Mills Police: Father Attacked Son for Being Gay
Mills police last week began investigating an incident in which a father allegedly beat his 15-year-old son and held a knife to the boy's throat.
None of the people involved in the alleged attack are named in court documents.
According to an affidavit filed in Natrona County Circuit Court, school officials noticed visible injuries on the face of the victim -- who attends a Casper middle school -- when the boy showed up for school on Tuesday, Nov. 21.
A Mills police officer was called to the school, and interviewed the victim with an administrative manager and an agent of the Wyoming Department of Family Services.
The boy reportedly had swelling under his left eye, a scratch near the left eye, redness to his left cheek, as well as several scratches and red marks on his throat and neck.
The boy was "speaking differently" throughout the interview, according to court documents, and said his jaw was tender.
According to the affidavit, the boy said his parents had brought home a case of Bud Light the previous evening and proceeded to get drunk.
The victim said he was laying in his bed and his mother went to bed at about 9 p.m., when the boy's father entered the boy's room and started yelling and arguing with him.
"[The victim] explained that his father disagrees with his sexuality and felt that 'gays' should not exist," the affidavit reads.
The boy's father allegedly got on top of him, used his knees to pin the boy's arms and began to physically assault the boy.
Then, the father allegedly pulled out a small brown folding knife and held the tip of the blade to the boy's throat, telling him he was going to "cut his throat because he is a [expletive removed]."
As he spoke with authorities, the boy gestured to the base of his throat, where the officer reportedly saw a small round mark that appeared to be consistent with an injury inflicted by the tip of a knife.
Next, the boy said, his father began to "slap" him with the knife near the corner of his left eye, where the officer saw a thin slice which extended from near the eyebrow out toward the hairline. That mark, the officer wrote in the affidavit, also appeared recent and consistent with an injury from the blade of a knife.
The boy told authorities that his face was sore and he knew there was some redness on his face that had not been present before the altercation. The officer also reportedly observed several recent horizontal cuts to the left side of the boy's neck; the victim said his father had grabbed his hair, pulled his head to the right and put the knife against his neck.
According to the victim, his mother then entered the room and broke up the fight, which the boy estimated to have lasted about an hour. The mother and father then got into a fight as the father left the boy's bedroom.
The boy told police that his father would have a bite mark on his arm, due to the boy's mother biting the father as the father allegedly choked her.
The boy said his mother later returned to his room and laid with him, saying nothing.
Police looked at the boy's cell phone, which contained text messages from his mother. In one text message, the boy's mother reportedly asked whether the boy had cleaned his face before going to school, because if he went to school "like that," then his father would go to jail.
The boy's mother told him they had no place to go, and would have to move out of state if his father was incarcerated.
After being granted a search warrant, Mills police seized clothing from both the victim and his father; the father's keys and cell phone; and a folding knife with a brown handle.
Police have not confirmed whether an arrest has been made in the case.