TIMELINE
SAT JUN 4
- Attended family dinner (
LINK)
SUN JUN 5
- Last seen at his apartment in South Salt Lake (per initial reports
LINK)
MON JUN 6
- Seen on camera leaving apartment at 11:40am in his car, by himself (
LINK)
- Withdrew cash from a bank (
LINK)
- Phone was shut off sometime this day (
LINK)
TUE JUN 7
WED JUN 8
- Reported missing by family (
LINK)
- 2012 Suzuki SX4 found near Castle Rock, UT, with plates [white skier/snow/life elevated "E06 8FE"] removed, screws replaced, and vehicle wiped clean of fingerprints (
LINK)
ABOUT CASTLE ROCK, UT
Castle Rock is approximately 1 hour NE of South Salt Lake (where Casey lived) and about a half hour SW of Evanston, WY. It's a long stretch of interstate across very sparsely populated, rugged landscape. The nearest gas stations, grocery stores, or restaurants are back in Coalville, UT (25mi SW) or ahead in Evanston, WY (20mi NE).
MY OPINION / THOUGHTS
We actually were on a road trip from UT to CO the day Casey went missing and drove right past the exit where his car was found -- albeit hours before he was last seen on video in SLC. We had great driving weather that day -- 60s/70s, a bit cloudy, and not much traffic at all on I-80
IMO, the location makes me think that whatever happened to Casey happened in SLC and whoever caused his disappearance then drove the car out to Castle Rock to dump it somewhere it wouldn't be quickly or easily found (and honestly, I'm kind of surprised that they managed to find it as quickly as they did - maybe someone from the Castle Rock area found it suspicious and called it in?)
I definitely wonder if it might be a classifieds-ad-sale-gone-wrong; I would suspect that someone forcing him to take out money would want more than $100, and similarly, I would expect that if he had left voluntarily and wanted to just get away, he would want to withdraw more than $100.
Hopefully what LE knows about the phone call placed earlier that morning will yield some clues.