Kevin Joseph Mendibles, a 37-year-old man from Ethete, Wyoming, pleaded guilty Tuesday to fatally stabbing Inez Whiteman on the Wind River Indian Reservation, Cowboy State Daily reports.
His plea change, from not guilty to guilty, was entered before US District Court Judge Kelly Rankin in Casper. Mendibles faces a potential life sentence at his sentencing hearing scheduled for February 19.
Mendibles was indicted by a federal grand jury in May on a charge of first-degree murder for Whiteman’s death on February 25. The indictment concluded that Mendibles killed Whiteman with premeditation and malice. The federal court is handling the case because felony-level crimes involving tribal members on reservations fall under federal jurisdiction.
Whiteman, who grew up on the reservation and would have turned 38 in June, died just nine days after Mendibles pleaded guilty in state court to a separate domestic violence charge involving another woman.
The earlier case involved a violent encounter on January 13, when Lander Police Department Officer Casey Tadewald responded to a domestic violence report at a local apartment. Tadewald heard a man shouting obscenities and a woman screaming for help.
Upon entering the apartment, the officer found Mendibles, who he recognized from previous encounters, with bloodied hands. The woman, seated in the bathroom, had a laceration near her left eye and was covered in blood. According to the affidavit, she reported that Mendibles had threatened to kill her and struck her in the face.
Mendibles was arrested and charged with domestic battery. He pleaded guilty to that charge on February 16 and was released on an unsecured bond of $1,250 with orders to avoid alcohol and contact with the victim.
Although Mendibles was scheduled to be sentenced for the domestic battery case on March 19, the case has since been classified as inactive. Now, his attention turns to his February sentencing for the murder of Whiteman, where he could face life imprisonment.
