Criminology - Dylan Rounds

Episode Date: May 5, 2024

Dylan Rounds wanted to be a farmer. When he was 16 years old, his grandfather bought 643 acres of land in Utah with the understanding that Dyland would work it. He was dedicated and worked extremely hard. But at 19, Dylan vanished over Memorial Day weekend in 2022. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the disappearance and murder of Dylan Rounds. Friends and family knew that Dylan would never leave his farm behind and not contact them. He was on the verge of realizing his dream and harvesting his first crop. Police eventually solved the mystery of who killed Dylan. But the question of why has still not been answered. You can support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 306 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, how are you doing, man? I'm doing good. I'm just been scouting out some different fishing spots and trying to get the edge on the fish or outsmarting me lately.

So I'm trying to step up my game when I'm not doing podcast and I'm out doing some fishing. What are you doing? Yeah, man, that's good. That's good relaxation. I like to fish a lot, but I do get outsmarted quite a bit. You know, I spend more time casting, reeling than I actually do catching. But sometimes that's okay. It's just very relaxing, especially when I'm out with my youngest. She likes to fish a lot, too. So we have a lot of fun. Yeah, my kids enjoy it too. So we're looking for a few new spots. And you know what they say, a bad day fishing is better than a good day at work. Oh, you could say that about a lot of things. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Cat Cat, Eric Pellateer, and Mason Gordon. So that's a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it.

Yeah, thank you so much to everyone that takes the time to support the show. It really helps us out. For anyone else that would like to, you can head over to patreon.com slash criminology. All right. Let's jump into this episode. And we're covering a case that started out as a missing person's case. And unfortunately, in many of the missing persons cases we cover, there are not updates, the person isn't found, and we really don't know what happened. Well, in this week's case, we do get answers, at least some answers and some resolution.

We're talking about the case of 19-year-old Dylan Rounds, who vanished over Memorial Day weekend in May 22 in Luson, Utah. Dylan Rounds was a young farmer from Rigby, Idaho, and his story is an interesting one. At just 19 years old, he had his very own farm to tend. Wherever you turn online looking for information about Dylan, there will be someone there describing how hardworking he was. He was a creature of habit that stuck to routines and above all loved farming. He was so dedicated and determined that when he was just 16 years old, his grandfather bought a large piece of property in Utah with the understanding that Dylan would tend to it. and farm the land. Property prices and the cost of living are higher back in Idaho than they are in Utah,

which is why the purchase was made there. It was a little bit or maybe even significantly cheaper and would technically mean a greater return at harvest since there would be less cost to recoup. Dylan now had his own 643 acre property to turn into whatever he wanted. The slight issue with the land was that it was in the desert town of Luson, Utah. It's a town located in the northwestern portion, of the state right on the border with Nevada. Lucin is a small railroad community and is commonly referred to as a ghost town. It would take some work on Dylan's part to get the property condition to a state where he could actually grow crops.

But if anyone could make an accurate patch of dirt into a farm, it was Dylan. Nature, specifically farming was so important to him. It was like it was his only hobby. The land would only be valuable and worth the land. purchase if Dylan could farm as well as he and his family thought he could. Again, the farm was almost four hours away from Dylan's hometown of Rigby. This is the kind of thing you do when you're sure someone can make it. Kind of like those stories of families that you've heard of where both parents, sometimes just one parent, drops everything and moves to California for their

actor child. Dylan's aunt, Katie Wells, told old KSL.com. He is an old soul, farm boy at heart. All he wants to do is get up and work all day, every day. All right, Morph, so we have to break this down just a bit. My first question to you is, have you ever done any farming? I have never done any farming, except unless you consider picking your own blueberries or strawberries. I do, I do not consider that farming. Now, the so that I never have. I've never actually done farming either. I did bail hay. one summer and that was about the hardest thing i think i ever did in my life that is really hard work yeah every ever i've known some farmers i was friends with some farmers growing up and

there's no doubt about it they worked their tails off and i i'm just you know going through all of these things that were said about dylan you know he was a a kid basically you know a very young guy at 16 years old they were just talking about how you know, all he wanted to do was farm. All he wanted to do was work. Now at the age of 19, it's, it's the same thing. I mean, that takes a special kind of person. I've always thought that to be a farmer. You know, your hours are a little different maybe than the eight to fiveers. It's a different lifestyle. And it's a ton of work. Yeah, I think it's one of those fields where if you just have a lazy day and you just feel like you want to call out and just not do any work that day,

you don't have that luxury sometimes as a farmer. You're also working around the weather and things like that too. So it's definitely a challenge, I think. Well, I think that's a good point as well. Not everything is in your control, right? You do have the weather, nature, whether it rains, doesn't rain. So it sounds like Dylan worked incredibly hard on this property for years and it was finally set to see some return. He was growing Triticali, which is a cross between wheat and rye, and he was likely planning to sell this as animal feed to other farms. His harvest would be in the summer when he could cut the crop multiple times. He just had to wait about six weeks in between cuttings. After two, maybe three times, if he was lucky, his growing season would be over. Some sources also note that

Dylan was growing alfalfa as well. Both alfalfa and tritacaly do well in the desert environment and the sandy soil. The property also had its own well for fresh water. Things were going as well as they could for Dylan, and everything seemed to be okay with him until May 2022. At around 7 in the morning, on May 28, 2002, Dylan's grandmother called him, he answered, but he told her that he had to go, because it was going to start raining soon. He had a grain truck that he needed to put in the shed so that the contents wouldn't spoil. Dylan's farm was about five miles, from his trailer. So for him, it was really a race against time. Unfortunately, trouble was waiting for him. He never got to call his grandmother back. The day before was the last day anyone had seen Dylan in person.

He had been at a bar called the Saddlesaw bar in Montello, Nevada that day. Montello is about 30 miles from Luson, which might seem kind of far, but it's really the only bar around. It wasn't rare for people that knew Dylan to go a few days without seeing him, but it was definitely unusual for him to completely drop out of contact with everyone. He would often go to visit his family because his trailer in Lusin was out in the middle of nowhere and didn't have running water. The next day on Sunday morning, Dylan's grandmother asked that someone in the family go to check on Dylan since he hadn't returned or called or spoken to anyone else in the family since they'd hung up. When his family got to the property, there was no sign of Dylan. It didn't seem like

anything had been taken from his trailer. All that was missing besides Dylan himself was his phone, wallet, and his pistol, all of which he likely had with him on May 28th when he apparently disappeared. On May 30th, Dylan's mother, Candace Cooley, filed a missing persons report with the Box Elder Police Department. The family quickly offered up a reward of $20,000 for anyone who found Dylan or knew where he was. this reward was eventually raised to $100,000. Candice didn't have high hopes of anyone receiving this reward. She later told people.com, as hard as it is, and as much as I hate to say it, I'm about 99% sure somebody murdered my son.

So no doubt, they, the family was worried, you know, very early on, you know, to quickly offer up a reward of $20,000 and then to ultimately raise it to $100,000. That's a very hefty reward. You know, you and I have done so many cases, and that's pretty high for a reward here in the U.S. Yeah, and to me, I think that just sums up that they really knew Dylan's character, that it was not like him to just drop from sight. So they thought he might be in harm's way and time was of the essence. So I think that's why they came out so quickly with that hefty reward.

Well, if you have the resources to do it, you know, obviously that is a good tactic to try to get someone to come forward with information. And the other thing that that kind of dovetails into is Dylan's mother, Candace, saying that she really didn't have high hopes. You know, we've seen that kind of run the gamut. You know, people thinking very early on that something is wrong with their loved one to people hold. holding out hope for 30, 40, 50 years. But for her to say, I'm about 99% sure. Somebody murdered my son. I mean, that tells you her thinking right there. Yeah, and I think some people are probably naturally more optimistic than others. Some people are half, water half, last half full, some are half empty. And maybe in this situation, some people look at things the same way.

Some people are more hopeful. Some people are doubtful. But that's got to be a terrible feeling to know in your gut. Feel 99% sure that somebody has killed your son and not know who or why or how to find your son. It's got to be frightening. The first thought in some people's minds was that maybe Dylan wasn't as dedicated and responsible as he had been described by his family. Or maybe he finally buckled under the stress. decided to leave everything behind.

Their thinking was that, you know, here's a 19 year old kid working his tail off and instead of hanging out with friends and having fun, and maybe he just had enough and decided to walk away from it all. But Dylan's mom, Candice, thought that this scenario was absolutely impossible.

She later told Oxygen, he did not walk away from his lifelong dream. Dylan's biggest stress was getting his crop to grow. besides if all the work was all too much, him leaving it behind would have likely come much sooner. He was on the verge of finally seeing the fruits of his labor. So why walk away at this point? She told Oxygen, his lifelong dream was to have his own farm. He had spent the last two summers ripping out and redeveloping that ground on his own.

He got his water rights. He did everything. And this year, his grain was finally coming up. He finally got a crop. got his pivot up. It was a fully functional farm. So there's no way based on that, at least in Candace's mind, that her son would just up and walk away. And to me, that makes a lot of sense. We just talked about a little bit earlier how much work this would have been and just how much work farming is in general to think about, you know, this kid, this young man, spending,

a couple of years, just trying to make this thing work. And now he's on the verge of seeing the results and actually, you know, making some money, selling his crop. When you look at it, you know, in the grand scheme, that doesn't seem like the time that someone would just voluntarily walk away. Yeah, the fact that he was at the finish line, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense that he would just choose to up and leave right then when he was about to see his crop come up. And, you know, I could see if he decided after the first harvest, okay, this was more than I could handle.

I just, you know, I don't know what I was thinking, maybe walk away at that point and tell his family, this isn't for me. I've got to find a new path. But to just disappear right before his crop is coming in, that the timing just doesn't seem to add up. And that's the way that I often gauge these cases. Now, it doesn't mean that something couldn't happen in a way that you don't think it would because we know strange things happen. People do strange things.

But, you know, I just kind of judge everything on how plausible it is. And I think that's exactly what Candice was doing as well. Early on, some of Dylan's family feared that he had some sort of accident on the land. There were venomous snakes in that area, and he was working with farm equipment, and maybe he had gotten hurt somehow. In looking closer at some of the clues on Dylan's land, it appeared that someone had staged the area where his truck was found, and it didn't seem like Dylan was the last one to drive it. The truck was 100 yards from the shelter he was rushing to park it in. As we mentioned, on the phone he told his grandmother that he had to rush to put the grain truck in the shed

because it was going to rain. There were no tire tracks leading up to where it was parked. And this was odd since the tires would have easily made tracks in the mud if it had been driven during or after the rain. But the wheel wells were full of dried mud. This made it seem that perhaps someone had driven it in a muddy area since there was mud on the wheel wells, but since there were no tracks here, they perhaps drove it before it rained in a different muddy area. But this is at odds with Dylan telling his grandmother he was in a rush to go out and move his truck

undercover. The outside of the truck was spotless like it had been washed. This lack of tire marks and the truck being too clean weren't the only things that made Dylan's family think that someone else was involved in his disappearance. So this is definitely, you know, part of the mystery here. You know, for me, the thought that a truck is spotless as though it had just been washed, but yet the wheel wells were full of mud. That seemed, you know, strange. And then obviously you have the the no tire tracks where there should be tire tracks. If it was driven when it was thought Dylan, you know, would have driven it there. I think it's pretty easy to see why Dylan's family thought that, you know, this wasn't right.

Something bad happened. Someone was involved. Dylan's truck had been placed into four wheel drive. That might seem normal, but Dylan had very recently informed his family that, the four-wheel drive wasn't working. So why would he have tried to use the four-wheel drive? And why in that generally flat area? Which if we go back, you know, to the lack of tire tracks was dry.

When Candice got in Dylan's truck, she was expecting to have to move the seat up because her son was about a foot taller than she was. Strangely, the seat was in a position that she would have been able to drive the truck it was completely obvious to her that Dylan had not been the last one in that truck. Dylan's pickup truck was also locked when investigators found it, which was unusual. According to Dylan's family, he never locked his truck. And I think this is something that comes up in a lot of cases where, you know, a car is found

and the setting of the driver's seat doesn't seem to make sense based on the person that was thought to have been driving it. And in a lot of cases, it turns out, well, that's because, you know, the killer or the perpetrator or whatever you want to call the person was the last one to drive the vehicle. And they had to move the seat to accommodate them. Now, what I found strange here was that the seat was in a position where Dylan's mother could drive it. So what does that mean? That we're talking about someone about her same size, someone not nearly as tall as Dylan? Yeah, it's definitely an interesting clue and something they noticed.

And they were probably hyper vigilant about everything around there and around his truck and its condition. So they noticed all these things. But one thing that jumps out to me was we've probably mentioned seats being in the wrong position a thousand times. it's maybe a good thing that some of these people that do these kinds of things aren't listening to the podcast because then they'd start realizing they need to put the seat back in its normal position and throw the police off. Or the other thing that I've sometimes thought about is that in order to throw police off, a person could, after they got out of the car or vehicle, adjust the seat to make it seem as though somebody of a much different height.

was driving. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder which emergency. We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

Dylan's mom was sure that there were people out there who knew what happened to her son. She told Oxygen, Somebody knows, and it's more than one somebody. She added, I think it's multiple people that know what happened to Dylan, but nobody's talking. Candice was outspoken about her belief that Dylan didn't disappear voluntarily, explaining to oxygen,

that farm was his life, and he would never leave it. She also told the sun.com, Dylan was taken, and he did not leave his place willingly. police checked out Dylan's finances and his cell phone usage. And they found there were zero activity on the cell phone or any of his bank accounts after May 28th. And, you know, to me more, if that's a never a good sign. You know, Dylan might not have been the type of person to have been looking at his cell phone all day, playing games or whatever.

But people make calls. And they also, you know, use their, their cards or withdraw cash. It's just something that we all do. So to see none of that, to me, seems like just a very bad sign. Yeah, even if they had some kind of record of an ATM withdrawal or a check being cashed, something like that would be a trail for police to follow and figure out, is that Dylan, is that someone else? But when that activity just ceases, then that's not a good sign.

One odd detail came to light. The key fob to Dylan's truck. and his pistol were both placed into his trailer after it had been searched. Before reporting him missing, Dylan's parents had both looked through the trailer and noted that the gun case left on the sink was empty. Two days later, the fob and the pistol, both completely free of fingerprints, were lying next to each other inside the trailer. This undoubtedly raised red flags and seemed to indicate that someone was trying to fluster

any investigation into Dylan's disappearance. On May 30th, just hours after he was first officially reported missing, Dylan's boots were found on his property, 100 yards south of where his grain truck was found parked, which meant if he was out there walking around, he was barefoot or at the very least in his socks. And this was preposterous to Dylan's family. His mom, Candace, told oxygen,

a kid doesn't go walking in the desert without his boots. He was very particular about his boots. He wears a pair and it's always the same pair. When they wear out, he goes and buys the exact same pair of boots. There was a visible dark stain on one of the boots. It appeared to be blood. So a swab was taken and sent off for analysis. One other thing about the boots is that it didn't look like they had been out

there during the rain because they were dry. While it was blatantly obvious to Dylan's family that he had met with foul play, the police didn't immediately agree with them. They considered the possibility that he may have gotten hurt on his property or that he could have left on his own. So the public attention on the case got off to a slow start. Once the public did hear about this quote unquote farm in the desert, some jumped to the conclusion that Dylan was some kind of drug farmer, harvesting some illegal crop,

and almost immediately a common theory was that drugs were involved and that the property was being used for something nefarious. People pointed out that if Dylan was into something shady, Candace wouldn't be the first mother to have a child that kept secrets from her, and that somehow whatever Dylan was into may have come back to haunt him. Candice pushed back on those innuendos, telling people magazine, that kid was so dedicated, you're talking about a kid who's got access to $60,000 for tractor parts and all kinds of stuff, and nothing, no one. money has been spent. Whatever trouble Dylan could have been getting up to, there was absolutely no signs of it in his finances or his history. In fact, Candice almost wished there was something

secret Dylan could have gone off to do and that he was still out there alive and doing it, telling people magazine, I wish I had the comfort of saying, yeah, he's out there gambling. And to me, that's kind of an interesting statement. To hear a mother say, yeah, at this point, you know, I wish there was evidence that he was up to something because at least then we'd have the thought that he was still a lot, whether it was, you know, gambling or selling drugs or whatever it was, that would be preferable to thinking that, you know, he had been murdered. Yeah, I think at that point, if her phone rang and it was a police department saying they had him in custody in a jail cell for something he had done,

I think she would have been relieved. To everyone who knew Dylan, he was on the up and up and a stand-up guy. But, you know, with that being said, some residents in the area were not. There were multiple people living or squatting nearby that had long rap sheets, including drug possession and drug trafficking charges. And Dylan, shortly before he vanished, had a run in with a stranger. According to his aunt, Katie Wells, Dylan was driving down agrounding down, novel road when he saw a man walking with no shoes on. She told Oxygen, he flagged Dylan down,

who was in his truck. He asked to use Dylan's phone and was acting erratically. Dylan felt the man was dangerous and may have been hot. The man apparently asked for a ride, but Dylan turned him down because the situation was so strange. Many following the case immediately wondered if this stranger could have harmed Dylan. The connection to the man was. walking barefoot on gravel and Dylan's boots seemed important, but it didn't quite fit with a scenario where the shoeless man stole his boots since they were left behind. This shoeless man was later identified as Chase Vinsdra. Authorities questioned him, but found no evidence that he was involved in Dylan's disappearance. Some people began to wonder if Dylan's case might be tied to

another disappearance. 19-year-old Aidan Clune from Southern California disappeared on his way home from a trip to Utah. On April 27, 2022, he was driving through Nevada. His pickup truck was found on the southbound shoulder of U.S. Highway 93, near the ghost town Curry. The passenger door was open and his belongings, his laptop, his wallet, and his clothes were in the passenger seat. His footprints were found 10 miles into the desert. Aidan and Dylan were both 19 and and both drove red pickup trucks. They were both in ghost towns in the same general area. So the question became,

could someone have accidentally mistaken Aden for Dylan? Was there someone targeting Dylan? Was there a serial killer with a very specific victim profile? Or could both men have been involved in the same shady dealings or had some other connection? These were all the questions online sleuth started to ask. Aidan's mother, Amy, was clear. About his situation, she told News Nation now.

he was having some kind of primary psychosis. He needed help. It looks like Aiden abandoned his car and literally ran into the desert so far. He made it into the mountains. Some people looking into a possible tie between Dylan and Aden then began to feel that Aden's disappearance is sort of similar to the disappearance of 19-year-old Bryce Lepisa. On August 29th, 2013, Bryce was reported missing. somewhere on his drive south from his school near Sacramento to Castaic, California. He had broken up with his girlfriend the previous day, and then he didn't show up at home. Authorities found him about four and a half hours south of Sacramento in Bakersfield, parked. They ended up searching his car for some reason, but he didn't have anything illegal with him. He was free to head to Castaic about an hour and 15 minutes south.

At 2 a.m. on August 30th, Bryce spoke to his parents and said he was on the five freeway, but wasn't sure exactly how far away from home he was. He decided to pull over and sleep in his car. At 208 a.m., his mom told him to call her in the morning, and they hung up. Around 5 a.m., Bryce's car was found crashed at Castaic Lake. It had dropped 15 feet down a ravine and landed on its side. But Bryce was, wasn't inside. It looked like he had broken out the back window and crawled out, but he wasn't anywhere nearby. His wallet, laptop, phone, and clothes were all still inside the car. There have been supposed sightings of Bryce from Oregon to Montana, but none of them have been confirmed,

and he's still missing today. It seems both Bryce Lepisa and Aidan Clune had clearly abandoned their cars and all their belongings, and managed to make it far enough away not to be found. Both were also possibly suffering from an acute mental health issue, but both of their families were very clear and open about that. So while some people have tried to link Bryce Lepisa and Aden Clune's cases to each other and then to Dylan's case, there simply is nothing there that does connect them other than some similarities. And that's one of the dangers of going down rabbit holes. You never know how deep you'll go. But isn't this natural more if we see it in so many cases that we do, you know, people are trying to link cases that have some similarities to them.

It's just kind of a natural thing to try to do. Now, sometimes they make sense and sometimes they don't. And it seems like a lot of times they're interesting. The fact that in both Aiden and Dillon's case are the same age or driving a red truck, I mean, that definitely sounds interesting. but, you know, if you look at 100 different cases and compare them to each other, you're bound to find things that match between the different missing people and the circumstances. So, you know, I think it just winds up being a big coincidence.

Yeah, I do too, a lot of times. I find it hard to believe that, you know, there's some killer out there whose victim profile includes them driving a red truck. I'm not saying it couldn't happen. I'm just saying that to me it's, it's very unlikely. As far as Dylan's mental health was concerned, he had no history of any issues. His mom, Candace, explained oxygen. Dylan has no drug abuse, no substance abuse, no mental issues, no depression, no thoughts

of suicide, nothing. While many families are either unaware of or in denial about the struggles that their loved ones are going through. According to Dylan's family, he had been the same old consistent Dylan as he always was. No one who knew Dylan thought he could have just cut off contact and been living somewhere away from his property. They knew that the farm was his life and he would never abandon it. Finally, a large scale search was launched by the authorities, which was a relief to Dylan's family. Candace told KSL TV, you feel like you're getting the help. It's just a relief.

It's a weight off your shoulders. You feel like you don't have to do it by yourselves. You're not alone anymore. She had previously mentioned how difficult the search had been considering the vast area. Dylan's boots were five miles from the trailer he had been staying in. So they had a lot of area to search and the conditions were not ideal. Candace told oxygen, we need a direction, evidence, something that's not a wild goose chase because it's not good terrain out here.

And it's not for people who just leisurely want to be. to come out and search. It's over 100 degrees, winds get blowing, and people don't want you there. It wasn't just a tough search for Dylan's family, but even the authorities were finding the search difficult. Box Elder County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Cade Palmer told Oxygen, every time we think there's an open window, it's followed by a closed door. Unfortunately, the search didn't provide anything valuable.

On June 29, 2022, 59-year-old James Brenner was arrested for being. being a felon in possession of a firearm. At the time, he had been squatting at a trailer near the shelter for Dylan's grain truck. This trailer had been searched on June 16th, and authorities found ammunition and black powder, which is used with muzzleloader firearms. The first time they searched, they didn't seize any of the items because there was no firearm present. The FBI also spoke to one of Brenner's friends who was asked to keep his weapons. after Dylan's disappearance.

Oxygen reported that Brenner told the friend that the last time he had trouble with the law. They took everything from him. And he did not want the things he had left to be taken again. So he wanted to hide the weapons, which were three muzzle loaders and a 22 caliber rifle. There was no serial number on the rifle, but it had been left there in the trailer

by the previous resident before Brenner began squat again. it, it took a few days for this person to admit that they had the rifle because they felt justified in keeping it. On the 21st, they searched the home again. According to oxygen, this time, they seized one box of 45 lead round ball ammunition, one box of spear 570 lead ball, one box of federal 45 lead ball ammunition, ignition caps, four pounds of Hornady, Black Powder, and Speedloads. Brenner had been convicted of similar charges in the past, at least three times, and as recently as 2012, he was sentenced to serve 33 months in prison in connection with some of his offenses.

It turns out that James Brenner and Dylan Rounds knew each other. Dylan had once given him a job bowing hay, and he lived on Dylan's property for a period of time. He was considered a family friend by Dylan and his family, according to the arrest affidavit for Brenner. On July 7, 2022, the Box Elder County Sheriff's Office announced that James Brenner was officially a suspect in the disappearance of Dylan Rounds. By this time, it was clear that authorities were no longer looking at Chase Fenstra, the shoeless man we mentioned earlier as a suspect. And I can see why authorities would, you know, definitely want to look into this James Brenner. He had served time in prison. You know, he had these muzzle loaders.

he was squatting kind of on the property and he knew Dylan. They knew each other. So there was a connection. Yeah, what jumped out to me was this whole story told us, he told his friend, and he needed him to hold these guns. So they didn't get taken away from him. The timing of that was pretty interesting.

Yeah, because you could make the case that, okay, the authorities had taken his guns before. He didn't want that to happen again. But you could also make the case. case that possibly one of those guns was used to kill Dylan and therefore he didn't want the authorities to get their hands on it. When Brenner was named a suspect, Dylan's father went back in his memories looking for anything that may provide a clue as to why Brenner might want to harm Dylan. In an interview with East Idaho News, the only thing he recalled

was that Brenner was talking about how Dylan backed into his horse gate and how Dylan seemed a little frustrated. Obviously with other things on his plate at the time, Justin didn't think much more about it. He went on to explain to East Idaho News, I didn't think a whole lot about it at the time, but that could have been what set him off. Brenner had also been seen cleaning the shed where the grain truck had been parked, he removed four trash bags full of garbage. Dylan's mom, Candace, told East Idaho news, he was cleaning the shed with law enforcement and us there watching him. He wasn't cleaning up garbage that day. Whatever he took out in those bags was to hide right under law enforcement's noses. Despite Brenner being named the suspect, there was still no proof that he

or anyone else for that matter was involved in Dylan's disappearance. With no way, he or he, body and no physical evidence. It would be tough to build a case against Runner. August 1st, 2022 was Dylan's 20th birthday. It passed with no sign of him. Arial searches via helicopter and drone found no evidence of Dylan or his body, no clothing or any of his belongings. There was a concern that he could have ended up in one of the many abandoned wells or mine shafts in the area. Finally on March 3rd, 2003, James Brenner was charged with criminal homicide, aggravated murder, and abuse of a corpse. It was revealed that the red stain on Dylan's boot was human blood.

It turned out to be Dillens. But there was a second DNA profile on the boot, and it belonged to James Brenner. Now, this didn't exactly prove anything. Brenner fully admitted to touching the boots, but according to East Idaho news, he said he found them by the shed, picked them up, move them by his camper somewhere. But the crucial piece of evidence, the smoking gun in this case turned out to be Dylan's phone.

Dylan's phone record showed that he was in the area near Brenner's trailer on May 28. But his phone stopped pinging after it traveled to loosen pond. Authorities searching the pond found Dylan's phone and were able to actually restore data from it, including one very important video. This was a time-lapse video of James Brenner with blood on his arms and clothes cleaning a gun. Investigators were able to find the shirt he was wearing in the video and tested for DNA. Test confirmed that the DNA of Dylan Rounds was on the shirt. Putting the pieces together, it seems likely that James Brenner shot Dylan and cleaned his gun before leaving the area to get rid of evidence, like Dylan's phone and his body.

To some, the phone evidence paints an awful picture that Dylan either knew that he, he was in trouble and decided to record in case anything happened or that he had been injured. And the video was his last attempt at leaving a clue about what happened to him and who was responsible. But investigators believe that by the time the video was taken, Dylan had already been killed. The video was taken at 7.27 a.m. about half an hour after Dylan spoke to his grandmother on the phone. Dylan made it to the gate on the property where the show. shed was at 6.57 a.m. giving it another five minutes for him to make it to the area of the shed,

you're left with less than half an hour for some kind of altercation to happen, followed by the murder, and James Brenner to be back in his trailer cleaning his gun. Luckily, he took Dylan's phone with him. Intent on getting rid of it, Candace told the East Idaho news. I'm pretty sure. When Brenner took the phone, he just hit the wrong button. or had a wrong swipe and had no clue. Then it started recording. And we mentioned it, right? This is kind of the smoking gun,

if you want to call it that in this case. It's also part of why, you know, this case is so fascinating to people. Because, you know, anytime you have a video showing any part of a crime, particularly a murder, that's going to draw people's attention. attention. And, you know, to me, the thought that James Brenner murdered Dylan took his phone

was going to, you know, throw it away in the pond or wherever, but accidentally turned it on and started recording himself is mind blowing. Now, we've all done it, not killed somebody and then recorded ourselves, but, you know, if you have an iPhone or an iPhone or an, you know, and, you know, an Android phone, it's pretty easy to accidentally hit a button. I can't tell you how many people I've called who I did not mean to call. Not only that, but my dad calls me at least twice a week and says, oh, I didn't even know I called you. Yeah, the old pocket dial.

And now, now you can do FaceTime and stuff like that. Can you imagine if he somehow FaceTime somebody while this was going on instead of just recording a video, they, they might have seen this going on. on in real time if you had hit that button. So technology is great. We all love it, but this kind of proves that it can also be your downfall if you don't know what you're doing or you accidentally hit the wrong button. I think it just goes to show you that even if you have some sort of plan, it's not foolproof and it doesn't seem like this guy is a master criminal, but he just made a big mistake. And sometimes it takes a little bit of luck on the part of

law enforcement to build a case against someone and there was some luck in this case. Well, and let's talk about that concept of luck. I do think there's an element of that in many of these cases that kind of turn the case from being unsolved to solve. And to me, sometimes it's a very fine line. Think about little things that lead. to, you know, investigators knowing what happened to someone versus not having that and the case goes unsolved and stays unsolved. And then they had to, the luck of finding the phone in this pond, I don't know how big the pond was, but to find a single cell phone in there seems like it would be a tall task.

And then not only that, but they've got to restore it and be able to repair it and get this video off there, which they were able to do, so they had luck all the way around regarding that phone. And let me be clear, it's hard work combined with luck. I should say that. Sometimes I think you need both. On April 9th, 2024, skeletal remains were discovered in Luce in Utah. These were presumed to be the remains of Dylan rounds. It's been reported that James Brenner agreed to lead authorities to the location of his body as part of a plea deal.

On April 10th, it was announced that the medical examiner had confirmed. confirm the identity of the remains as being those of Dylan rounds. Some reports mentioned that this area where Dylan's remains were discovered was on his property, but it's unknown how Brenner hit his body. The Box Elder County Sheriff's Office released a statement, reading in part, grateful to everyone who assisted and supported the investigation and search efforts on this exceptionally challenging case. Dylan's family shared the same sentiments. His mom, Candice, told to oxygen, we're grateful now that we have Dylan's body and can bring him home as we continue our fight for justice. Knowing what exactly happened to Dylan hasn't eased his family's minds,

but knowing where he was and not having to search for him with no results was a relief. Candace told NBC News, we were getting ready to plan searches for the summer. Now we don't have to do that. And this is a big thing that crops up in many cases. You often hear people talk about in unsolved cases especially, it's the not knowing. That is the hardest for them. They can be hopeful or they can believe that something bad happened to their family member, but the not knowing at all, both what happened and where their family member is. Oftentimes for many people is just extremely tough. Now, it's never great to find out the answer when the answer is that your loved one has been murdered. But you even hear his mother say it.

At least now they know. And there was some relief in that. I know it sounds strange, but I get what she's saying. Imagine not finding out and going 10, 20, 30 years into the future, still not know. That would be even tougher as strange as. it sounds, I think. Even if we know who is responsible for killing Dylan and that he was murdered, we still don't know why this happened. What was different about this day? Did Dylan see Brenner with something he wasn't supposed to have or maybe doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing?

Did Dylan confront Brenner about squatting or something else? And it sent him into a range. We may find out more when Brenner is sentenced, but he may also stay silent. We'll have to watch closely to see what other details, if any, are released. Early on, in an attempt to preserve evidence for the investigation, Dylan's family had shut off the water flow from the well on his farm. The growth of the Triticali didn't slow, despite not receiving any more water. Dylan's grandmother, Denise, asked Candice to dig up some of the tritiquely for her and preserved it in clear resin that she turned into necklaces. The perfect thing to remember Dylan by, the thing he loved to do above anything else. Now they'd all have something

special to remember him by. It seems that for Dylan's family, they take some comfort in knowing he died in a place he loved, and that he was doing what seemed to be his dream job. Candace told People magazine, from the time he was little, he just wanted to farm. He was your true American farmer. Dylan would have been one of those good old boys in his overalls in the coffee shop, chewing straw, drinking coffee. That's what he was. That's what he was born to be. He was born to be. But unfortunately, he was killed at the age of 19. So that scene of, you know, him being older and his overalls chewing straw and drinking coffee, it never came to fruition. And for me, that's one of the things that I struggle with in these cases, you know, especially when you have a younger victim,

someone who loses their life who's really just starting it out. I'm always left with these questions of, you know, what would they have gone on to do? And I think it's just part of the sadness. Obviously, it's terrible that they lost their life. But I'm also left kind of thinking, and I'm sure their families are as well, and it's tough on them, what would they have done? What would they have been like at 30, 40, 50, would they have married? Would they have had kids? Would we have had grandchildren? Those are, those are tough thoughts. Yeah. And in a case like this, you can't really go back in a time machine and make Dylan make different choices. You know, maybe he could have taken a job that he didn't like, that he didn't love and, and never encountered Brenner. And he'd be

alive today. But then again, maybe he'd be stuck in a job that he hated and wasn't his dream. So I think his family really seems to take comfort in the fact that he was doing what he loved. And a lot of people would probably be happy to be doing something they love. And Dylan was really doing that. But unfortunately, we also know that a person could encounter someone like James Brenner in any scenario in an office setting, you know, pick any job. There is a chance that you could encounter someone who makes the decision that they're going to take your life. But as we wrap this one up, Morph, you posed one of the big questions in this case, which is why. We know kind of some of the things that did happen, but it's the reasoning behind it. That's the reasoning behind it.

that we still don't know. You know, we heard a quote from Dylan's dad about Dylan supposedly backing into this horse gate and that he thought this potentially set James Brenner off. But we don't know that for sure. There was a lot about, you know, Brenner squatting. So first of all, how did he even have a horse gate? or was this just a horse gate that was on the property where he was squatting? Could it have been that, like you asked, Dylan Sawbrenner doing something,

we're just going to have to wait and see if we get those answers. Part of me thinks that since he agreed to a plea deal, he should be forced to give some of those answers. Yeah, I agree with you. And hopefully that's one of the conditions or stipulations, but, you know, each plea deal can vary. And maybe his agreement here was that he just would provide the location of the body and nothing beyond that.

But we'll, I guess we'll have to see what emerges. But hopefully for his family, they find out some of those answers. And I know some people probably have issues with some plea deals. Here, I can understand it. You know, you want, I think, for the family to be able to recover. Dylan's body. You want them to have that to be able to bury. And so if you have to strike a deal to get James Brenner to lead you to the body, I think that's important for the family. Now, it may mean that, you know, he'll do less time than he ultimately would, but those are the

kinds of things that, you know, prosecutors have to, to wrestle with. And hopefully it's in consultation with the family. And, and they were probably very okay, knowing that they were going to, to get Dylan back. But this is a case where I think we will find out some more. We're going to have to keep an eye on it, mainly for the why. But that's it for our episode on Dylan Rounds. If you love the show. but haven't done so yet. Take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating. You can leave a review.

Also, keep telling your friends, word of mouth about the podcast really goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media, we're on X with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to facebook.com slash criminology podcast. And you can join our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast discussion and fans. So that's it for another episode of Criminology. And Morp and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week.

Take care, everyone.