Fourteen months after a man was found in an abandoned red truck in a remote region of the Wind River Indian Reservation with two gunshots in his head, prosecutors have no ongoing, public murder cases in the December 2024 death of Riverton man Rex Lofts.
Lofts, 72, died of what the autopsy report called a homicide with two gunshots in his head around Dec. 2, 2024, but his body wasn’t found until April 21, 2025, according to Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation agent Kingston Cole’s investigation affidavit.
Cole, DCI Team Leader Brady Patrick, and others investigated the case. The result was a 12-page affidavit by Cole, which Fremont County Chief Deputy Attorney Tim Hancock filed alongside a felony murder charge in Riverton Circuit Court on Oct. 24, 2025 – against Fort Washakie man Jose Gonzalez.
Gonzalez wasn’t the only person implicated.
Cole’s affidavit, drawing from confidential informant and identified source interviews, alleges that Gonzalez, Luke Evan Engavo Sr. and his son Luke Evan Engavo Jr., Skeeter Engavo, Zackary Witt, and Fabian Tarness were all present and involved when Lofts was shot.
Gonzalez, whose DNA was reportedly found on Lofts’ truck steering wheel and on the dead man’s out-turned pockets, was the only one formally charged – at least as far as the public case file shows – in this case. He was charged with felony murder on that basis: a charge theorizing that he was committing the felony of aggravated burglary, and Lofts died in the process.
Hancock dropped that case early last month.
“The fact that we have some co-defendants over which we do not have jurisdiction and only one over which we had jurisdiction creates a lot of complications in prosecution,” said Hancock.
He declined to go into detail on the jurisdictional challenges.
But the way felony-level prosecution on the Wind River Indian Reservation works in general, the federal government through its Wyoming-based U.S. Attorney’s Office would prosecute defendants who are tribal members. And the Fremont County Attorney’s office would prosecute non-tribal members implicated in crimes on the reservation.
Past court filings for each man list them all as “American Indian,” but call Gonzalez “white.”
As of Monday, Wyoming’s federal court file showed no current charges for any of the suspects.
“The feds are the only ones that have jurisdiction over (Gonzalez’s) codefendants,” said Hancock. “It’s just – it’s a prime example of where jurisdiction gets difficult.”
Hancock added, “They have a different way of doing their prosecutions than we do.”
Fremont County Attorney Micah Wyatt, who shared the phone interview with Hancock on Monday, said the federal U.S. Attorney’s Office in Wyoming “has always been a system where their discretion often outweighs the public’s expectation.”
Wyatt was appointed by the Fremont County Commission when his predecessor left mid-term, but normally the Fremont County Attorney is elected – whereas the top federal prosecutor of each region is appointed by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
DCI had compiled a case and presented it to the Fremont County Attorney’s Office.
The federal U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to say whether DCI did the same for it.
“As you know, I can speak in general terms that cases are brought to us by a variety of law enforcement agencies - federal, tribal, state, and local - for possible prosecutorial consideration following their investigation into a suspected violation of federal law,” said the federal office’s spokeswoman Lori Hogan in a Monday email exchange in which Cowboy State Daily also included U.S. Attorney Darin Smith.
“We consider each case based on the evidence and what can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law,” wrote Hogan. “However, we cannot comment on the existence or lack thereof of any potential investigation or case that is not part of the public court record.”
DCI commander Ryan Cox said he was out sick, and that DCI Director Ronnie Jones, whom Cowboy State Daily also emailed, was out as well.
Cox deferred comment to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Finding The Truck
Lofts was found dead in the back seat of his red 1998 GMC pickup in a remote area on the Wind River Indian Reservation on April 21, 2025 – more than four months after his phone reportedly shut off. That was also more than four months after his family wanted to register him as a missing person, and more than three months after authorities agreed to list him as a missing person Jan. 12, 2025, the affidavit says.
The autopsy indicated he was shot twice with what Cole believed was a 9mm projectile, and his cause of death was listed as a homicide.
Investigators started visiting with confidential informants that, Cole attested in the affidavit, he’s found to be reliable.
One informant told FBI Special Agent Luke Williamson that Luke Evan Engavo Jr, whom the affidavit calls “E Engavo,” had said Lofts beat up his girlfriend sometime in November 2024.
E Engavo came to give the girlfriend – who was bleeding and bruised – a ride to a reservation parcel cluster that law enforcement and locals known as “The Farm,” says the document.
One confidential informant described Lofts arriving days later in his red GMC truck at The Farm with Skeeter Engavo in the passenger seat. Skeeter exited the truck and walked downhill, where he met with Zackary Witt, E Engavo and Fabian Tarness, the source account says.
Skeeter wanted to “scare” Lofts, the source reportedly said.
Witt, E Engavo, Tarness and Skeeter Engavo confronted Lofts after that, says the affidavit.
Lofts was still in the driver’s seat of his red pickup.
E Engavo opened the driver’s side door and stood between the door and Lofts. Tarness stood behind E Engavo and Skeeter stood behind those two men, the document says.
Lofts pulled what one confidential informant called a “bird gun,” or a low-caliber gun.
Witt drew a gun and emptied the magazine in Lofts’ direction, the affidavit relates from the source interview. Tarness, Skeeter and E Engavo were also downrange when Witt opened fire, the document alleges.
The informant reportedly described Skeeter running for the river, then Witt, Tarness and E Engavo moving Lofts, “who had been shot down while in the front driver’s seat,” to a different location in the truck.
The men took about $90, some jewelry, the bird gun and about three grams of meth from Lofts, the informant reportedly said.
Tarness got into the driver’s seat, while Witt and Engavo got into Witt’s vehicle. The affidavit says Witt and Engavo followed Tarness across the river to the location where Lofts and his red truck were found nearly five months later.
Luke Engavo Sr. was also involved in this scene, according to the account of Lofts’ girlfriend, as rendered in the affidavit. But the elder Engavo reportedly told her that Jose Gonzalez and Skeeter Engavo are the ones that “caused this shit, you know.”
The elder Engavo reportedly said it’s odd that Jose and Skeeter convinced Lofts “into coming up to the house when they knew (E Engavo) was going to beat his ass.”
DNA Swabs
Investigators took DNA swabs from the scene where they found Lofts, and from suspects, says the affidavit.
During the DNA investigation Patrick reportedly interviewed Gonzalez.
Gonzalez said he’d been in the passenger seat of Lofts’ truck when Lofts arrived at The Farm looking for his girlfriend, the affidavit says.
“I don’t know if Rex was able to pull his gun or not, uh, I know he had one,” Gonzalez reportedly told Patrick. “But all of a sudden the shooting just started and I … rolled out of the truck.”
Gonzalez said the elder Engavo blocked him and Lofts into the property.
The other men “come flying in and they all jumped out of the vehicles,” Gonzalez said, according to the affidavit. Then Witt “pulled out his gun and tapped it on the window, and then fired a shot to the ground and uhm, and then (Lofts) had his gun down besides him. So I don’t know who shot first or if (Lofts) even got a shot or what.”
Gonzalez said the elder Engavo was there along with E Engavo, Skeeter Engavo, Tarness and Witt, reportedly.
In a separate interview between Patrick and E Engavo, Patrick asked if the men wanted to rob Lofts.
No, came E Engavo’s answer, allegedly. They had wanted to scare him.
“Why’d you wanna scare him?” asked Patrick. “Or why did, why did everybody wanna scare him?”
E Engavo answered, “because he kept putting his hand on my auntie,” the affidavit says. The affidavit had identified E Engavo as Lofts’ girlfriend’s nephew.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.