(NewsNation Now) — Family and friends still can’t believe they’re gone. Loved ones are still waiting on answers into what happened to Crystal Turner and Kylen Schulte.
“We’re trying to be patient and know that each day hopefully we get a little closer,” Diane Brooks, Crystal Turner’s cousin, told NewsNation.
The newlyweds lived at a wilderness campsite 45 minutes outside of town. They enjoyed being on their own. Friends describe them as fun, brave, and living life to the fullest. But family friend Cindy Sue Hunter says there was a red flag one night.
“They had told their friends at the bar, this is my understanding it could be different, that there was a creepy dude, a creeper dude, and he was too close,” Hunter said.
The night of Aug. 13, the couple went to Woody’s Tavern, and then visited with friends. They begged them not to go back to the campsite.
It’s the last time they were seen alive.
“They made the offhanded comment that if they were murdered, it was him,” Hunter said. “I don’t think they ever thought that was going to happen.”
When days went by with no word from them, Kylen’s dad called Hunter to ask if she could help.
She showed people pictures of the couple and asked around, but curiosity lead her to the couple’s car, and their bodies.
“I saw a body in the water and I immediately turned away,” Hunter said. “I didn’t want to know that that was a body there. I wanted to be wrong.”
A medical examiner’s report showed the women were shot multiple times.
Despite a number of tips, search warrants, and even persons of interest, there have been no answers about who killed them.
At one point, rumors speculated that Brian Laundrie could be a suspect, but investigators ruled him out last summer.
Salt Lake City private investigator Jason Jenson has spent months investigating on his own.
And although the Moab Police Department is not involved in this investigation, assistant chief Braydon Palmer admits it’s left residents on edge.
Five months later, Crystal and Kylen’s loved ones remain desperate for answers and justice.