The Times-Independent

Warrant reveals additional details in double homicideFree Access



Photo courtesy of Bridget Calvert

As first reported by The Salt Lake Tribune, a search warrant on a vehicle belonging to the victims of a suspected double homicide has revealed additional details about the suspected murders of newlywed couple Kylen Schulte, 24, and Crystal Turner, 38.

Advisory: This report contains graphic details that might be upsetting.

Namely, the warrant said that the women were found partially undressed in a creek near a campsite in the La Sals, and they had gunshot wounds to their bodies.

A friend of Schulte’s, Cindy Sue Hunter, found the pair dead in the La Sal mountains near a campsite on Aug. 18. The search warrant, signed the next day and filed in the Seventh Judicial District Court and served the day after that, details what officers found at the scene after Hunter reported her findings to police.

Hunter told The Times-Independent that she found the bodies after spotting a vehicle, a blue Kia Sorento, that belonged to the couple at a campground just off La Sal Loop Road, four miles west of Warner Lake.

Grand County Sheriff’s Capt. Shan Hackwell said in the days following the discovery that, in light of a missing persons report for the women filed Aug. 16, the area of Warner Lake and possible camping locations were checked. Neither Schulte nor Turner were located until Hunter found them.

According to the warrant, the bodies of the women were in a creek near their campsite when officers arrived. They found the women “undressed from the waist down,” and one of the two “had on a bra that was raised to expose her breasts,” according to the warrant.

The two also had gunshot wounds. “The wounds were located on the backs, sides, and/or chests of the victims,” the warrant said.

The warrant also provides additional details not previously known about the circumstances leading up to the women’s deaths.

“Investigators were informed that Kylen had mentioned to her friends that if something happened to them, that they were murdered,” the warrant reads. “Kylen had continued by saying there was a ‘creepy man’ around their camp and they had been intimidated by him.”

The vehicle officers searched was a Ford Econline parked at the McDonald’s in Moab where Turner worked. In it, the officers found various items including a black journal with newspaper clippings, mail, paystubs, a Bible, marijuana, a damaged phone, and various medications.

As of Wednesday, Sept. 8, investigators have not identified a suspect and are awaiting lab test results on evidence, according to Grand County Sheriff’s Captain Shan Hackwell.

Notes: The headline on this story has changed. The advisory was also moved to be more visible. Read the apology from the editor on the matter. The name of a nearby business not suspected to be involved in the case was also removed.