Dylan Rounds.Photo: Box Elder County Sheriff’s Department
The parents of a 19-year-old Utah farmer who was allegedly murdered in 2022 say that they are ready to move forward now that the man suspected of killing their son has been formally charged.
James Brenner, 59,was chargedlast Friday with one count of aggravated murder in the death of Dylan Rounds, and one count of abuse or desecration of a human body, according to court records, per EastIdahoNews.com.
“For us as a family and for Dylan, this is a huge win. This cannot be swept under the rug. It’s out there, charges are filed and we can start moving forward,” Rounds' mother, Candice Cooley,told the outletThursday.
Rounds, who had purchased hundreds of acres of land in the remote Utah desert several years ago in pursuit of his dream to own a farm, last spoke to his grandmother in May 2022, telling her he was moving his grain truck from his camper in northwest Utah near the Nevada border to a shed about five miles away to escape a rainstorm.
Cooley, who lives in Idaho, found out on May 30 that nobody in the family had spoken to Rounds since then.
“I would go three or four days without talking to him and then I’d talk to him five days in a row,” shetold PEOPLEin June of last year. “But he was always in contact with somebody. So, when we all put together that nobody talked to him, that’s when we all headed down to the farm.”
Once there, Cooley said they found his grain truck in the shed. A search and rescue team later discovered his boots behind a pile of dirt, one of which had ablood stain confirmedthrough DNA analysis to belong to the missing teen, per EastIdahoNews.com.
During a search of Brenner’s trailer on June 16, authorities found ball ammunition, ignition caps, black powder and speed loads “all related to ‘muzzle loading,’ " the complaint states. In another search on June 21, authorities confiscated boxes of ammunition and a muzzle loader.
“When [the friend and neighbor] asked ‘why,’ Brenner stated that he needed to do this for ‘his own safety’ and that ‘the last time he had trouble with the law they took everything from him, and he did not want the things he had left to be taken again,” the complaint states.
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Court documents filed in Box Elder County, Utah, show investigators conducted a digital forensic download of Rounds’ phone and discovered a video with a time stamp taken at the time Rounds disappeared, per EastIdahoNews.com.
“The video showed the defendant with blood stains on his arms and shirt as he was cleaning a gun. The shirt which defendant is wearing in the video was analyzed and the victim’s DNA was found on the shirt,” the probable cause statement says.
Cooley said that ever since her son was very young, he dreamed of one day owning his own farm.
“From the time he was little, he just wanted to farm,” she previously told PEOPLE. “He was your true American farmer. Dylan would’ve been one of those good old boys in his overalls, in the coffee shop, chewing straw, drinking coffee. That’s what he was. That’s what he was born to be.”
source: people.com
