Two newly married women were found shot to death in a camp in southern Utah in August, days after telling friends they were concerned that
a "sinister man" was stalking them.
Now that crime takes on a new perspective after the disappearance of a 22-year-old girl who crossed the same area when she was traveling with her fiancé in a truck touring the country, since the authorities do not rule out that there could be some link between the two events.
The bodies of Crystal Michelle Turner, 38, and Kylen Carrol Schulte, 24, were found on August 18 along a highway in Moab,
a small town in the Utah desert wedged between several national parks
and 260 miles to the southeast. Salt Lake City, the Grand County Sheriff's Office reported at the time.
The sheriff opened a
homicide
investigation
but said there was no danger to the population of the area, without clarifying the reasons that led him to that conclusion, according to NBC News, the sister network of Noticias Telemundo.
They are looking for three friends who disappeared while traveling from Jalisco to the city of Colima
April 29, 202101: 42
The two women maintained
a nomadic lifestyle
, traveling from one camp to another, according to Schulte's aunt, Bridget Calvert, to the aforementioned chain.
His relatives and acquaintances were however concerned when they did not show up for work;
days before, they had told friends that they had to move camping because of "a sinister man."
"They are
independent and self-confident
, if someone made them feel uncomfortable it had to be for very valid reasons," Calvert explained.
Kylen Schulte and Crystal Turner Courtesy of Bridget Calvert
The couple had just gotten married in April, and were enjoying a life without complications traveling in a van: "This is how they lived, they enjoyed life and did not worry about material things," said Calvert, "there is no
clear reason. [to kill them]
, the whole community loved them, they were incredible. "
This Thursday, almost a month later, the Grand County Sheriff's Office has indicated that it does not rule out that this crime is related to the disappearance of Gabrielle Petito, a 22-year-old New Yorker who was
traveling with her fiancé
in a van and whose trace is lost after passing through Moab.
The Police Department of that town released this Thursday the recording of the body camera of an agent who intervened on August 12 after
a physical altercation
between Petito and her fiancé, Brian Laundrie.
The young woman's family reported her missing last Saturday, after Laundrie returned home without her, and the truck they were traveling in was located in North Port, Florida, south of Tampa.
Gabrielle Petito and Brian Laundrie Instagram
In any case, the last news about Petito came at the end of August: when he stopped communicating with his family, he was in
Grand Teton
National
Park, in Wyoming
, according to police.
Laundrie is considered a person of interest
in the case by the police, and has refused to cooperate in the investigation despite the fact that the young woman's family has begged him to help them find her.
The couple had been documenting their travels since 2012 on their YouTube video social network channel under the aliases
Nomadic Statik and Van Life
.
The truck in the videos is the one Laundrie used to return to Florida without his fiancée.
