The father of Kylen Schulte has hired a private investigator to look into the murders of his daughter, Moab resident Kylen Schulte, and her wife, Crystal Turner.
The couple were found dead by a friend at their campsite in the La Sal Mountains on Aug. 18, five days after last being seen. Authorities have confirmed the pair died by gunshot.
From early September to mid-October, Sean Paul Schulte set up a “clue booth” in Swanny City Park, hoping to collect potential leads and keep the deaths of his daughter and her wife in the public eye. For hours each day, he sat at a picnic table in the park and met with members of the community.
“[The private investigator] will be taking over as my ‘boots on the ground,’ along with my lawyer, as I am heading home to Montana,” Schulte said.
“What Sean Paul did with his clue booth was really quite brilliant,” said investigator Jason Jensen. The Utah-based licensed private investigator is the lead at Jensen Private Investigations and co-founder of the Utah Cold Case Coalition.
So far, he’s been working closely with Schulte to organize the information gathered while Schulte was in Moab.
The Grand County Sheriff’s Office is currently running forensic analysis on “items of interest,” according to a Sept. 28 statement but the lab analysis may take “several months or more to complete.”
By the time private investigators get involved in cases, there’s usually nothing left to collect from a crime scene, Jensen said. Instead, the investigation will rely on tips gathered from the community—some people may be afraid of talking to law enforcement and might be more willing to talk to a private investigator.
Jensen said that the scope of his investigation is broad. The firm will loosely work with law enforcement, Jensen said—if he finds a person of interest with substantial evidence against them, he’ll send the information to the sheriff’s office.
“Maybe we have names they’re not even considering,” he said.
Jensen commented that he is still investigating Brian Laundrie, who is currently being sought in reference to the murder of his girlfriend, Gabrielle Petito. The pair passed through Moab on a cross-country road trip around the same time Kylen and Crystal went missing. Petito went missing weeks later and was found murdered in Wyoming. Laundrie is still at large.
On Sept. 17, the Grand County Sheriff’s Office issued a statement that after being in contact with investigators in Florida, they had found no connection between Laundrie and the murders in Moab.
Jensen said his firm is using a combination of satellite technology and social videos to find evidence and is asking the public for any and all videos taken near or around the La Sal Loop Road, where the women were found, in August.
“We want any video,” Jensen said. “You never know if you’ve got video of one of our suspects driving by as you pass them on the road.”
Jensen said he is unsure how long the investigation will last—“we follow the evidence,” he said.
The Grand County Sheriff’s Office has asked anyone who may have been in the South Mesa area between Aug. 13 and 15 to reach out to investigators at (435) 259-8115.
