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Dylan Rounds, a 19-year-old who struck off on his own as a farmer in rural Utah, has been missing for almost a month after police found his boots and grain truck abandoned 5 miles from his camper in Lucin.
The circumstances of his disappearance appear suspicious: Rounds' mother suspects foul play and investigators haven’t ruled it out. Meanwhile, tips are scarce and a large-scale search of the area has turned up nothing. And police say interviews with numerous people connected to the teen turned up no leads.
"If somebody is involved with Dylan’s disappearance, they need to know we're not going to go away," Chief Deputy Cade Palmer, of the Box Elder County Sheriff’s Office, told Fox News Digital Wednesday. "If this takes months, if it takes years, we'll keep knocking on doors."
Law enforcement spent weeks canvassing the area in an operation that has, so far, included K-9s, drones and horses. Rounds' family says he was almost entirely focused on his farm, did not use drugs and did not waste time on video games or social media.
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Dylan Rounds, a 19-year-old Idaho native who struck off on his own as a farmer in Utah, last spoke to family on May 28, according to authorities. (Box Elder County Sheriff's Department)
"If he was OK, then he should have turned up by now," Palmer said. "So we can't rule out that he's not OK, or that somebody may have been involved in his disappearance."
The surrounding area on the Utah and Nevada border is full of old mineshafts, caves and tunnels, and Rounds’ mother Candice Cooley said a professional cave diver had volunteered to help search some of those spaces.
Complicating matters, Cooley said, are a number of false rumors and fake fundraisers circulating on social media.
"We need a direction, evidence, something that’s not a wild goose chase, because it’s not good terrain out there, and it’s not for people who just leisurely just want to come out and search," she told Fox News Digital. "[It’s] over 100 degrees, winds get blowing, and people don’t want you there."
Dylan Rounds, a 19-year-old Idaho native who struck off on his own as a farmer in Utah, last spoke to family on May 28, according to authorities. (Box Elder County Sheriff's Department)
Those people, who are few and far between in the rural stretch west of the Great Salt Lake, have offered little to investigators, Palmer said, which he said was "surprising and strange."
"We’re not even getting tips," he said. "We’re not getting phone calls."
Cooley and her ex-husband, Rounds’ father, have put up a $20,000 reward for Dylan’s return. They are not asking for financial assistance.
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"We both have businesses, that’s why we’re not asking for money," she said. "Give it to another family that needs it."
Dylan Rounds and his mom, Candice Cooley, in an undated photo. (Candice Cooley)
Rounds was last seen at a restaurant across state lines in Montello, Nevada, on May 26 and last spoke to family on May 28.
He told his grandmother around 7 a.m. that morning that it was starting to rain, and he had to go put his grain truck in the shed – five miles from his camper on another property that he was in the process of buying, Cooley said.
A search team found the grain truck in the shed and his boots about 100 yards away, in the opposite direction of the camper. They found his other vehicle, a 2015 Ford F-150, back on his property, Cooley said. It appeared to have been "pressure washed," and there were red flags.
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Someone had attempted to engage the vehicle’s four-wheel drive, Cooley said, but Rounds had broken the transfer case and knew it didn’t work. And the driver’s seat was pushed up close toward the wheel, indicating someone much smaller than her son had been the last one driving.
Dylan Rounds, 19, struck out on his own to become a Utah farmer, according to his mom Candice Cooley. Photos she shared show he grew up with farming in his blood. (Candice Cooley)
Cooley said that early in the case she did not feel that local authorities shared her suspicions of foul play and had not seized evidence. So she drove the pickup back to her home in Idaho, where she said she turned it over to state police.
Authorities there could not immediately confirm this account.
Chief Deputy Palmer, in Box Elder County, said he could not go into specifics about the investigation and that while they had not identified any suspects, they also hadn’t ruled anyone out.
He renewed his appeal to the public for help in finding Rounds and issued a warning for anyone who may have harmed the teen.
Candice Cooley says her son Dylan Rounds is singularly focused on farming. (Candice Cooley)
Investigators won’t stop without answers, Palmer said.
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"So if somebody's laying low that was involved in this or knows something, and they think they lay low long enough we're just going to go away, that's not going to happen. We're going to keep at this until we get answers."
Rounds is a White male standing 5 feet, 10 inches tall and weighing around 160 pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes.
Anyone with information on Rounds’ whereabouts is asked to call the Box Elder County Sheriff’s Office at 435-734-3800.
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