In the tiny town of Castlewood, S.D., where everyone knows the Noems, the prevailing sense was that people can’t help but feel bad for Bryon Noem after a tabloid photo leak.
The police chief in Fargo, N.D., acknowledged “missteps” but stopped short of apologizing to Angela Lipps, a Tennessee resident who said she had never been to North Dakota before she was arrested.
Angela Lipps outside her home in Elizabethton, Tenn., before she was arrested in July 2025. She spent five months in jail in Tennessee and North Dakota before she was released on Dec. 24.