A young Michigan man currently facing charges in Wyoming for urban deer poaching was also accused of shooting a cow in 2023, according to the publication. Powell Tribune. Prosecutors filed the additional felony charge last week and said the cow appeared to have been shot with an arrow (or multiple arrows) and left to waste, just like the mule deer that was found rotting in Cody over the summer.

The accused, 20-year-old Michigan resident Josh Wielhouwer, now faces a single felony charge of destruction of property in addition to 18 counts for the nine mule deer he allegedly poached and left to rot in 2024. Park County Circuit Court Judge Joey Darrah, who is overseeing the case, increased Wielhouwer’s bail to $43,500 on Friday in light of the additional felony charge, Tribune reports. Wielhouwer’s bail was originally set at $36,000, but he was unable to post it and was held at Park County Detention Center since his arrest in September.

“I take into account that the defendant turned himself in previously, but now we have a felony charge,” Darrah said Friday, according to the publication. Tribune. “It’s a whole different ball game.”

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The original criminal case against Weilhouwer revolved around allegations that he killed mule deer during the summer in downtown Cody. Between August 27 and September 4, two bucks, six bucks and one deer were found killed and left to rot inside the town. Most of the mule deer carcasses were scattered around the Park County complex, which houses the library and other county buildings, and all had extensive head injuries, according to a Wyoming Game and Fish Department affidavit.

Local rangers believe they caught Wielhouwer in the act of poaching deer with a compound bow at the Park County Complex on Sept. 4, but he fled the scene, according to charging documents obtained by the newspaper. (The Park County Clerk could not immediately provide public court records associated with Wielhouwer’s pending criminal cases when contacted by Outdoor life Tuesday.) Park County Prosecutor Larry Echile explained in charging documents that Wielhouwer took to Facebook shortly after to post, “Catch me if you can.”

Wielhouwer would turn himself in just five days later, however, after investigators linked him to the vehicle that was used in the alleged murders. Game wardens explained in an affidavit that they found a silver Ford Fusion at the Park County Complex on Sept. 4 and noticed an arrow inside the vehicle that matched the one found at the complex days earlier. They called the Ford’s registered owner, who said Weilhouwer had driven his vehicle while out of town. And on September 7, they obtained a warrant for Weilhouwer’s arrest.

Wielhouwer turned himself in on Nov. 9 — his attorney said he flew back to Cody from Michigan to do so. He was later charged with 18 felonies: nine counts of taking game without a hunting license and nine counts of wanton destruction of big game. The $36,000 bail recommended by the state was equal to the amount of restitution Wielhouwer would have been required to pay if convicted (at $4,000 per deer). Wielhouwer pleaded not guilty to those charges in September.

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But state investigators continued to look into the murders, which led them to the dead cow that was found on a farm north of Cody in September 2023. The ranger who responded to the incident found “holes in the carcass that appeared to be from an arrowhead,” according to an affidavit filed by the Park County Sheriff’s Office and obtained by Tribune. The affidavit also included a farm worker’s description of vehicles he saw on the road that day, and one of the vehicles was a silver Honda with Michigan plates. Authorities say another hunter reported seeing the same vehicle and that Wielhouwer is the registered owner of a silver Honda with Michigan plates. They also say they found a broadhead in Wielhouwer’s vehicle that matched a bloody broadhead recovered from the farm where the cow was killed in 2023.

Wielhouwer remains at the Park County Detention Center and Tribune reports that a pretrial on the felony charge has been set for Nov. 19. The next court date for his misdemeanor trial is in early February. If Wielhouwer can post the $43,500 bond, Judge Darrah said a condition of his release is that he must give up his firearms, bows, arrows and other weapons to his attorney.