sublette County Attorney Clayton Melinkovich, believes his findings “establish probable cause for the charges applied to both Rowan Littauer, 19,  and Orion Schlesinger, 18.” 

According to court documents, officials say that Littauer and Schlesinger made plans to kill Dakota Farley on February 1. Farley is a former resident of both Alpine and Star Valley Ranch but his official residence at the time of his death is listed as Big Piney. He was a 2019 graduate of Pinedale High School. 

RELATED: TWO CHARGED IN DEATH OF BIG PINEY MAN –

According to Sublettle County Sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Travis Lanning, Farley was shot through the arm and chest with an arrow which struck him in his aorta and trachea, killing him. 

Littauer has been charged with first-degree murder and Schlesinger has been charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. Both men could potentially face life in prison or the death penalty if convicted. In addition, Littauer has been charged with the mutilation of a dead body after allegedly shooting Farley in the head with a BB gun after his death. This charge carries a potential of no more than five years in prison, a fine of $10,000 or both. 

A GoFundMe account for the Farley family was organized and is no longer accepting donations. It raised $9,865.

The Death Penalty in Wyoming

The last time Wyoming executed an inmate was in 1992 when Mark Hopkinson was killed by lethal injection. In 2001, Governor Jim Geringer signed into law the option of life without parole as an alternative for defendants convicted of first-degree murder. Hopkinson was executed for the murders of Vincent Vehar, Beverly Vehar, John Vehar and Jeffrey Green. The “Vehar Bombing” took place in Evanston in 1977 in which Hopkinson hired Mike Hickey to drop a homemade explosive device into the basement of the Vehar home. In a separate incident, Green’s mutilated body was found in 1979. 

Hopkinson is the only person to be executed by the State of Wyoming since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1977 following Furman vs Georgia. 

The last man on Wyoming’s Death Row, Dale Wayne Eaton, had his death sentence overturned in 2014 and resentenced to life in prison in 2022 after a Wyoming federal district court overturned it as a result of Eaton’s appeal of a guilt-phase ruling. Eaton was connected to the death of Lisa Marie Kimmell who disappeared in March of 1988 and was found six days later in the Platte River by a local fisherman. Eaton is also considered to be connected to several other murders known as the Great Basin Murders which occurred between 1983 and 1996. 

Both Hopkinson and Eaton are considered by investigators to be serial killers. 

John Boyer became the first man to be legally executed in Wyoming and was publicly hanged in front of a jail in 1871.