MOAB, Utah – FIRST ON FOX: Utah investigators have not ruled out a potential connection between two high-profile cases in picturesque camps around Moab: a horrific double homicide that left the newlyweds dead and an apparent lover dispute with a missing woman.
“We’re looking at everything, I mean, anything that was suspicious at the time or we’re not ruling anything out at the moment,” a spokesman for the Grand County sheriff’s office said Wednesday afternoon. “Therefore, we are only investigating the information as it enters.”
Crystal Turner, 38, and Kylen Schulte, 24, were last seen on August 13 at Woody’s Tavern on Moab’s main street. They were found shot in the South Mesa area of La Sal Loop Road five days later.
MISSING LITTLE GABBY: UTAH POLICE WAS CALLED FOR INCIDENT INVOLVING PAIRS OF VANNING CRO COUNS
Deputies have not yet identified any suspects, the spokesman said, and are investigating all possible clues.
A friend discovered the victims partially stripped and wounded by bullet wounds, according to an order obtained by FOX 13, based in Salt Lake City.
Schulte was working nearby at a cooperative grocery store called Moonflower, the herbal organic winery where Gabby Petito, 22, and Brian Laundrie, 23, got into an emotional discussion that sparked a police response on the 12th. of August.
The proximity of time and location sparked speculation that the two separate incidents could share another connection.
No charges were filed after the national call, but the incident was enough for a third-party witness to call 911. The engaged couple, who had been cheating across the country with a Ford Transit van since early July, went tell police that stress and mental health problems had been accumulating undisclosed before the argument.
To be clear, there is no evidence that the two are connected at this time.
MOAB DOUBLE HOMICIDE: UTAH AUTHORITIES, FBI HUNTING FOR SUSPECTED IN KILLING NEW MARRIED COUPLES
Police separated the two and installed Laundrie in a hotel overnight to cool things down. Petito stayed in the van, which Laundrie drove home to Florida without her on Sept. 1. It was ten days before her fiancé’s mother notified her that she was missing and six days after Petito’s last known video call from Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park.
Laundrie has been hiding at her parents’ home in North Port, Florida, and has hired a lawyer and declined to answer police questions.
North Port police said they were aware of the Aug. 12 incident and that “it certainly paints a picture that leads to Gabby’s disappearance.”
Chief Todd Garrison on Wednesday called Laundrie’s lawyer on Twitter.
“Mr. Steven Bertolino, that is, the @NorthPortPolice needs your help to find Gabby Petito,” he wrote. “Call us to arrange a conversation with Brian Laundrie. Two people went on a trip and one person came back!”
Bertolino did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Richard Stafford, a spokesman for Petito’s family, also issued a statement Wednesday asking Laundrie to cooperate with police, calling his silence “reprehensible.”
“Brian says he wants to sit in the background while we look for Gabby in the desert of Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks,” he said. “Brian left Gabby in the desert with some gray bears and wolves while he was sitting in the comfort of his house. In his house!”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPLICATION
Laundrie has been named a person of interest but not a suspect in connection with Petito’s disappearance, and authorities have not definitively linked the two cases.
Turner and Schulte were recently married on a camping trip when they were shot and killed. Schulte’s aunt, Bridget Calvert, said her niece and Turner had talked to friends at least twice about a man who was “dragging” them around the camp, FOX reported 13.
The researchers did not have an immediate description of the creeper.
The FBI helps in both cases.
Audrey Conklin of Fox News contributed to this report.