Law&Crime Sidebar - Missing Farmer Dylan Rounds' Alleged Killer Arrested — The Story So Far

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

Ninteen-year-old Dylan Rounds went missing in May 2022 while working at his farm in Lucin, Utah. Almost a year later, the man accused of killing him was arrested after disturbing evidence was found on the young farmer’s phone, which was recovered from the bottom of a retention pond. Rounds' parents, Justin Rounds and Candice Cooley, spoke to the Law&Crime Network about the investigation leading up to the arrest of James Brenner. Sidebar host Jesse Weber breaks down the Dylan Rounds story so far.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I don't even know I fully grasp to what's happened sometimes. Yesterday it'd be pretty hard coming back from Hussain. We do a breakdown of the chilling case of Dillon Rounds, the teenage farmer who suddenly disappeared in Utah. And then we bring in legendary homicide detective Phil Waters to discuss the criminal case against the man allegedly responsible. Wondry Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

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Thrillers with a paranormal twist. The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. I have covered a lot of stories at Law and Crime, but if there's one thing that I can tell you throughout is that you gotta stay safe. And that is where Palm Pepper Spray can really help. This is a discreet. This is a discreet. but powerful personal defense tool. Palm pepper spray shoots up to 12 feet using the strongest legal formula of pepper spray. It's super safe, easy to use, ready to fire. All you got to do is just point and spray. The best part, we got a promo code for you. You can save 10% by using code law crime 10 at pompeper spray.com. And always remember to call 911 if you see somebody in trouble.

Let's talk right now about the tragic story of Dylan Rounds and what we know so far in this criminal case. So Dylan Rounds was a 19 year old farmer originally from Idaho that decided to start a whole new life out in Utah. Pretty amazing. Pretty amazing to think about that. And by all accounts, he loved farming. He had a true passion for it. In fact, Law and Crime Network Sierra Gillespie actually interviewed Dylan's parents, Justin Rounds and Candace Cooley. And here's what they had to say about their son. Dylan just he, from the time, he could toddle around with his dad and his grandpa, That was just it. We knew, you know, he was going to be a farmer and that's what he was going to do. I mean, his hobbies were farming. It sounds kind of odd. It's kind of odd a little bit.

That's what he liked. Since he was little, that's all he ever wanted to do. What he was going to go get her and did hard work, didn't bother. And people might think we just say that because it's their son. It was absolutely true. So when he turned 16 and got to go do that stuff, like it was better than getting his driver's license. just to be able to go work on a farm. He was just a worker. He was just a good-hearted worker. That's all you, you know, ever wanted.

Now, according to his family, Dylan saved up money from fixing up tractors, doing custom work, selling trading farm equipment. And he actually bought himself a farm down in Lucin, Utah, with his grandfather. And that's pretty amazing to think about someone doing that, a teenager doing that. But apparently, again, he had this love for it. Now, Lucan is in Box Elder County. This is near the Utah, Nevada border. So let's go to May 28th, 2022 when everything just changes. This is right when Dylan's first crop was to be harvested, by the way.

He's right at the start of this. So Dylan speaks with his grandmother on the phone on that day. And when they hang up, that is the last time anybody heard from him. He just suddenly disappears. Two days later, Dylan's mother reports him missing. as this comes after not hearing from him, and especially after they discover something very important. It was Monday that Dylan's best friend called me and said,

have you heard from Dylan? And I said, well, I talked to him on Thursday. And he says, well, kind of told me Karen said, I talked to him this day. And so I called him. And I'd called and text him a couple times and didn't hear anything back over that weekend, which was nothing out of the usual.

I knew he was planting. It was nothing for Dylan to break a phone. not have a charger, you know, nothing out of the ordinary until myself, his father, grandma, grandpa, friends, everybody kind of started talking and nobody had heard from him. And that was not normal. So that's when we headed, we all headed to Lucid to go see what was going on. It's because he wouldn't left his boots there. They weren't old.

They weren't bad. I mean, old and worn out for Dylan would be basically his toes ticking through a hole. I mean, there would be no reason for those boots to have been in my mind at all. But it's when we found the boots. When we found the boots, there is no other explanation for them to be out there besides Brenner put him out there. And the only way you would get Dylan's boots off of him is if he was not alive to keep you from doing it.

And that's when we knew. Now, apparently, local law enforcement didn't take this seriously. That's according to Dylan's family. In fact, they say that the sheriff's office. told them that they thought Dylan might have just gave up farming and wandered off. They even said that the police mocked them for their concern and that officers didn't want to make the long drive to the farm to check out what was really going on. But eventually, that changed.

And law enforcement actually began to look more into Dylan Round's disappearance. And in July of 2022, Box Elder County Sheriff's Office announced that then 58-year-old James Brenner was considered a suspect. So who is James Brenner? Well, according to Dylan's mother, Candice, Brenner was an acquaintance of her son. Actually, he was his neighbor. Really, he was a trespasser, if we want to be honest.

Brenner was squatting in a trailer that was a few miles away from Dylan's property. And Mr. Brenner has quite the history, or maybe I should say criminal history. You see, according to various reporting, Brenner shot a man in the 1980s over a work dispute. And back in 2012, Brenner was sentenced over two and a half years in prison for a legal possession of a firearm because he was a convicted felon. And then in June and July of 2022, he was hit with federal firearms charges.

Now, what's interesting is that Dylan's parents apparently had a weird feeling about James Brenner, especially because of alleged comments that Brenner made about Dylan in the past. Jim was talking to a kid that works for me. I was watching him on the cameras. He was telling the kid what a spoiled kid Dylan was. He doesn't treat anything very good. You can just see a lot of jealousy. And I called Dylan. I said, you know, Jim Renner isn't your friend.

He's sitting there talking about him. He said, ah, Jim's just kind of an ass. So then when we got up there, you know, Brenner was telling myself and my husband about how, you know, Dylan couldn't fight his way out of anything. he shouldn't even had a gun. He didn't know how to use it. All he could do was throw it at somebody.

Like, just all this really weird. Like, it's just not stuff you say when, and then I said, you know, because we originally thought, hey, maybe Dylan left the shed. And he's walking back to his farm because Brenner didn't give him a ride. He's out there bit by a snake,

you know, thumb, broken ankle, whatever. A couple years ago, I introduced myself to Brenner. he was at my grandpa's house my son bought a bunch of pigs and across the road from the grandpa's house was a vet clinic and Jim Brenner was there

and I was pretty upset that they bought the pigs and brought them to that property and I was pretty upset and when I left and Dylan texted me and says Jim Brenner's going to shoot you

and he's going to do he doesn't like to be talked to like that and I said well then I'll have to come talk to him and I came back to talk to him at the farm and he was with my dad. My dad was calming him down. Calm me down.

It kind of just blew over. So law enforcement takes a closer look at Brenner. And what do they find? You remember the boots that his parents mentioned? Well, deputies discovered those boots, Dylan Round's boots, where Brenner was squatting. And one boot had a blood stain that DNA analysis confirmed belonged to Dylan Rounds in addition to DNA belonging to Brenner. They also found Dylan's farm truck, but that's not all.

Cell phone records show that Dylan's phone moved near where Brenner was squatting on the day that Dylan vanished. And they also find Dylan's actual phone at Lucin Pond. And when investigators do a digital forensic download of the phone, they find a video, time stamped at the time of Dylan's disappearance. And in this video, you see Brenner with, quote, blood stains on his arms and shirt as he's. he is cleaning a gun. And guess what? A investigators find and test that shirt, and Dylan's DNA is on it. And according to Fox News, after Dylan went missing, a neighbor claims that Brenner asked him to hide several guns for him, saying it was for his own safety, and that, quote, the last time he had trouble with the law, they took everything from him, and he didn't want the

things that he had left to be taken away. According to authorities, quote, Brenner was interviewed and made several claims that corroborated forensic evidence in addition to making numerous demonstrably false statements. Well, it may have taken almost a year from when they said Brenner was a suspect, but this month, the sheriff's office announced that James Brenner had been officially charged with aggravated murder and abuse or desecration of a human body in connection with the disappearance of Dylan Rounds. And by the way, he was actually charged while still behind bars on those gun charges, on those gun charges I mentioned as well. Now, sadly, at the time of this recording, Dylan's body has not been recovered.

The sheriff's office has indicated and confirmed that the search will still continue. As for Dylan's parents, you can imagine that the charging of James Brenner has been a long time coming. People don't realize how big of a fight when I say how much of a win these charges are because this has been such an extreme fight to get to this point. It felt good to at least finally have charges pressed on them with them to find. out. It didn't feel good to find out about the video, but it did about the video of him cleaning the blood off of the gun in his hands.

I don't know how it felt. I can't really describe it. It wasn't happy. Crossbaths with a really bad, horrible guy that this is, I don't know what I can say other than it's unfortunate. Well, as we discuss the criminal case of James Brenner and the alleged murder of Dylan Rounds, we want to get a little bit more into the details of this investigation and what to expect next. So joining me, legendary former homicide detective, Phil Waters, who has worked over 400 cases,

is an expert interrogator, and he's back here on sidebar. Phil, good to have you. Oh, well, thanks for being, it's good to be back with you, Jesse. It's been a while. It has. And, you know, this is a really disturbing case. again one we can't really get all the answers to so james brenner's arrested almost a year or so since he was officially a suspect what do you make of his arrest well i'm certainly as the family

i'm sure and everybody in that community it's it's reassuring to see that we've got detectives that are out there you know hitting the bricks and and getting these cases that seem to be prolonged solved and bringing a little bit of peace to the family and the friends and then later on serving of some justice in this thing. So I'm really, really, in terms of a detective who's worked these kind of cases that have kind of stretched out over time, it's very, very satisfying to see that they've accomplished this and made an arrest. Is it abnormal that it took, you know, such a long period of time or, you know, between suspect and ultimately arrest? or given, you know, what they actually found in this case, you would say that timeline

that makes sense. The reason I ask is because Dylan Rounds' parents were critical of investigators in the early days of this investigation. They said they didn't take their claims very seriously. Then they obviously did. And now they seem to have built a pretty strong case against Brenner. So the time between when he was a suspect and the arrest, is there anything that you look at as maybe a little strange?

well not knowing the details as to what the detectives had and what they didn't have and the family's perception of what they had and what they didn't have and of course the family's perception is always that they should be doing things that they may be doing behind the scenes and they're not going to compromise their investigation by sharing everything with the families and I've been in that position as well it's it's a it's a tough road to hoe but it's one that has to be maintain the integrity of the investigation. So I don't know that you had asked the question, is this normal? I don't know that there is any normal in a homicide investigation. They're all unique. And so the steps that are taken in this particular one, why it may have taken a

period of time. And this may have been a result of what they were doing in the investigation to get to the suspect and then what they had to do once they got the suspect. So let's talk about the suspect and why he might have allegedly done this. So the parents have theorized that maybe there was bad blood built over time. Maybe there was a snap. I believe Justin Rounds, Dylan Rounds father says that there was nothing to gain over killing his son. And they got the impression that based on past experiences that Brenner maybe, you know,

was not a guy to mess with and maybe they had some sort of beef. I mean, that's the part that we're trying to understand was what would be the why here. Does any of that make sense to you? Well, my understanding of reading what I read about this particular case, this Brenner character was squatting on their property, on their land. And for lack of a better term, that's the way it was described, that he was squatting, which means he's occupying the land, not in a legal sense, but the laws allow this type of activity to go on. and Dylan finds him and he's out there. My impression certainly of this young man is he's a hardworking guy. It appears to me to me that he is mature beyond his age, 19 years old.

So he's out there working hard. He comes across Brenner. They are acquaintances of some kind. I know that in one of the reports it was talking about him being a family friend, but then the family says, no, that's not true. he was just somebody that was known and so forth and so on so when these things happen i've said it before it's either sex drugs or money and this is going to be the money aspect of this thing and that dylan is out there trying to develop this property he's trying to out there at farming and so

forth and so on bringing in crops and you've got a guy that's on the uh the squatting on that property so this is a this becomes it will put it under that category of a money issue this guy is occupying a place that he is not supposed to be in and given the guys the suspects passed it looks like he is kind of one of those guys that reacts very quickly when he's confronted about something that he doesn't want to do and he's being told he needs to do which is move off of this piece of property we also seem to know that there was a conversation that he had with investigators where they said that he made false statements to them and that whatever he said lined up with the forensic evidence that they have,

what do you think that those conversations were in that interrogation room? Well, in those, in that interview, I would, of course, having not seen it, but reading kind of what's going on here, the, my impression would be that he made some admissions in the room, perhaps not a full confession of any kind, but he did make enough admissions that led those detectives to where they needed to be. So when they started down that road with him, they're able to take some of the admissions that he made. And then later on, they're able to affirm those things with some physical or forensic evidence.

And let's talk about the forensic evidence, because according, again, I think it was Dylan round's mother who said this is a really strong case. You'd be shocked if there wasn't a conviction. Obviously, we have to see what the whole evidence is and what the case would look like and what the defense would be. But from what we know so far, the DNA is pretty strong. I mean, particularly if they have a video of the defendant with blood on him, they find the shirt and has Dylan's DNA on it.

That feels like, you know, great police work. And I'm not sure where a defense attorney can go because it seems like the phone records and the DNA are pretty strong. Walk me through what do you think that was like for investigators to gather that material? Well, that's all about finding those clues that lead them. them to where they need to be. Finding that evidence, it leads them to where they need to be. And it's always, I say it repeatedly, it's always a journey for the truth.

So it leads them with the forensic evidence, with the, this video, what I have read is that the video was kind of an errant event. It wasn't something that I don't think even the suspect may not have known was actually occurring. So he's got this, he's, they've got this, uh, affirmation. that he's on a video, he's got blood, and then when they have accumulated or recovered that particular evidence, that DNA comes back to Dillon. So it's pretty hard for the suspect to dispute those findings. And in this particular kind of a case, when you have DNA that is this strong, it will become if he is denying if he is denying it that becomes a stronger case for the prosecution when he's denying that he was in his presence but yet we have indisputable evidence that he

certainly was oh those interrogations can really make or break a defense i'll tell you that much and i wanted to end our conversation on one of the most chilling aspects of this is that we really don't know what happened to Dylan. His body hasn't been recovered at the time of this recording. What are investigators you think doing behind the scenes in order to find his body and do you feel confident that they would? Well, I would imagine that given the location of where they believe that the murder occurred, they're going to have to form a grid and let's possibly tracking his phone to see where the suspect if he's going wherever he is going where he stops where that phone is for a prolong now he may be very clever and just turns his phone off and they have

no idea but they're going to have to start at ground zero which is where it occurred and then start taking a perimeter forming a grid and they may have to expand it and then go into a search So I don't know how big of an area. I'm assuming it's a pretty big area. This is an agricultural area. So I'm sure there's a lot of land out there. And there's no telling where he has put the body. So that's going to be a, that'll be the next hurdle.

And if the body is even in a state to be found and if Brenner even said anything to investigators that would give them a roadmap to find the body, these are still outstanding questions. Phil Waters, thank you so much for taking the time and breaking down this case with us. We always appreciate it. You bet, Jesse. Thank you for having me back. And that's all we have for you here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast.

I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.