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The father of a Utah woman who was gunned down at a mountaintop campsite in mid-August is appealing to the public to help crack the case.
"We need to get the word out … because people that were in Moab on Aug. 12, Aug. 13, Aug. 14, they have left Moab and they're all around the world now," Sean-Paul Schulte told Fox News Digital Sunday night.
Schulte is on the ground looking for clues in the crossroads city, a major stopping point for van lifers, RV travelers, bikers, park-goers and other road-trippers passing through the American West.
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He’s asking for anyone who may have driven by the road known as FR4651 from around Aug. 12 to 14 to check their dashcam videos for any vehicles that may have been in the area headed to or from La Sal Loop Road southeast of Moab.
Schulte’s daughter, 24-year-old Kylen Schulte, and her 38-year-old wife Crystal Turner were last seen alive at Woody’s Tavern on Main Street in Moab before they returned to their campsite on Friday, Aug. 13.
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That night, friends said they received text messages from the couple raising concerns of a "creeper" camping next to them.
At one point, the couple wrote that the strange man returned to the campsite, parked closer to them than he had been and appeared to be carrying more clothes and food, the elder Schulte said.
Crystal Turner, right, and Kylen Schulte, had last been seen alive on Aug. 13 at Woody’s Tavern in downtown Moab. (Kylen Schulte)
"The car is the clue and where we went to get food and clothes is another clue," Schulte said. "But here's the third clue: He was so close to the girls that they actually saw what he brought back."
Unfortunately, the couple did not describe the car in any detail.
After telling friends about the man’s return, the couple went silent.
They both missed work a few days later – uncharacteristically – prompting greater concern.
"When they missed shifts Sunday and Monday, both jobs called the police and reported them missing," the elder Schulte said.
Cindy Sue Hunter, an acquaintance who had met Schulte and her father in the past, was on the phone with him as she drove up La Sal Loop Road on Aug. 18 to search for the couple.
Crystal Turner and Kylen Schulte were last seen alive at Woody's Tavern in Moab on Aug. 13. (Fox News)
Out of the corner of her eye, removed from the road, she saw the glinting reflection of Schulte’s silver Kia parked at a campsite off of FR4651 in the South Mesa area of La Sal Loop Road, she said.
When she got closer, she stumbled upon the mangled remains of Kylen Schulte, who had been shot to death and was partially disrobed. She said she went into shock and barely remembered what happened next, other than listening to Schulte’s father, who told her to get in her own car and get away in case the killer was still around.
"Me and my girlfriend, we were both standing next to each other when Cindy told us she found the car and then she found a body," he said. "And she said yes, it was Kylen’s body, and I said Cindy Sue, get the hell out of there, run … hang up with me and call 911."
Hunter called authorities, who also discovered Turner’s remains nearby. Her body was in a similar condition.
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The brutality of the slayings shocked the tight-knit community, which has only about 5,000 full-time residents. But the case remains unsolved seven weeks later.
Schulte said his clue booth turned up dozens of leads, which he shared with the Grand County Sheriff’s Office. Investigators had already received many of them, he added, but a handful held new information.
Many of the tips pointed to the immediate area, not drifters or other people who may have been passing through. Hunter said she believed someone targeted the same-sex couple in a hate crime.
Schulte also said he’d received no information tying the slayings to Florida fugitive Brian Laundrie, who had been spotted in Moab allegedly slapping and hitting his now-deceased fiancée Gabby Petito around the same time. Nor is there a tie to John Freeman Colt, a sex offender who escaped a Kansas mental institution in June and remained on the run, hiding out at state and national parks, until Utah deputies recaptured him last week.
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After seeing how an abundance of tips pouring in over social media has led to new developments in the Petito case, Schulte said he’s hoping that witnesses are out there with more information on what happened to his daughter.
The Grand County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment.
In a statement last week, Sheriff Steven White 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.
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