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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Police believe that three men who disappeared in November were killed, and a man suspected of helping one of them launder money might know something about their deaths, according to newly obtained search-warrant affidavits.
The three men, last seen after leaving for an ATV ride, have never been found, despite searches by police with cadaver dogs. No arrests have been made in the case.
Danny Gallegos, 35, and two friends, 23-year-old Braden Emerson and 34-year-old Levi Collins, were last seen Nov. 1 in an SUV that was later found abandoned near an irrigation canal. Inside, investigators found blood and a small amount of methamphetamine.
Based on DNA testing of the blood, police believe that Collins and Emerson were killed inside the SUV, and Gallegos was killed inside a motor home since seized by police, the search warrants state.
Gallegos was supposed to meet the owner of a jewelry store the day the three went missing and get $200,000 in cash to buy a house, authorities said. Gallegos was a drug dealer who became an FBI informant months before his death and had been laundering money through the man's jewelry store, according to federal charging documents.
Attorney Loni Deland represents the jewelry store owner. He said Thursday that his client never killed anyone. "If police had enough evidence to prosecute him, they would have charged him already," Deland told The Deseret News (http://bit.ly/1NkMuwJ).
When questioned by police days after the men went missing, the jewelry store owner said Gallegos was an acquaintance and he didn't know anything about the disappearance, according to the warrants.
The search warrant affidavits were obtained by The Deseret News and sealed after the Salt Lake City newspaper started inquiring about them. Salt Lake City police declined to comment on the case.
The documents say that Gallegos had been making phone calls throughout the day, but the call log ends after a 1:30 p.m. conversation with the jewelry store owner.
Surveillance video from a camera near the canal shows a Camaro following the SUV and picking up one of its passengers. The video quality was too poor for police to identify the Camaro driver, but investigators traced the car's license plate and found it had been loaned to the jewelry store owner. A truck the man borrowed was later searched by police and could also be linked to the disappearance, the warrants state.
When police went to question the jewelry store owner at the motor home where he lived with his father, neighbors said they had suddenly moved the weekend the three men disappeared. Police seized evidence in a search of their new home on Nov. 20.
The search warrant state the father told another man that they closed the jewelry store shortly after the men went missing because "they got involved with some bad people."
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Information from: Deseret News, http://www.deseretnews.com
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