Who was the man found at Curt Gowdy?
Sep. 9—CHEYENNE — In the days since he was found badly beaten in Curt Gowdy State Park, Stacey "Jason" Mullen has mostly been pictured in jail mugshots and security camera footage. Mullen succumbed to his wounds in late August, and Laramie County Sheriff's Office still has not identified a suspect in connection with his death.
In lieu of any charges, or even a suspect, what happened to Mullen has been reduced to rumors and speculation. But some community members in Cheyenne remember Mullen as more than just an unhoused person, a man that died on Aug. 27, or the victim of an unsolved, violent crime.
Mullen was known to be homeless by local authorities and community members. He also had multiple arrests on his record, often for misdemeanor crimes like public intoxication and failure to appear.
He was also beloved by many. Karen Wilson, who runs the kitchen at the COMEA House homeless shelter, first encountered Mullen last winter.
Wilson, her husband and Mullen quickly developed an intense bond, one that Wilson hopes she never forgets. She described Mullen as a son to her. When Wilson told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle about her relationship with Mullen, it was difficult for her to do so without tearing up.
"He always used to say that we were the reason for why he was staying sober," she said. "... I hope that he remembered me before he did take his last breath, and I do feel like he did."
Mullen had been in and out of the COMEA shelter for the past year.
Coming to COMEA
Executive Director Robin Bocanegra had a rough introduction to the 50-year-old. When Mullen first walked into COMEA, he was drunk.
Despite this, Bocanegra decided to give him a chance. She gave him a private room where he could get sober and sleep through any of the negative consequences. She said he slept in that room for almost a week.
By all accounts, when Mullen was sober, he was in good shape. He was honest, hard-working and attentive. COMEA helped him get to that place for the first time in a while.
He volunteered in the kitchen, made friends and won over some shelter staff that were skeptical of the chance Bocanegra took on him.
"When he did sober up, he was so humble and so grateful," Bocanegra said. "He volunteered and worked his butt off for us. He would do anything you asked him to."
This was where Mullen and Wilson first met. As people like Wilson began to take a chance on him, they were able to see a side of his humanity that others couldn't.
"I'm an artist, I was an art teacher," Wilson said. "That was our real connection, in the very beginning, for the two of us."
That initial spark made the two inseparable while they were at COMEA, and they both pushed each other to be better.
"Jason was with us, my husband and I, in that kitchen for 41 days sober," Wilson said. "I just loved him to death."
Mullen became close with some volunteers at Family Harvest Church, particularly Dawn Carroll, Lori Chavez and Chavez's husband. The list of people he began to make a mark on kept growing. He became so close to the volunteers at Family Harvest, in fact, that he would occasionally attend services there, Bocanegra said.
"We want to help, so how can we help?" Chavez said of the church's members. "You can always start with food. ... We did interact on small parts, and some more, but ... we know that Jason wasn't perfect. Who is?"
Toward the end of his first stint at COMEA, Mullen asked Bocanegra if he could leave the shelter during the day. She obliged.
Bocanegra said that, for a time, Mullen would come back sober. But one day, Mullen walked out and didn't come back to COMEA that night.
He didn't return for about three weeks. When he got back, the staff at COMEA could tell he had been drinking again. They decided to let him in — again — and by the end of his first night back at COMEA, he was drunk again.
Bocanegra said that Mullen likely drank an entire bottle of liquor before he came in. That way, he could appear sober to the shelter's staff and get through the shelter's search protocols without liquor in his possession.
After a brief period of sobriety, Mullen left again — a cycle people who work at COMEA often observe. Even when they go out of their way to help someone like Mullen, and provide them the space to get better, staff can feel conflicted. Personal consideration for someone's well-being, safety and sobriety aren't always enough. Sometimes, staff must face the difficult decision of turning away someone they like and care about.
Mullen and the Wilsons
Even while he wasn't staying at COMEA, Mullen's bond to Wilson and her family stayed true. He would occasionally stop by the shelter just to see her.
She would always go out of her way to help him, packing him some lunch or allowing him to take extra food. She would even get in trouble for him.
"The last time he was in the kitchen, I gave him something to do, and he said to me, 'Can I have one of these top sirloin steaks?'" Wilson said. "And, I said, 'Yep,' because there aren't enough top sirloin steaks to feed the entire shelter."
He asked her if he could cook the steak himself and kept it in a stash with other leftover meals he'd take. Wilson said Mullen was always hungry, and it seemed to her like he never knew a life without food insecurity. When he cooked the steak she gave him, she noticed that he was a remarkable chef.
"We were so close, and I was very lenient with him," she continued. "I said, 'All right, go outside under the umbrella, eat that so we don't get in trouble.' So, it's like 20 minutes later, and I don't see him in the kitchen or doing anything, and I walked out back and he's just snoozing under the umbrella with this huge plate.
"I got in trouble for it, but I didn't really care. You know what I mean? Like, I don't care. It was the way to his heart. It made him feel good. He felt like he was, you know, human and all together."
Wilson and Carroll also saw Mullen gradually grow more comfortable sharing his passion for art. At first, he seemed embarrassed to show anyone that he was drawing, but people that earned his trust got to see his artwork.
"He was drawing, and he was just an incredible artist," Carroll said. "It was just amazing, the talent he had, and what he was going to do with it. I mentioned to him at the time that Game and Fish was starting a contest for ... the Wyoming stamp. There was prize money, and I said, 'You should go for it.' ... I just thought for sure he would win it. ... I think he was just kind of waiting and waiting, and then I think shortly before the contest was up was, probably, when he realized he should have done that.
"Karen and her husband provided him with the materials to pursue this, and I think it was kind of an outlet for him, and he was so excited to show us."
Early on in their relationship, Wilson bought an expensive set of crafts supplies for Mullen. Her husband initially thought that it was strange that she would do that for a man who amounted to a stranger.
"I remember his face the day we walked in," she said. "We spent over $100 on professional (art supplies). My husband even said to me, 'You don't really know him, why are you spending?' I was like, 'No, man, because it makes all the difference in the world.'"
She fondly remembered a small, but intricate red rose that Mullen drew. The detail in that artwork appealed to Wilson's artistic sensibilities.
"Do you remember that tiny little rose?" Wilson asked Carroll and Chavez. "I mean ... I'll tell you what, every inch of detail was in that. You would have probably been able to smell it. "
The end of Mullen's first stint at COMEA coincided with a leave of absence Wilson took from the kitchen job. She said she still feels guilty for doing that, despite needing the break.
"I just wish I could have ... I should have done more," she said. "But he did choose to do what he did that day, as far as drinking."
Before Cheyenne
Chavez, Carroll and Wilson know very little about what Mullen's life was like before he came into their lives at COMEA last year. They knew he was Indigenous, used to live on a reservation in Arizona and had a mother that loved him. At some point, Mullen also told Wilson's husband, vaguely, about his daughter.
"All I know is that he told me his mom was in Arizona," Wilson said. "He never told me about his daughter, but he told my husband. ... He just said that his mom wanted him to come home."
Chavez, in speaking to Mullen's mother, got to learn a bit more about some of the tragedy that affected Mullen before he met them.
"He had a brother, and I don't rightly know the timeline," Chavez said. "It was (about) a year or two ago that he was also killed. Then, a month or so later, their dad passed away. (His mother) is dealing with a whole lot of loss."
The relationships Wilson and the people at COMEA build with unhoused people can often be complicated. Details about their life, upbringing and past are often kept vague or doled out on their own terms. Sometimes, people you spend a lot of time getting to know vanish, and you're left wondering if you'll ever hear from them. Mullen didn't have a cellphone the last few weeks of his life, and Wilson said his mother kept calling the shelter, asking for him, in the weeks before he passed.
His final weeks
Mullen was turned away the third and final time he tried to re-enter the COMEA shelter. Staff at COMEA saw him the day before he was beaten at a still-unknown location.
Bocanegra said the news of his condition and passing has weighed heavily on staff at the facility, who constantly need to make judgment calls about people on the city's economic and social margins.
"When he came that day, I said, 'Please take him to the hospital because he's so bad,'" Wilson said.
Mullen went to the hospital, but even after medically detoxing, he did not blow a clean test into the shelter's sobriety system. He left the shelter and was found at Curt Gowdy State Park the following evening.
He was pronounced dead on Aug. 27, more than a week after he was found at the park.
Mullen did get a chance to speak with Chavez and Wilson very shortly before he was hospitalized. Less than a week before his passing, he gave Chavez an arrowhead. She wore the necklace when she spoke with the WTE on Friday.
The day he was found, Chavez got to speak with Mullen and said a prayer with him. She told him she loved him.
"Two days prior to that, he came to see me," Wilson said. "He had this look in his eye, and it was exactly like how my kids would have looked at me like, 'Mom, I'm so sorry that I'm back drinking.'"
The aftermath
When Wilson opens the pantry at COMEA, she still finds signs of Mullen. Kool-Aid and chocolate milk powder have been stashed behind other items, where Mullen could keep them safe and sneak some extra food. Now, it's hard for Wilson to go to work without thinking about what happened to him.
"He has nobody here to advocate for him that is a blood-related family member," Chavez said. "But he has a mom (in Wilson) and a friend and relative (in herself and Carroll)."
Chavez, Carroll and Wilson are in the process of starting a GoFundMe page in honor of Mullen. They would like to raise more money for the Silent Witness program in Laramie County, hoping that it will lead to the apprehension of whoever hospitalized Mullen. They are also asking downtown business owners to provide the Cheyenne Police Department with any footage, however short, that they think may show Mullen in his final days.
"If we don't find a cure for finding (Jason's killer)," Wilson said, "when are we going to read about the next person? Casting people away is not what this world should be about."
Until then, all three of them are left with a hole in their hearts. They are dealing with a complex mix of grief, anger and confusion about Mullen's passing, and all the memories they will not have the opportunity to make with the man that left a mark on their lives.
"He could have been a great success story," Wilson said. "He could have been a tattoo artist; he could have been an illustrator. That's why I always feel guilty (about) taking some time off."
Samir Knox is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle's criminal justice and public safety reporter. He can be reached by email at sknox@wyomingnews.com or by phone at 307-633-3152. Follow him on Twitter at @bySamirKnox.
