Investigators say the defendant contacted the woman’s workplace as she repeatedly tried to escape from her parents’ Rock Springs home.
ROCK SPRINGS, Wyo. — As a Rock Springs woman allegedly struggled to leave her parents’ home during days of violence, police say her boyfriend took an unusual step outside the residence: He called her employer and said she would not be coming to work.
That June 2 call is one piece of a larger criminal case in which investigators accuse Jake Thomas Canestrini, 24, of keeping his girlfriend from leaving, repeatedly assaulting her and threatening her family and pet. The alleged conduct began after the woman’s parents left town May 30, according to a probable cause affidavit. Canestrini was arrested June 16 and has pleaded not guilty in Sweetwater County District Court. He is being held pretrial on $300,000 cash-or-surety bond. The current jail roster lists kidnapping and multiple assault-related offenses among the pending charges. A jury trial was reported scheduled for Nov. 2.
The woman and Canestrini had been together for roughly three years and were living at her parents’ Rock Springs residence, court records say. The allegations do not begin with a confrontation involving strangers or a public disturbance. Instead, police describe violence developing inside the home once the parents were gone. The woman told investigators that Canestrini threw her to the floor several times and refused to let her leave. Officer Tiffany Harris wrote in the affidavit that Canestrini allegedly kept her on the ground for hours and hit her in the head. When she attempted to rise and run, the woman said, he pulled her back by her hair.
Against that background, the alleged workplace call stands out because it reached beyond the house. Investigators say Canestrini, rather than the woman, contacted her employer to account for her absence. The available records do not say what the employer was told beyond the statement that she would not be at work, and they do not establish whether anyone at the workplace suspected she was in danger. Police nonetheless included the call in the chronology of the alleged confinement. The woman said repeated efforts to resist or escape led to additional violence, an account prosecutors now rely on as they pursue the kidnapping allegation and related charges.
The threats described in the affidavit also reached beyond the woman herself. She told investigators that Canestrini threatened to kill her relatives if she involved police and warned that he could wait years before harming her. During one confrontation, according to court records, he allegedly held a kitchen knife against her throat while threatening to kill her. Investigators also say he threatened her cat. The precise statements appear in charging records, but the substance is that the woman said harm to people and an animal she cared about was invoked while she was allegedly being prevented from leaving. Police characterized the threats as part of an escalating pattern rather than isolated remarks.
The woman described physical assaults involving several methods. She told police that Canestrini strangled her multiple times, including episodes in which she said she could not breathe and feared she would die. She also reported cuts made with a razor blade and puncture wounds caused with a kitchen fork. Investigators documented injuries after she escaped, and medical information cited in the affidavit said a doctor diagnosed her with a concussion. Police reported bruising involving her face, arms, shoulders, legs and knees, along with other wounds. Those findings are part of the prosecution’s evidence, but they remain subject to challenge by the defense and have not yet been evaluated by a trial jury.
The animal-cruelty allegation adds another element to the state’s account of coercion inside the house. The woman said Canestrini squeezed her cat, lifted the animal by the throat and slammed it to the floor despite her pleas for him to stop. The current jail roster lists cruelty to animals as a pending charge alongside the offenses involving the woman. Authorities have not suggested in the reviewed reports that the animal allegation replaces or proves any of the other counts. Instead, it is a separate accusation arising from the same period and will require its own proof if prosecutors continue to pursue it at trial.
The woman’s opportunity to leave came only after Canestrini fell asleep, according to the affidavit as reported by Cowboy State Daily. Once she escaped, officers documented visible injuries and investigators began gathering evidence from the residence. Detectives obtained a search warrant and seized a kitchen fork, a knife and items believed to have blood on them. They also reported noticing a strong smell of bleach in a bathroom. No final laboratory findings from those items were disclosed in the public reports reviewed for this story. Because the case is pending, the evidentiary significance of what police collected remains a matter for court rather than an established conclusion.
Investigators did not find Canestrini waiting at the home. Neighbors told police they had seen him leaving the area on foot with a duffel bag before the search, according to the affidavit. A detective later spotted him traveling in a vehicle registered to his father. Officers stopped the vehicle, and Canestrini identified himself before being taken into custody June 16. The Rock Springs Police Department is listed as the arresting agency on the Sweetwater County jail roster. What began as a woman’s report after escaping a private residence had by then developed into a multi-count criminal prosecution supported by her statements, police observations and evidence investigators said they recovered.
Canestrini’s initial court proceedings included a preliminary hearing at which a judge found enough evidence to move the prosecution forward. He subsequently pleaded not guilty in district court. Cowboy State Daily reported in July that attorney Joseph August Hampton represented him. The publication sought comment from Hampton about the basis for the not guilty plea and whether Canestrini contested the factual account in the affidavit, but the lawyer did not respond before publication. The sources reviewed for this article contain no later detailed public account from the defense. Canestrini’s plea means the allegations remain contested and prosecutors retain the burden of proving each charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt.
The district-court charges currently shown on the county jail roster include kidnapping, three counts of aggravated assault and battery causing or attempting serious bodily injury, strangulation of a household member, interference with a peace officer, three first-offense domestic battery counts and cruelty to animals. Cowboy State Daily reported that kidnapping can be punished by 20 years to life under the portion of Wyoming law relevant to the charged allegations. Additional felony penalties could follow if Canestrini were convicted of other counts. Those maximum possibilities should not be confused with a sentence; no conviction has occurred.
The case now sits in the period between arraignment and the reported trial date. As of Aug. 26, Canestrini remains listed in the Sweetwater County Detention Center as a pretrial inmate with the district-court charges pending and $300,000 bond. The latest court reporting reviewed says jury selection and trial are scheduled to begin Nov. 2 unless the case is resolved or rescheduled. Until then, the workplace call, alleged efforts to prevent the woman from leaving and the violence described in the affidavit remain allegations that will have to be established through admissible evidence in court.
Author note: Last updated August 26, 2026.