Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 1

I On the Web Visit www.trib.comrandel for daily updates on the murder trial and more information on the Jennifer Randel case For more Closing arguments page A2 Rolle jury returns verdict: GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS By JOSHUA WOLFSON I Star-Tribune staff writer Donald Rolle showed no emotion as a jury convicted him Wednesday of the kidnapping and murder of Jennifer Randel, a Casper woman he beat to death after they went oft a date. Members of Randel's family cried as a clerk read the verdict in Natrona County District Court at 6:18 p.m., on the 13th day of the trial. The jury of eight men and four women deliberated for about six hours before finding Rolle guilty Please see ROLLE, A2 Illustration by Wes Watson, Star-Tribune staff Starmbune Thursday, September 25, 2008 WYOMING'S STATEWIDE NEWSPAPER trib.com Bush: Pass bailout or risk recession FREE INSIDE llifiBFll VjlllliiW Ji III III I iFA i llll, lit IH 1 1 ii 1 1 1 i 111 I President addresses Americans Inside: McCain suspends campaigning to return to D.C.-A6 By JENNIFER LOVEN Associated Press writer WASHINGTON President Bush on Wednesday warned Americans and lawmakers reluctant to pass a $700 billion financial rescue plan that failing to act fast risks wiping out retirement savings, rising foreclosures, lost jobs, closed businesses and even "a long and painful recession." His dire warning came not long after the president issued extraordinary invitations to presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain, one of whom will inherit the mess in four months, as well as key congressional leaders to a White House meeting on Thursday to work on a compromise. "Without immediate action by Congress, American could slip into a financial panic and a distressing scenario would unfold," Bush said in a 12-minute Please see BUSH, A6 Lawrence Jackson, AP President Bush poses for photographers after delivering a prime-time speech from the White House on the ailing financial markets, Wednesday, in Washington. Tim Kupvck, Star-Tribune Rancher Don Spellman pauses on his place in northern Campbell County, where once-abundant sage grouse are no longer found.

Spellman spends much of his time dealing with coal-bed methane development. Dealing with development Grouse disappear from ranch as coal-bed methane trucks roll in Lummis staffer leaves campaign Decision follows phone call to Trauner press conference pasture or cropland." Spellman doesn't hold out much hope that the sage grouse will make a return. New power poles erected to serve coal-bed methane wells are fixed with bars that prevent raptors from perching, but sage grouse intuitively avoid high structures. Before long, the power poles will be eclipsed by a massive new transmission line being constructed by Basin Electric Power Cooperative. Spellman said he understands that years of drought and a number of other land uses have had a cumulative impact on sage grouse populations throughout the West.

Neither coal-bed methane development nor any other single factor is to blame alone, he said. "I don't blame coal-bed methane for the sage grouse leaving, but they Please see GROUSE. A2 By DUSTIN BLEIZEFFER Star-Tribune energy reporter SPOTTED HORSE In the 1940s, Don Spellman was a boy growing up on the family ranch here in northern Campbell County. The place was covered with sage grouse. The ranch is dissected by Chicken Creek so named for the abundance of the showy game bird.

"This was the sage grouse capital," Spellman said. "When I was a kid, Mom would shoot a couple of sage grouse for lunch." Spellman hasn't seen a single sage grouse on the ranch for two years. This is the same area where wildlife biologists Brett Walker and David Naugle surveyed sage grouse in 2003 and documented a massive die-off related to West Nile virus. "Reduced survival due to the spread of West Nile virus is disturbing because habitat loss and doesn't want anything to reflect poorly on the campaign, and she has made the decision on her own volition to leave the campaign," Lummis said in a telephone interview. When asked her opinion of the appropriateness of the call, Lummis said: "Well, I support transparency, that's the best policy, but as I said she chose to leave of her own volition." In an AP story Tuesday, Seidenschnur acknowledged calling the Trauner news conference and asking a question about U.S.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Seidenschnur denied using a fake name and said she did not'identify herself as a Trauner supporter. Please see STAFFER, A6 By MATT JOYCE Associated Press writer CHEYENNE Republican U.S. House candidate Cynthia Lummis said Wednesday that her press secretary was leaving her campaign after a report the staffer called in to a rival's news conference and used a fake name to pose a question. Lummis told The Associated Press that she did not ask Rachael Seidenschnur to call the news conference held Tuesday by Democratic opponent Gary Trauner and was not aware that Seidenschnur planned to do so.

Lummis said Wednesday that Seidenschnur had decided to leave the campaign. "She is concerned that she degradation already stress sage-grouse populations throughout the species' range," Walker and Naugle wrote in the Wildlife Society Bulletin in 2004. Naugle's continued research of sage grouse in the Powder River Basin, and in 2007 his peer-reviewed studies indicated that the standard density and pace of coal-bed methane development was devastating sage grouse populations here, "over and above those of habitat loss caused by wildfire, sagebrush control, or conversion of sagebrush to i her Wea The Gmuch Index Advisers A11 Casper A3 Classified C3-18 Comics D5-6 Markets A14 Movies A11 Obituaries B3 Opinion A12 Puzzles C5 Weather B6 Wyoming B1 Hfc83 Ijfii Hello, Texas Hello, health Hello, family ttello, hunters Galveston residents are A teen forced to over- Head Start in Casper is Wyoming's new hunt- HjH allowed back into their come cancer and a promoting family ing mentor program HIIH homes for the first time heart condition doesn't togetherness through allows first-time hunters NNfSra since Hurricane Ike let past sicknesses slow shared mealtimes to forgo a safety course LmLLLM demolished the city. him down. PagA3 for up to one year.

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