The mother of Gabby Petito – a 22-year-old New York woman who died at the hands of her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, on the final stretch of their cross-country road trip in late August 2021 – is shining light on the case of missing Utah farmer Dylan Rounds.
Nichole Schmidt shared a missing poster for Rounds, 20, to her Twitter page, which has amassed a following of more than 70,000 users, on Monday with the hashtag #MissingPosterMonday.
Rounds vanished on May 28, when the then-19-year-old told his grandmother he needed to get his grain truck out of the rain.
Authorities named James Brenner, 58, as a suspect in the case in July. He is currently being held on firearms charges dating back to 2021.
Brenner pleaded guilty on May 21 and has already been sentenced to 33 months in prison for another firearm charge.
Police said Brenner, a "family friend" of Rounds, was squatting in a trailer on land where deputies found Rounds' boots and grain truck
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A neighbor identified in court documents as "DH" said that at some point after Rounds’ disappearance, Brenner asked him to conceal three black powder guns and a .22-caliber rifle without a serial number. After being contacted by the FBI, DH gave the weapons to authorities. Citing past felony convictions, they charged Brenner with being a felon in possession of a firearm.
An Idaho native, Rounds struck off on his own as a teenager to build up his own farm in Utah, Candice Cooley, Rounds’ mother, previously told Fox News Digital. He had a passion for the work and spent no time playing video games or on social media like others his age, she said, and he did not use drugs.
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She suspected foul play almost immediately when family members lost contact with him.
Rounds remains missing, and some locals have pointed at the large number of abandoned mines in the area.
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"There are a lot of old abandoned mines out there, probably more than I know about, more than I can count. They're all over the place," Box Elder County Chief Deputy Cade Palmer told Fox News Digital earlier this year.
Rounds is a White male standing 5 feet, 10 inches tall and weighing around 160 pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes.
Anyone with information on Rounds’ whereabouts is asked to call the Box Elder County Sheriff's Office at 435-734-3800.
