BLM employees faces charges in 3 shooting deaths

Arrest made in horse kills
From Billings Gazette

By JEFF GEARINO Casper Star-Tribune | Posted: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 9:45 pm

ROCK SPRINGS - Authorities have arrested a Bureau of Land Management employee in connection with the June shooting deaths of three horses at the agency's holding corrals.

BLM spokeswoman Lorraine Keith said Tuesday that Jason Hein was arrested in Billings on Friday.

"It's good news that the process is working ... and hopefully we'll have closure soon," Keith said.

She said authorities aren't aware of a motive for the shootings.

Hein is still an employee of the BLM, but Keith said he has been on "administrative leave" from his job at the agency's Rock Springs Field Office. He has been employed by the BLM for several years.

Keith said Hein is being returned to Sweetwater County to face multiple charges.

BLM personnel arriving for work June 12 discovered that three wild horses had been shot and killed by an unknown person sometime during the night of June 11.

Two of the horses killed were privately owned, and a third horse was a wild mustang that was being held at the corrals.

The wild horse had been gathered as part of BLM roundup operations and was being held at the Rock Springs horse corrals while up for adoption. The agency's corrals and wild horse operations were not closed as a result of the incident.

The June shootings marked the second time in nearly a decade that wild horses have been shot and killed in Sweetwater County.

In February 2001, more than 30 wild horses were shot and killed on federal rangelands northeast of Rock Springs in the Red Desert. That case remains unsolved.