Johnson County elk poaching case from 2019 reaches completion with plea agreements

The Wyoming Game and Fish report that an elk poaching case from fall 2019 was recently completed when 4th Judicial Circuit Court Judge Shelley Cundiff approved plea agreements reached between the Johnson County Attorney’s Office and two Buffalo residents.

As part of the agreements, Christopher Morales will pay a $5,000 fine, $2,000 in restitution and lose three years of hunting privileges for illegally killing a bull elk. Keisha Filbert agreed to pay a $400 fine and accepted loss of hunting privileges for two years for a transfer of license violation.

The case began when the Game and Fish Department’s Stop Poaching hotline received an anonymous report in September 2019, stating that Morales used Filbert’s license to illegally kill a large bull elk.  An online investigation by game wardens discovered photos of Morales and Filbert each posing with harvested elk. Morales claimed to have killed his bull elk on Sept. 6, with a crossbow and Filbert allegedly killed hers on Sept. 12, also with a crossbow in the same location.

Game and Fish law enforcement personnel interviewed Filbert but she was unable to answer questions about her elk hunt. Instead, she described details from a video recording Morales made of his elk hunt on Sept. 6. In addition, an anonymous source witnessed only Morales coming from the hunting area the morning of Sept. 13, with elk antlers on his vehicle.    

A search warrant was obtained and Morales was interviewed. He denied shooting the second elk and claimed Filbert was with him on the hunt and killed her own elk. But data recovered from Filbert’s cellular phone showed she was never in the hunting area when the second elk was killed on Sept. 12. 

According to the Game and Fish, the investigation continued for several months and in July 2020, Buffalo Game Warden Jim Seeman hiked to the kill sites and found skeletal remains of both elk using locations from Morales’s cell phone. Seeman matched pictures taken at the time of the kills to the geographic locations and collected additional evidence, including DNA samples. 

Seeman and other wildlife law enforcement officers interviewed Filbert again in August 2020. She confessed to not being present during the hunt, or harvesting the animal.

“A great deal of effort was made to try and deceive the game wardens working the case,” Buffalo Game Warden Jim Seeman said. “After the second, illegal elk was transported from the kill site to their residence by Morales, Filbert even dressed up in camouflage clothing and posed with the elk head in the back of a pickup truck, as if she was the hunter.”   

“Thank you to the concerned sportspersons that started this investigation,” Seeman said. “Many wildlife crimes are never detected because people do not pass information to the Game and Fish Department. Honest sportspersons can make a big difference in protecting Wyoming’s wonderful wildlife resource by reporting violations to the Stop Poaching hotline.”

To learn more about the Game and Fish Department’s Stop Poaching program, click here. 

The Game and Fish Stop Poaching hotline: 1-877-WGFD-TIP (1-877-943-3847) or 1-307-777-4330 for out-of-state calls.