Angelina Rose Bell’s family held services in March while the criminal case against Sterling Louis Black Jr. moved from a police investigation to felony court.
RIVERTON, Wyo. — As a second-degree murder case moves forward against Sterling Louis Black Jr., the public record in Riverton now tells two stories at once: one about the killing of 24-year-old Angelina Rose Bell in a motel room, and another about the young woman her family buried days later.
That split has shaped how the case has unfolded in public. Police first described the death in sparse terms, saying officers had found a deceased woman in a room at the Ol’ Wyoming Motel and suspected foul play. Court documents later added grim detail about a shooting, a young daughter inside the room and a suspect who later turned himself in. At the same time, Bell’s obituary and funeral notices pulled the story back toward her life in Riverton and Arapahoe, where relatives described roots, work and culture that reached far beyond the motel where she died.
Bell’s obituary said she was born Aug. 11, 2001, in Riverton to Byron James Bell and Angel Christine Moss. She grew up in Riverton and Arapahoe, graduated from Arapaho Charter High School in 2022 and practiced traditional Native American ways. The obituary said she worked as a waitress at the Rusty Truck and the Airport Café and later as a housekeeper at the Casino. A vigil with a rosary was held March 12 at St. Stephen’s Catholic Church, followed by a wake, and funeral services were held March 13 before burial at Arapaho Catholic Cemetery. Those notices became the first fuller public portrait of Bell while the criminal case was still taking shape.
The investigation, however, moved on a much faster clock. Officers responded around 7 a.m. on March 7 after a caller reported that a little girl had found her mother and could see lots of blood. Inside the motel room on North Federal Boulevard, police found Bell on the bathroom floor with blood under her head. According to the probable cause affidavit, the child told an officer, “Momma’s in my bathroom.” At the police station later that day, the affidavit says, she added several short statements, including “Daddy went for a walk,” “Mommy has blood on her,” “Daddy was mad at Mommy,” and “Mommy’s dead.” Those lines quickly became the most widely repeated part of the case, both because of their force and because police had released so little else.
Detectives then built the rest of the public case from the room itself. They said a 9 mm casing was found in the toilet bowl and a plastic case for a SAR 9 mm semiautomatic handgun was found in the room with two empty magazines. Bell appeared to have a gunshot wound near the bridge of her nose by her right eye, and investigators said stippling suggested the shot came from several inches to about 2 feet away. A fired bullet was also found on the bathroom floor, according to the affidavit. Police noted signs of drug and alcohol use in the bathroom, but the records reviewed publicly so far do not say who used those substances or whether any lab findings have since been filed. What the public can see is a narrow and physical record: a wound, a casing, a bullet, a gun box and a child’s account.
Other details in the affidavit widened the story beyond that room. Surveillance video showed Black, Bell and their daughter arriving around 11 p.m. the night before. It then showed Black leaving at 2:41 a.m., returning at an unknown time and leaving again around 5:21 a.m., detectives wrote. Motel staff said he had been renting the room since Feb. 12. McCall also interviewed Bell’s relatives, who he said gave consistent accounts of abuse in the relationship beginning in late December or early January. Bell had told family members Black hit her, according to the affidavit, and several relatives knew he had a gun. Even so, neighbors told investigators they did not hear arguing or a gunshot. That contrast has left the public case both vivid and incomplete.
Black turned himself in later on March 7 and was charged with one count of second-degree murder. The charge carries a penalty of 20 years to life in prison if he is convicted. By March 31, a judge had found enough evidence at a preliminary hearing to send the case to Fremont County District Court. Reporting at that point said Black was being held on a $750,000 cash-only bond and that an arraignment date had not yet been set. Public reports located through Apr. 7 did not show a later scheduling update. That means the case has advanced, but only to the point where the felony prosecution is formally taking hold.
In many homicide cases, the victim disappears from public view once the charging papers take over. That has not fully happened here. Bell’s name has remained present in funeral notices, obituary records and repeated local coverage that places her in a community rather than only in a case caption. At the same time, the court process has steadily turned the story toward questions of proof: what surveillance video shows, how the firearm evidence will be handled, whether the child’s statements will be admitted and what prosecutors say happened in the hours before dawn. The result is a public narrative that keeps shifting between loss and procedure.
Where things stand now is clear in only the broadest sense. Bell is dead, Black remains charged and the case is headed deeper into district court. The next milestone is the setting of an arraignment or another court filing that shows how prosecutors intend to move from an affidavit built on one room and one morning to a full murder case in front of a jury.
Author note: Last updated April 7, 2026.