A year-long investigation into a baby’s death led to murder and child abuse charges against the mother’s boyfriend, say authorities.
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A Laramie County judge set a $1 million cash bond for John D. Haney, 41, after prosecutors accused him of murdering his girlfriend’s 10-month-old daughter and abusing her before her death last year.
Haney’s first appearance in court brought into public view a case that had remained mostly closed while detectives worked through autopsy results, medical records and home surveillance data. Prosecutors charged him with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse after the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office said it had spent nearly a year investigating the child’s March 2025 death. The high bond, and the judge’s decision to go beyond what prosecutors requested, signaled the seriousness of the allegations and the weight investigators say they now have behind them.
At the March 23 hearing, Haney appeared by video from the Laramie County Detention Center and said he understood the felony charges. District Attorney Sylvia Hackl asked Circuit Court Judge Timothy Forwood to impose a $500,000 cash-only bond. Instead, the judge doubled it. “The court cannot understate the nature of this crime,” Forwood said in remarks reported by local media. Haney answered that he had no way to pay that amount and asked the court to appoint a public defender. The sheriff’s office had announced three days earlier that detectives arrested Haney on March 20 on a warrant tied to a death investigation that began in March 2025. The agency released little else at the time, saying no further details would be given until the case was bound over to district court.
The fuller narrative emerged through a probable cause affidavit described by local news outlets. Investigators said Haney was caring for the baby at his home the morning she stopped breathing. He told detectives he picked her up after meeting her mother at a grocery store, returned home around 8 a.m., fed her a bottle and laid her down for a nap in the master bedroom. He said she woke intermittently, then he went to the bathroom for several minutes and came back to find her face-down and unresponsive. He reported performing CPR for two or three minutes before calling 911. He also sent the girl’s mother a message telling her to come home immediately, according to the affidavit. But first responders said the baby’s body felt colder than Haney’s short timeline would suggest, and that discrepancy became an early fault line in the case.
From there, the case leaned heavily on devices and records rather than eyewitnesses. Detectives obtained data from Haney’s Ring camera system and said some footage from the morning had been deleted by someone with administrative access to the account. According to the affidavit, two clips were removed shortly before the first deputy arrived. Investigators also said one motion-triggered recording at 9:40:34 a.m. captured what they believed was the baby screaming. Another account of the footage said Haney was seen standing in a bathroom doorway before the recording stopped, with no clip showing him leaving. Haney denied knowingly deleting video and later said he did not remember doing so. Investigators wrote that deleting those clips required a sequence of deliberate steps, making an accidental removal difficult to accept as an explanation.
Medical findings added a second layer of evidence. The child was taken to a hospital and later pronounced dead. X-rays showed fractures in one arm and both legs, and the affidavit said the injuries were in different stages of healing. Doctors described them as highly concerning and suggestive of abuse. Investigators later reviewed the completed autopsy findings in December 2025 and concluded the girl died from asphyxiation, with the manner of death ruled homicide. Records cited by local outlets said the broken bones did not directly cause the death but were important because they suggested earlier harm. The child’s mother told detectives she had noticed reduced use of her daughter’s limbs and swelling in the legs and feet in the weeks before the death, though she thought the symptoms might be tied to medication.
The next legal question is whether prosecutors can show enough evidence at a preliminary hearing to move the case deeper into the court system. If convicted, Haney could face life in prison on the murder charge. Local reporting said prosecutors were not pursuing the death penalty because there was no evidence of premeditation. The aggravated child abuse count also carries a separate prison exposure. For now, the case remains in the early charging stage, but the public record already shows the shape of the prosecution: an emergency call, a disputed timeline, deleted home surveillance clips, a recorded scream and medical findings that investigators say support homicide.
As of the latest public update, Haney remained jailed in Laramie County, and the next court date is expected to determine whether the charges proceed to district court.
Author note: Last updated April 17, 2026.