Douglas County shooter’s fellow soldier speaks out

The Douglas County gunman, Matthew Riehl was deployed to Iraq in 2009 with the 115th Fires Brigade.

In that same group was a now veteran counselor, Leon Chamberlain. He’s based out of Casper, Wyo. where he previously ran the Veteran Affairs office in town. He first met Riehl when they deployed to Iraq together. Riehl served as a medic and Chamberlain was a behavioral officer. He made sure troops were okay being away from home.

He didn’t encounter Riehl again until September 2017. Some soldiers he knew had reached out to him with concern over Riehl after he posted threats on Facebook to University of Wyoming faculty.

“I made an attempt to make contact with him. It resulted in some very inappropriate things and text messages,” Leon Chamberlain said. He didn’t divulge what was inside those text messages but knew something was wrong.

We asked Chamberlain if he was surprised that Riehl fatally shot Douglas County deputy Zackari Parrish on New Year’s Eve. He answered, “Was I surprised? No. I wouldn’t have made the contact I did with law enforcement here after the post came out.”

Riehl didn’t answer any of Chamberlain’s phone calls and he didn’t hear of him again until he was identified as the Douglas County shooter.

Chamberlain says his biggest concern after getting text messages from Riehl was, “the safety of those around him to be secure and then for him to be safe.”

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