Jordan Martoglio

While apparently intoxicated and suffering from hallucinations last week, a Cody man is alleged to have choked his father, smashed Christmas lights and gone into a neighbor’s home in search of imagined children. Charging documents suggest he may also have fired a pistol round through the ceiling of his residence.

Jordan Martoglio, 30, is facing a felony charge of strangulation of a household member and a misdemeanor count of reckless endangering in connection with the Dec. 13 incident.

As of Monday, Martoglio was being held in the Park County Detention Center, with bail set at $15,000 cash.

Martoglio’s father told Cody police that the incident began around 3 a.m. He said that’s when Martoglio woke him up and said there were children in the basement that needed to be taken care of. According to Martoglio’s father, he found no one else in their Kerper Boulevard home, but he did spot Martoglio’s loaded 10mm Glock pistol on the kitchen counter. While Martoglio yelled at the “kids,” his father unloaded the gun and hid the ammo, and they both went back to bed, the charging documents say.

But later that morning, Martoglio reportedly started breaking things — pulling an elk mount off the wall, smashing strands of Christmas lights and damaging an expensive remote-controlled airplane.

Martoglio later told police he’d also crawled through a neighbor’s basement to chase “the kids.” And Cody Police Officer John Harris, who wrote the affidavit in support of the charges, found a pair of spent shell casings from a 10mm pistol in the Martoglios’ living room, with a bullet hole in the ceiling.

According to the statement that Martoglio’s father gave to police, he tried to get his son to stop. But, he said, Martoglio refused to believe that there were no children in the home.

“We gotta get these kids outta here or I’m gonna kill ‘em all!” Martoglio allegedly said, later grabbing a case that contained his AR-15 rifle.

Ultimately, a fight began, in which Martoglio is alleged to have put his father in a choke hold and strangled him. It ended when his father broke loose and Martoglio fled, the affidavit says; police were called to Kerper Boulevard shortly before 10 a.m.

Responding officers found Martolgio in the middle of the street, crying.

“I have no idea what’s going on,” Martoglio reportedly told them, adding, “I’m telling you, don’t go in that house by yourself!”

He told the officers they would see what he was talking about if they went in. But Officer Harris found nothing except broken Christmas lights and general disarray.

“Jordan [Martoglio] appeared very confused and accused his father of getting rid of the evidence while we were speaking to him,” the officer wrote.

Martoglio was initially taken to Cody Regional Health to be checked out. Medical personnel there reported that his blood alcohol content was high, Harris said, at 0.25%. At the time of the incident, Martoglio was not supposed to be drinking at all; that’s because he’s currently serving three years of probation for driving under the influence of alcohol in Sublette County in May 2019, according to court and Wyoming Department of Corrections records.

Park County Circuit Court Judge Bruce Waters has scheduled a Wednesday preliminary hearing on the strangulation and reckless endangering charges, where he’ll determine whether there’s enough evidence for the case to move toward a trial.

If he makes bail, Martoglio will be required to follow a number of restrictions, including staying away from his father’s house and not possessing any weapons.