A pair of Colorado residents were fined, given probation, and temporarily banned from Utah’s public lands after pleading guilty to charges tied to a theft and disruption incident at an archeological site at Canyonlands National Park last year.
Roxanne McKnight, 39, and Dusty Spencer, 43, of Durango, Colorado, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court on Friday to misdemeanor charges of possessing or disturbing cultural or archaeological resources, as well as walking on or entering archaeological or cultural resources.
McKnight was sentenced to one year of probation and barred from entering Utah’s public lands for one year. Spencer was sentenced to two years of probation and a two-year ban on Utah public lands. Both were also sentenced to pay fines and restitution expenses totaling $1,500.
The two were charged in November 2024, months after Canyonlands National Park officials reported that two persons illegally entered the Cave Spring Cowboy Camp on the park’s Cave Spring Trail. According to federal prosecutors, on March 23, 2024, a National Park Service trail camera positioned outside the site caught a man and a woman accessing a fenced-off area before handling “numerous historic artifacts” from the site.
Prosecutors also claimed that antique nails were removed from the scene.
According to the National Park Service, Cave Spring Cowboy Camp houses a collection of historic and prehistoric items. It displays a variety of “original” objects from pioneer cattlemen’s camps from the late 1800s to 1975, when cattle ranching was no longer permitted in the park.
The site also has many prehistoric relics, such as rock markings from Indigenous people who lived 6,000 to 700 years ago. Prosecutors claimed there are “clear warnings prohibiting visitors from entering the area” at the scene.
