Kylen Schulte and Crystal Turner’s final hours were disclosed when a murder suspect in Moab was discovered.

Adam Pinkusiewicz, a Moab murder suspect, was an early person of interest in the August 2021 slayings of Kylen Schulte and Crystal Turner, according to a private investigator hired by the victims’ family, and he allegedly had an “animus” toward the two lesbians and fled town shortly after their shooting deaths. According to the investigator, he even neglected to pick up his final payment from the employment he shared with Turner.

“It seems pretty strong that he’s the one who did it,” said Jason Jensen, Schulte’s father’s private investigator hired in October. “All the cards are stacked against him: he had animus toward these females, he knew his victims, he quit his job and delayed picking up his pay — guilty-conscience acts.”

Schulte and Turner were last seen alive on security footage on Aug. 13 at Woody’s Tavern in downtown Moab.

They were thought to have been slain the next morning. According to Jensen, Schulte and Turner came into town on a Harley-Davidson motorbike and parked it in the McDonald’s parking lot before taking a car back up to their campground, which they meant to move after informing friends a “creeper” had troubled them the night before.

Jensen said that the fact that they left the bike in the parking lot rather than in a garage indicated that they intended to return shortly. Pinkusiewicz, he suspects, pursued them up the mountain and ambushed them. Pinkusiewicz and the “creeper” may or may not be the same individual. Authorities feel it is possible, but Jensen believes they are distinct persons.

“Why would they tell their friend ‘a creeper’ is pestering us if he was a coworker?” he asked. “Even though they say in crime that coincidences don’t exist, well, every now and then you do have a coincidence.”

Pinkusiewicz had already departed Utah when Grand County investigators attempted to interrogate him in connection with the crime, according to the sheriff’s office on Wednesday. They did, however, find a witness to whom he reportedly revealed precise facts of the crime “known only to detectives.”

Pinkusiewicz was one of more than 20 original suspects. Schulte’s father, Sean-Paul Schulte, was informed of his son’s unusual activities days before the murder, according to Jensen. In November, a McDonald’s employee informed a group of TikTokers that the FBI should look into him. A  coworker describes Pinkusiewicz shouting with other employees “because they are lesbians,” and claims he departed immediately after the event, leaving behind his final paycheck.

The killings of Schulte and Turner shook Moab, a crossroads settlement of around 5,000 people that attracts more than a million visitors each year. They were slain mere days after the traffic stop involving Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie, whose confrontation originated at Schulte’s place of employment, an organic supermarket in the heart of town.

Deputies explored the possibility of a link between Laundrie and the slayings but quickly ruled him out. The FBI stated that after his death, he wrote a written confession to murder Petito in a diary found near his body. =