3 men missing nearly 5 months were likely murdered, police say


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SALT LAKE CITY — For nearly four months, they have been labeled as three missing men.

But Salt Lake police strongly believe they are investigating a case of triple murder, the Deseret News has learned.

A new search warrant affidavit filed in 3rd District Court outlines in detail the numerous other warrants, interviews and investigations Salt Lake police have quietly been conducting in the four months since Levi Collins, 34, Danny Gallegos, 35, and Braden Emerson, 23, disappeared.

The warrant, which was sealed after the Deseret News made inquiries about the investigation, also goes into detail about how an associate of Gallegos, Justin Christopher, may have information about the case and the fate of the missing men.

Sources close to the investigation tell the Deseret News that police are calling Christopher and his father, Richard Christopher, persons of interest in connection with the disappearance of the trio.

Salt Lake police Thursday declined to comment about the case. No charges have been filed or arrests made.

"My client never killed anyone," Loni Deland, Justin Christopher's attorney, said Thursday. "If police had enough evidence to prosecute him they would have charged him already."

On Nov. 1, the three close friends told family members they planned to ride their ATVs near the "B" on Bountiful's mountainside.

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But police don't believe they ever made it there.

On Nov. 2, Gallegos' aunt called police to report the three had left the previous day in a 2003 Chevrolet Tahoe that was pulling a trailer with an ATV on it, but they did not return and she could not reach either Gallegos or Collins on their cellphones. Davis County sheriff's deputies searched the foothills of Bountiful but found nothing.

The aunt also said she believed "something nefarious" had happened to Gallegos, explaining that the "the word on the street" was that a man named PeeWee had "done something bad to Gallegos," another search warrant states.

On Nov. 3, a business owner called Salt Lake Animal Control to report that a barking dog was inside an abandoned Chevy Tahoe near the Jordan River surplus canal at 1740 W. 1500 South. The dog belonged to Collins.

But it was other items investigators found inside the car, including a "large" amount of blood, that alarmed them.

To read more details of the story, visit DeseretNews.com.

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