Dylan Rounds, the 19-year-old farmer who left his Idaho home to work a plot of land in Utah has now been missing for two months.
"I’m hanging in best I can, but the not knowing is pure torture," his mother, Candice Cooley, told Fox News Digital.
James Adrian Brenner, a 58-year-old who was squatting on a neighbor’s land, is being held on federal firearms charges and has been named a suspect in Rounds’ disappearance. No charges have been filed in direct connection to the missing person case.
Brenner was convicted of shooting and seriously wounding another man at a campsite in Maryland in 1986 in a work-related dispute, according to authorities there. He has numerous other convictions over the years and has served federal time, records show.
"When Dylan Rounds was not located early on in the search effort, the investigation focused on the possibility of Dylan being the victim of a crime," Chief Deputy Cade Palmer, of the Box Elder County Sheriff’s Office, said in a statement.
According to a neighbor identified in court documents as DH, 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.
Another local man, Chase Venstra, is also facing federal firearms charges in connection with the case. Authorities served a search warrant at his home prior to Rounds’ disappearance and found two guns. Then by listening to jailhouse phone calls after the teen went missing, police said they learned he had more weapons hidden with an associate.
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Rounds’ 20th birthday will pass on Aug. 1, and the family is urging supporters to plant seeds in his honor.
"I have been mailing out seed packets all week to all over the country, and we have local places where they can be picked up," Cooley said. "We have had an amazing amount of people join us from all over the world."
As they gear up to plant seeds, she said the family is awaiting the results of crime lab testing on some of the evidence.
UTAH TEENAGE FARMER MISSING MORE THAN 2 WEEKS AS MOM FEARS FOUL PLAY
"We are waiting to hear back," she said. "That, we are hoping, will give us some answers."
Rounds’ last communication with his family came in the early morning of May 28, when he told his grandmother he had to hurry and park his grain truck in its shed because it started raining.
Deputies found the truck in the shed, about 5 miles from his camper. They also found his boots on the ground 100 yards away – in the opposite direction of the way he would have taken home.
Rounds is a 5-foot-10 White male, weighing about 160 pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes.
Anyone with information on the case is asked to call the sheriff’s office at 435-734-3800. Tips can also be submitted through Facebook.
