CHEYENNE – United States Attorney Christopher A. Crofts announced that on March 25, 2015, Ardis Enos, a 21-year-old enrolled Eastern Shoshone woman from Ethete, was sentenced by United States District Judge Scott W. Skavdahl for voluntary manslaughter.
Enos received 132 months imprisonment, to be followed by three years of supervised release, and was ordered to pay a $100 special assessment and restitution in the amount of $3,700. The charge stemmed from Enos killing, upon a sudden heat of passion, her newborn son on March 26, 2014, on the Wind River Indian Reservation.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
United States Attorney Christopher A. Crofts would like to remind everyone that a parent or parent’s designee may relinquish a newborn child who is 14 days of age or younger to a safe haven provider. These include a fire station, hospital, police department or sheriff’s office or any other place of shelter and safety identified by the department of family services which is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week in accordance with Wyoming’s Safe Haven Laws. Croft said a person can retain complete anonymity.
Relinquishment of a newborn child shall not, in and of itself, constitute abuse or neglect and the newborn child shall not be considered abused or neglected so long as the relinquishment is carried out in substantial compliance with the provision of the safe haven act.
