Cody Fertig appears inset against an image of a gas station in Cheyenne, Wyo. (Cheyenne Police Department; Google Maps)
A Wyoming man who allegedly ran over his ex-girlfriend’s head with his car told police he was angry because she was spreading rumors that made it difficult for him to date other women, authorities say.
Cody Fertig, 33, stands accused of two counts of aggravated assault, and one count each of property destruction, battery, and interference with a police officer, according to the Cheyenne Police Department.
The charges stem from an argument at the Maverik Adventure’s First Stop gas station on Gardenia Drive in the Cowboy State’s capitol city during the early morning hours of Dec. 10, 2023, police say.
The altercation quickly turned violent.
Police were called to the gas station at around 3 a.m. on the day in question, according to a press release. There, officers interviewed two women who recounted their versions of the alleged hit-and-run incident.
“One had been run over by a vehicle and sustained serious injuries; the other had been hit in the face with an ice scraper,” police wrote.
The wild, innuendo-fueled nature of that predawn imbroglio was recently revealed in an affidavit obtained by Cowboy State Daily.
The primary alleged victim is Fertig’s 23-year-old ex-girlfriend, according to police. That day, she was riding in a 25-year-old woman’s Chevrolet Silverado after leaving a house party along with a 44-year-old man who became a key witness in the case against Fertig.
On the way to the fueling station, the younger woman was screaming at Fertig on the phone, the witness told police. As the trio in the truck arrived, they saw the defendant was already there, pacing around the parking lot and looking “agitated,” according to the affidavit.
Fertig’s ex-girlfriend got out of the truck and immediately confronted him, police said.
“One of the females exited the truck carrying an ice scraper and began to argue with Fertig,” police wrote in the press release. “As the argument escalated, he displayed a firearm and pointed it at her. He then took the ice scraper and pushed her to the ground.”
Fertig was charged with pointing the gun — but is not alleged to have fired it, Cowboy State Daily reports. Instead, the defendant allegedly took notice of the ice scraper and asked, “Oh you want to pull a weapon on me?” before drawing the gun from his waistband and then tossing it behind him as he set upon his ex-girlfriend, pushing her to the ground and then punching her in the face over and over.
Fertig is also alleged to have used the ice scraper to strike the truck repeatedly — wielding the simple tool in a fury and going through the driver’s side window to hit the 25-year-old woman in the face.
Two slightly different versions of what happened next converge on one particularly gruesome allegation.
“He returned to the first victim, pushed her to the ground again, and punched her repeatedly before walking back to his vehicle,” the original police press release reads. “As Fertig was leaving the location, he put his car into reverse, and the front passenger wheel drove over the female’s body and head. He then fled from the scene.”
The affidavit obtained by Cowboy State Daily, however, citing several witnesses and surveillance footage, claims Fertig’s ex-girlfriend rose from the ground and ran up to the alleged attacker after he was already in his car. Then, the young woman allegedly pulled open Fertig’s passenger door to yell at him. At that point, Fertig reversed and knocked his ex to the ground with the open door, running over her body and head in the process, according to the affidavit.
Somehow, the woman miraculously survived. Cheyenne Police Department Officer Reece Federer described the initial scene in grim terms: she was lying on her back with a pool of blood around her head. Her head looked broken and swollen. Her ankles were swollen as well.
The woman was “extremely dazed and confused,” and kept repeating herself after she was in the ambulance, according to the affidavit.
“After some time, (she) was able to give the first and last name of Cody Fertig,” the affidavit reportedly says.
The defendant was arrested the next day — after a brief foot chase — at an Albertsons grocery store in Cheyenne.
During his interview with police, Fertig allegedly said he was angry with his ex-girlfriend over the rumor she spread that had somehow precluded him from obtaining a new girlfriend.
“I kind of blacked out a little,” the defendant reportedly told police, according to the affidavit. “I’m not remembering things perfectly.”
Law&Crime reached out to the Cheyenne Police Department and Laramie County for additional details on this story but the department directed us to their media release and public records portal.
Fertig faces decades in prison if convicted as charged.
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