Double Homicide 'Not Related' To Missing Person Case: Utah Police

GRAND COUNTY, UTAH — In a new development in the disappearance of former Long Islander Gabrielle Petito, investigators from the Grand County Sheriff's Office announced the double-homicide of a married couple in Utah is not related, and her family continues to have faith that she will be found.

In a statement released by the office of Sheriff Steven White on Friday night, he says the department’s investigators determined the murders of Crystal Turner, 38, and Kylen Schulte, 24, are unrelated. Earlier this week, the department's investigators said that they were not ruling out a connection between Petito's disappearance and the slayings of the newly wedded couple whose bodies were found riddled with bullets in the South Mesa area of the La Sal Loop Road, Fox News reported.

"We're looking at everything, I mean, anything and everything that was suspicious around that time," a spokesman for the Grand County Sheriff's Office told the outlet on Wednesday afternoon, adding that investigators are "not ruling anything out at this time. So we're just investigating the information as it comes in."

The couple was last seen at Woody's Tavern in Moab City on Aug. 13, and were found shot to death about five days later, Fox reported.

No arrests have been made in the case.

Petito had been traveling by van with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, on a tour of the national parks system since early July. The last time she spoke with her mother, Nichole Schmidt, was Aug. 25; and when Petito did not respond to a text conversation from late August, Schmidt became worried.

In a text at the end of August, Petito told Schmidt that she was headed to Yellowstone National Park. It is believed that before her last communication with the family that she was in Grand Teton Park in Wyoming.

Petito's family filed a missing person report with Suffolk police last Saturday, but the North Port Police have since taken over as the agency leading the investigation.

When informed that the two cases are unrelated and asked if the family is relieved by the news, Rick Stafford, a spokesman for the Petito and Schmidt families, said “the family will be relieved when Gabby is home.”

He went on to say that the family has the utmost faith in the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the law enforcement agencies “that are not looking for Gabby.”

“They are doing everything in their power to find her,” he added.

On Thursday, North Port police Chief Todd Garrison, who is overseeing the department's missing persons investigation, said investigators were in contact with the sheriff's office and shared the information that they have.

The department has classified Laundrie as a "person of interest in their missing person case, and while detectives feel he is hindering their case by not speaking to them, he cannot be charged with anything at this juncture, Garrison said.

Anyone with tips about Petito's disappearance is urged to call 800-CALL-FBI.