Murder Mystery: The Moab Murders, Pt. 2

Murder Mystery: The Moab Murders, Pt. 2

A surveillance camera at Woody’s Tavern in Moab, Utah, filmed Kylen Schulte and Crystal Turner in the hours leading up to their murders in August 2021. The camera followed them as they walked away. Five days later, a friend found Turner and Schulte at their campsite near an irrigation ditch in the South Mesa region of the La Sal Mountains. They were dead from multiple gunshot wounds. Though they were nude from the waist down, the state medical examiner determined the victims were not raped. One theory was that it was a hate crime. Turner and Schulte were a lesbian couple who had been married for just four months.

The Grand County Sheriff’s Office (GCSO) is in charge of the case, with assistance from the FBI. The victims’ loved ones have criticized the GCSO for consistently playing their cards too close to the vest, failing to provide more frequent updates. On the flip side, the GCSO has asked the public to show restraint in sharing suppositions and conjectures on social media. Online armchair sleuths repeatedly tried to link Brian Laundrie to the slayings because he and Gabby Petito were in Moab at the time, but authorities ruled out Laundrie by checking cellphone transmission towers.

It rained between the night of the homicides and the discovery of the bodies, so some pieces of physical evidence, such as tire tracks and footprints, may have washed away, but a few things were preserved, including a single Samsung cellphone. It is not clear to whom the phone belonged, but a search warrant requested a specific phone number from AT&T. Investigators know of another number used by both victims. Court documents state, “As only one cellphone has been recovered, we are currently searching for another phone that was known to be possessed by one or both victims. The information stored by the service provider/carrier of this number could provide information about the whereabouts of the phone as well as other information that may lead to a suspect.”

Bullet fragments along with four shell casings were also collected from the crime scene, so detectives know the slugs were 9 mm.

“It’s a silver-colored 9 mm bullet,” Schulte’s father, Sean, says. “It’s a very specific ammo.”

Sean has been active in pursuing leads on his own, and he received roughly 40 tips in a “clue box” he set up on a picnic table at a Moab park. In September, some people brought him a set of keys they had found in mud alongside the road leading to the killing ground. The keyring had a tag on it but no clear name or logo with which to trace the owner. Sean says he gave all the tips he had received, including the keys, to the GCSO but did not hear back from them.

Besides inspecting the crime scene, officials went through the victims’ belongings in their Econoline van parked at McDonald’s where Turner worked. Schulte and Turner had converted the van into a living space because they couldn’t afford housing in Moab. The search produced a journal, a Bible, newspaper clippings, mail, pay stubs, notes with phone numbers and a damaged black Samsung Galaxy 8, apparently not the missing phone mentioned in the court documents. But also in the van were an electronic scale, a glass pipe and 10 Clonazepam pills. This raised another potential motive. Were the murders committed because of a drug-related dispute? Friends and relatives were quick to point out that the Clonazepam was prescribed for anxiety and panic attacks. The only other drug used by the women was medical marijuana, and it has been legalized in Utah since 2018; hence, the glass pipe. They used the scale to weigh packages when they sold items online.

On the night of the slayings, a wedding party was being held at Whispering Oaks Ranch, which offers lodging and is a venue for reunions and other special events. The resort is on La Sal Loop Road — not far from the location of the double homicide. But according to a local resident, no one could have seen the campsite from the gathering, and noise from the celebration probably would have prevented wedding revelers from hearing gunfire. Nonetheless, Schulte’s father says he acquired a list of the 100 guests and offered it to the sheriff’s office and the FBI, but nobody returned his call. The GCSO did collect and analyze videos from home security cameras in the area.

Turner and Schulte had told their friends about a man camping near them. He creeped them out. They did not give any details about him, but a Schulte family friend, Cindy Sue Hunter, was quoted as saying, “They weren’t comfortable. … They made the offhanded comment that if they were murdered, it was him. I don’t think they ever thought that was going to happen, or I don’t think they would’ve went back up there.”

Turner and Schulte were shot several times in the back, sides and chest. Despite having the element of surprise on their side, how could one person carry out the deed alone? A friend of Turner’s thought the newlyweds might have been partially unclothed because they were being intimate. If so, this could explain how they were caught off guard. Particulars about the angle of the shots have not been released to the media, so the idea of a second gunman remains a mere opinion.

On Feb. 22, the GCSO announced they had interviewed a person of interest within days after the deadly shootings. A deputy, who stopped a 27-year-old man for a traffic violation, thought the driver was very edgy and acting weirdly for someone just getting a speeding ticket. His vehicle was a Subaru Outback with Ohio plates, but he had a Utah driver’s license and lived in the vicinity of Moab. When lawmen questioned him about the victims, he acknowledged he knew Schulte because he had been hired to work at the Moonflower Community Co-op, where she was also employed. Asked point-blank if he had killed the women, he said he had not, but the nervous behavior exhibited earlier was gone. Instead, he stared vacantly at his interrogators. His conduct and demeanor made him look like someone with untreated mental health issues or an ex-con apprehensive about being pulled over by a cop. A co-worker said the man claimed to hear voices. A place of business had asked him to leave for allegedly making unwanted advances to women.

Unable to account for his whereabouts at the time of the slayings, he said he had camped in the mountains and gave officers the location. There, deputies confiscated two blankets and a bloody jacket. Nationwide news outlets covered this purported break in the case only to learn the next day that the GCSO had released the man, saying he had been cleared. The blood on his jacket was not a match to either victim.

The sheriff’s office states their investigation is active and ongoing, and there is a feeling the homicides will be solved. Meanwhile, the citizens of Moab are left to cope with the fear of not knowing if the evildoer is a stranger or a member of the community who knew the victims.