Major update in murder of couple with ties to Gabby Petito case as cops detail ‘unnerving man with blood-stained jacket’
MULTIPLE search warrants have recently been unsealed to reveal possible new evidence in a couple's murder that was thought to have ties to Gabby Petito's case.
New documents reveal that after Kylen Schulte, 24, and her wife Crystal Turner, 38, were found dead at their Utah campsite in a double homicide, police issued a search warrant for a 27-year-old man who had been pulled over just one day after the couple was reported missing.
The report of the suspicious man's encounter with the police outlined an interaction “so unnerving that the veteran law enforcement officer decided not to write the speeding ticket as he did not want to take his eyes off of him.”
Schulte and Turner were found dead at their campsite on August 18, 2021, with multiple gunshot wounds. Police ruled it as a homicide but believed it to be an isolated incident.
After the bodies of the newlyweds were discovered, police obtained a search warrant for the unnamed man's vehicle and interviewed him at his place of work -- Moonflower Market, coincidentally where Schulte also worked before her murder.
However, the man had recently started his job at the co-op recently and said he had never worked directly with Schulte. But as law enforcement left the market, they were told that the man had frequented the market before he worked there, and he had even given another cashier a red rose.
When the man could not account for his whereabouts on the days that the homicides likely occurred, law enforcement officers performed a search at a location that the man would "normally sleep at" and gathered two blankets and a jacket with a material that appeared to be blood on it as potential evidence.
Schulte and Turner would have passed this location on the way to their campsite.
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Court documents state that only one cell phone was recovered at the scene when it's known for a fact that Schulte and Turner, just married in April, each had their own phone.
The second search warrant, unsealed on Tuesday, requested a specific phone number with AT&T. The one cell phone recovered as evidence was Samsung.
Investigators believe that the provider's information about the number of the missing phone could lead to the whereabouts of the AT&T phone or even to a suspect.
In a third search warrant, video surveillance from Woody's Tavern was requested. The two women were last seen at the Tavern.
Schulte allegedly mentioned to her friends at the Tavern that a "creepy man" had been near the couple's campsite. She even said that if something happened to them, to know that they were murdered by him.
Schulte's dad Sean-Paul said the couple might have played pool with Gabby Petito and her fiancé Brian Laundrie at Woody's Tavern in the hours before their death.
The coincidences don't stop there, as Petito and Laundrie were in Moab on August 12 where they were seen arguing outside Moonflower Co-Operative, where Kylen worked as a cashier.
That was the day that police separated the couple after a domestic incident and Brian stayed at a hotel -- which was a short drive away from the tavern.
Petito, 22, was last seen on August 24 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her body was found on September 19 in Grand Teton National Park, and the cause of death was revealed to be strangulation by Brian Laundrie, who later committed suicide with a gunshot wound to his head after going missing for a month.
The search warrants remained sealed until recently because they could have posed a "serious impediment to the investigation."
The unsealing of these search warrants could mean that police are no longer investigating the suspicious man mentioned, who will remain unnamed as he has never been arrested nor charged by the Grand County attorney.
The attorney's office cited possible legal issues as the reason for keeping the documents sealed for months.
“As the nature of this crime is severe and the potential jury pool is small this investigator fears that the release of this warrant could potentially taint the jury and cause legal issues for the prosecution or defense during trial."
Sean-Paul also posted a reminder on a Facebook group for the case that "This is an old warrant that is being UNSEALED."
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He went on to say: "If law enforcement needs time to pick away at all of the other leads so that this one stands alone then fine give them time and space to do the work."
The father encouraged anyone with a tip about the couple's case to call county investigators at (435) 259-8115.
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