A recently unsealed search warrant identifies a possible suspect in the August 2021 double murder of a married couple in Utah, but authorities say the man has now been given the all-clear by investigators.
The 27-year-old—who was questioned by authorities in the aftermath of the murders—has been “ruled out as a person of interest,” a spokesman for the Grand County Sheriff’s Office told The Daily Beast on Wednesday.
The remains of Crystal Turner, 38, and Kylen Schulte, 24, were discovered Aug. 18 outside Moab by Cindy Sue Hunter, a family friend searching the local wilderness for the newlyweds. Both had gone missing four days earlier and each had been shot multiple times, according to police. The killings stunned the city of 5,200 people, and were particularly hard for Schulte’s parents, whose 15-year-old son was shot to death in 2015, Hunter told The Daily Beast at the time.
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In the days leading up to their deaths, the pair, who lived out of their van, told others that a “creepy” guy had set up camp near them, and that they were feeling unnerved.
A search warrant made public last week states that a Grand County deputy pulled over a 2009 Subaru Outback with Ohio plates a few hours before Turner and Schulte’s bodies were found. The driver showed officers a Utah license and said he lived in the Moab area.
“We were later told that [the man] has been seen around town and that he routinely sleeps in his vehicle,” states the warrant, which was first obtained by Fox13. “One party stated that she had to make [him] leave her place of business as he makes unwanted advances towards women and makes them feel uneasy.”
The motorist “was so unnerving” that the deputy “decided not to write him a speeding ticket as he did not want to take his eyes off of [him],” the warrant explains, noting that the man “acted oddly for being pulled over for speeding[,] almost a combination of euphoria and that he had been caught doing something wrong.”
Later, under questioning by law enforcement, the driver stared “vacantly at the person talking to him, and answer in noncommittal ways,” the warrant continues. The man had been hired a few days earlier at the Moonflower Community Cooperative, the market where Schulte worked, and investigators found his “demeanor…similar to people…who [have] untreated mental health issues,” it says.
One of the man’s coworkers said he “claimed to be able to hear other people’s voices,” according to the warrant. He once gave a female cashier at Moonflower a red rose, but hadn’t had any apparent problems with Schulte, another acquaintance told police.
The man denied killing Schulte and Turner, showing little emotion or signs of nervousness, it states.“I then asked [the man] if he had ever seen Kylen or her wife around town,” the affidavit attached to the warrant explains. “[The man] said that he did not know they were married. [He] went on to say that he knew that Kylen had a female acquaintance as he had seen them together in McDonald’s when he went in to get some fries. This was concerning because Crystal had worked at McDonald’s, Kylen and Crystal kept their van in the parking lot, and often slept in that van. I asked [the man] if he had killed Kylen and Crystal, he said he had not. I then asked if he had a problem with gay people, [the man] said no that he was open minded that way but that he was a straight man, he then rambled again then concluded that he often didn’t find women attractive.”
The man was unable to provide an alibi for the night Turner and Schulte were killed, had no one to corroborate his story, and refused to let cops search his vehicle. He said he had been camping out in the mountains, and provided officers with the location where he last slept. There, cops found two blankets and a bloody jacket, according to the warrant.
A forensic analysis determined that the evidence was unrelated to the deaths of Turner and Schulte, authorities said in an announcement.
Now that the man is no longer thought to be involved in the killings, prosecutors are now moving to have the warrant resealed, the Grand County Sheriff’s Office told The Daily Beast.
Last month, the sheriff’s office said in a statement that the investigation remains “active and ongoing,” and that investigators have zeroed in on “persons of interest but have not yet identified a suspect.”
