Investigators say video, phone records and medical records undercut a self-defense claim after the Dec. 9 attack.

CASPER, Wyo. — A 37-year-old woman in Casper is accused of stabbing her estranged husband in the neck while he sat on a couch feeding their infant son, a felony case that investigators say began with a domestic dispute and widened into a fight over what the evidence would show.

Authorities say Tabatha Richardson was charged with aggravated assault and battery after deputies responded to the couple’s home on Dec. 9, 2025, and found sharply different accounts of the stabbing. The case matters now because investigators say surveillance video, physical evidence and phone records point away from self-defense and toward planning, while the criminal charge arrives as the couple’s divorce and child custody fight moved in the background.

According to investigators, the husband told deputies he had come to the home to visit the children while the couple was going through a divorce. He said he made a bottle for his son, sat on the couch and fed the baby, then kept holding him so the child would fall asleep. At that point, he told investigators, Richardson said something to him and he suddenly felt pain on the right side of his neck. Investigator Cory Brooks wrote that the husband touched his neck, saw blood on his hand, set the baby down on the couch and tried to get away. He said Richardson stabbed at him again and missed. He then went outside, got into his pickup and called 911. By the time deputies arrived, both adults had called for help, but they were describing two very different scenes.

Richardson told a dispatcher and later investigators that she acted in self-defense after her husband attacked her while she was holding the baby. She said he punched her in the ribs and scratched her, and she responded by pulling a folding knife from her bra and stabbing him to make him stop. A child in the home did not see the stabbing, according to the reports, but investigators said the child heard the husband yell, “What are you doing?” and heard Richardson answer, “What? What am I doing? You’re hurting me!” Deputies later searched the home and reported finding blood, baby clothes, a blanket with blood stains and a black folding knife with a stain on the blade. Investigators also said they did not find signs of a struggle inside the house, a detail they cited as inconsistent with Richardson’s account of a sudden physical attack in close quarters.

The case shifted when investigators reviewed video from a home camera and downloaded data from the couple’s phones. Authorities say a camera that had been removed from outside the home and placed in a bedroom showed Richardson about 2 1/2 hours before the stabbing holding a small sledgehammer and striking herself in the back, shoulders and left rib area. Brooks wrote that the blows appeared forceful enough to leave marks. Deputies later photographed bruising they said was round and similar in size to the hammer. Investigators also reported finding messages Richardson sent to herself about women who had been physically abused, as well as saved material about how to testify about abuse. Richardson first said the hammer use was treatment for a chronic condition, according to investigators, but later admitted she hit herself to protect herself and her children and said she scratched herself with a chisel.

Other records, investigators said, added to the contradiction. Brooks wrote that the knife Richardson described was a common lock-blade knife rather than a spring-assisted one. When she was asked to show how she opened it with one hand, investigators said she described a one-handed motion but demonstrated opening it with two hands. Authorities also reported that a search warrant for her medical records showed she had told her physician in November that there was no physical abuse by her husband, though she was worried about the divorce and losing custody of her children. Investigators said communication from Richardson’s phone showed concern about whether a medical condition could affect custody and reflected suspicion that her husband had begun another relationship before seeking the divorce. A later allegation that he had abused her for 18 years was included in the affidavit, but deputies said they found no evidence of abuse on the husband’s phone.

The house itself became part of the story deputies are building. Investigators said the sledgehammer was later found in the garage tucked into a narrow space between a refrigerator and cardboard, as though someone had tried to conceal it. A blue and yellow concrete chisel that appeared in the bedroom camera footage was not found at first, Brooks wrote, but later turned up under a sleeping bag after Richardson was questioned about it. The husband and wife were both interviewed at Banner Wyoming Medical Center after the stabbing. In the affidavit, Brooks described the husband’s account as immediate and direct, while the case against Richardson grew more detailed as detectives compared her statements with the video, household evidence and records. The picture that emerged was not only of a violent episode in a living room, but of a family already breaking apart, with children present in the house and investigators trying to sort out what, if anything, had been staged before blood was spilled.

Currently, Richardson is out of custody after posting 10% of a $30,000 cash or surety bond. As of the published reports, no arraignment date had been listed. Aggravated assault and battery in Wyoming can carry up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine if she is convicted.

Author note: Last updated April 19, 2026.