Everything to know about Kylen Schulte-Crystal Turner murders linked to Gabby Petito
UPDATE:
Utah police have now determined that Gabby Petito’s disappearance is not related to the double homicide of Kylen Schulte and Crystal Turner in Moab. Schulte and Turner were last seen alive on August 13 and their bodies were recovered from their campsite in the South Mesa area on August 18.
“It has been determined that the Gabby Petito missing person case is not related to the double-homicide case involving Chrystal Turner and Kylen Schulte,” the Grand County Sheriff said in a statement.
The police were previously exploring a potential connection between the two cases. “We’re looking at everything, I mean, anything and everything that was suspicious around that time or we’re not ruling anything out at this time,” the sheriff’s office had said earlier. “So we’re just investigating the information as it comes in.”
MOAB, UTAH: Law enforcement authorities in eastern Utah have said that they are “not ruling anything out” with regard to how the missing Gabby Petito and her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, were in Moab only a day before Kylen ‘Ky’ Carrol Schulte, 24, and Crystal Michelle Turner, 38 were last seen. On August 18, their bodies were discovered near the South Mesa area of La Sal Loop Road in Grand County, according to the Grand County Sheriff’s Office. Schulte and Turner were partially undressed with multiple gunshot wounds all over their bodies.
On August 12, Moab Police was asked to respond to a 911 call about a "domestic incident" between Petito and Laundrie outside the Moonflower Co-op. The next day, Friday, August 13, Kylen Schulte and Crystal Turner were seen for the last time at a bar in Moab. Online, many have speculated that Petito’s mysterious disappearance is linked to the double murder of the married lesbian couple. However, no solid evidence has turned up yet to support that speculation.
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During a press conference on September 16, North Port, Florida, Police Chief Todd Garrison said his department has shared all the information they have with the Grand County Sheriff’s Office as they investigate the double homicide of Schulte and Turner. “They told us they’re looking at everything at this point,” Garrison said.
The Grand County Sheriff’s Office also said in a statement that it has been in contact with Florida authorities and “we are actively looking into any connection between the Gabby Petito missing person case and the double homicide that occurred in Grand County.” The sheriff’s office said that it “continues to investigate any information received concerning the double homicide. The Sheriff’s Office is not ruling anything out at this time and appreciate the concerns of the public and their willingness to contact this office with those concerns and information.”
What do we know about the double homicide?
As per reports, Schulte was a cashier at the Moonflower Community Cooperative. Kylen Schulte's aunt Bridget Calvert said in a GoFundMe campaign to support her funeral expenses that Schulte’s younger brother was also a tragic victim of gun violence and was killed by a friend at the age of 15.
According to their family, Schulte and Turner had been married for four months and were residing as campers in their van for a while. They regularly camped across various sites in the La Sal Mountains of Utah. Originally, Schulte was a native of Montana and her wife hailed from Arkansas.
The couple had gone camping on the August 14 weekend when they complained to their friends about a man behaving rather oddly near their campsite. Schulte's aunt Bridget Calvert revealed, "They said they were going to go move, they were going to go pack up and move their campsite — that he was still creeping them out." A police search warrant revealed that "Investigators were informed that Kylen had mentioned to her friends that if something happened to them, they were murdered. Kylen had continued by saying there was a ‘creepy man’ around their camp and they had been intimidated by him.”
Reportedly, one of their friends came across one of their bodies in the South Mesa area while searching for them by herself. Later, Grand County Sheriff's Office deputies located the other body. Schulte and Turner were reportedly found “undressed from the waist down,” and one “had on a bra that was raised to expose her breasts”.
A spokesman for the sheriff's office revealed that investigators don't believe that their deaths were the result of a murder-suicide and are treating it as a homicide investigation. Sheriff Steven White told KUTV: “We do think it was an outside party. There has not been any firearms recovered from that area at this time.” The sheriff’s office also said there’s no further danger to the public. But many are not convinced. “Until they can give us more than that, we are not safe,” said friend Cindy Sue Hunter.
She said she ventured to the campsite after they didn’t return as planned and called the police. "It's not a murder-suicide. They don’t have anyone in custody,” Hunter said. “I understand that whoever did this may have left, but he may not have. We don't know." Anyone with information about who killed Schulte and Turner has been asked to contact the Grand County Sheriff’s Office at 435-259-8115.