On September 19, 2016, 19-year-old Scott Romero went to Spanish Fork to film the ruins of the flooded town of Teasel.

Exactly a year later, he was found in an abandoned salt mine, not in his camping gear, but in an old dirty clown costume.

But what happened to him, why he was wearing a clown costume, and what kind of psycho did it? You will find out in this video.

Enjoy.

Some names and details in this story have been changed for anonymity and confidentiality.

Not all photographs are from the actual scene.

On September 19th, 2016, at 40 minutes in the morning, 19-year-old Scott Romero left his parents’ house in Oram, Utah.

According to his mother, who was preparing breakfast, the boy was in high spirits.

He put on a light jacket, jeans, and took with him a professional Canon camera that he had bought with his own savings a few months ago.

His goal was the ghost town of Tisel, an environmental disaster zone from the 80s, where dilapidated buildings still jutted out of the water, creating a surreal landscape.

Scott got into his silver sedan, checked the navigation settings, and drove onto Highway 6, leading deep into Spanish Fork Canyon.

It was the last time his family would see him at home.

According to the plan he shared with his father, Greg Romero, the shoot was to last no more than 4 hours.

Scott planned to return home around in the evening to make it to his college preparatory classes.

At 4 in the afternoon, a cell tower located at the entrance to the canyon detected an outgoing signal from Scott’s phone.

It was an automatic mail synchronization or geoloccation update.

No exact call data was recorded at that time.

This digital trail was the last confirmed sign of the guy’s activity.

After that moment, the phone stopped registering in the network, which at first did not raise suspicions.

The canyon’s terrain is complex and there are dead zones every few miles.

The alarm started around in the evening.

Scott had not returned home and his phone kept going straight to voicemail.

Greg Romero, feeling uneasy, did not wait for the established procedural deadlines and immediately called the Utah County Sheriff’s Office.

The dispatcher accepted the missing person’s report, but warned that active police action usually begins after 24 hours of an adult’s absence unless there is direct evidence of danger.

Not wanting to waste any time, Greg and his brother got into a pickup truck and followed their son’s likely route.

They knew that Scott was going to rent old houses near the water, so they focused on the exits off of Route 6.

The sun was already setting and long shadows from the rocks covered the road, making it difficult to see.

At about in the evening, as Greg drove past a blind gravel exit near a railroad track, he noticed a familiar glint of metal in the bushes.

It was Scott’s car.

The silver sedan was parked at a slight angle to the main dirt road, as if the driver was trying to make a sharp turn or stop.

As the men ran up to the car, they were struck with cold terror.

The driver’s door was a jar.

The keys were in the ignition.

The dashboard still glowed with a dim light indicating a dead battery.

The ignition had been on for hours.

The interior was a mess, uncharacteristic of Scott, who always kept his car perfectly clean.

But most importantly, there was no one inside.

The backpack with expensive photography equipment, which Scott never left unattended, was gone.

His wallet and cell phone were also gone.

There was only a map of the area on the passenger seat.

Greg began to shout his son’s name as he combed the surrounding bushes with his flashlight, but all he heard in response was the rumble of a distant train and the rustle of dry wormwood.

Patrol crews arrived at the scene at 15 minutes in the evening.

The place where the car was found was immediately fenced off.

It was an isolated area hidden from the highway by a high railroad embankment, an ideal place to stop unnoticed or to stop someone.

The forensic team that followed began examining the scene by spotlight.

The ground at this exit was dry, rocky, and hard, making it difficult to find shoe prints.

However, while inspecting the road in front of the sedan, the trace expert noticed something important.

The tread pattern of another vehicle was clearly visible on the dusty gravel.

The tracks were wide, much wider than the wheels of an ordinary passenger car and probably belonged to a heavy van or truck.

The most disturbing detail was the location of the tracks.

They overlapped with the path of Scott’s sedan.

It looked as if an unknown vehicle had deliberately blocked the silver car’s exit by pushing it to the side of the road.

The detective noted in the report of the scene inspection.

Tire tracks indicate an aggressive blocking maneuver.

The lack of braking distance of the sedan indicates that the driver stopped voluntarily or under duress, but without attempting to escape speed.

Due to the excessive dryness of the soil and the presence of gravel, it was not possible to identify the brand of tires or the exact model of the car on the spot.

Experts made plaster casts and panoramic photographs for further analysis in the laboratory.

Within a 50-foot radius of the car, the search team found several broken branches of shrubbery which could indicate a short struggle or rapid movement of people.

However, no traces of blood, shell casings, or Scott’s personal belongings were found on the ground.

The guy seemed to disappear into thin air right next to the open door of his car.

The sheriff’s office officially classified the case as a disappearance under suspicious circumstances.

That night, dog handlers combed the Spanish Fork Canyon with dogs, but the dry wind that blew through the canyon all day scattered the scents.

The trail ended exactly where the wide tires of the unknown van ended.

The search was just beginning, but for the Romero family, time had already stopped when the silver sedan turned onto a gravel road to nowhere.

Criminologists call the first 48 hours of a missing person investigation the golden age.

This is the time when the traces are still fresh, witnesses memories are not distorted by emotions or news, and the suspect has not yet had time to build a reliable line of defense.

In the case of Scott Romero, detectives from the Utah County Sheriff’s Office did not have a body, but they did have an abandoned car and a clear understanding that the boy had not gone into the mountains voluntarily.

Investigators immediately focused on the students immediate environment, working through his social circle, enemies, and recent contacts.

On the morning of September 20th, during a survey of students at the college where Scott studied, the first specific name came up.

Several witnesses independently pointed to Tyler Weiss, a fellow student of the missing man with whom Scott had a tense relationship.

According to eyewitnesses, two days before the trip to the canyon, the boys had a loud conflict in the student cafeteria.

The reason for the quarrel was professional jealousy.

Tyler accused Scott of stealing the concept for the final photo project.

One of the students sitting at the next table quoted Tyler’s words during his testimony to the detectives.

You’re going to be sorry if you dare to go in there and shoot this before I do.

This phrase thrown in front of witnesses sounded not just like an emotional outburst, but a direct threat.

For the investigators, this was sufficient reason to transfer Tyler Weiss to the status of a prime suspect.

The police immediately submitted a request to cellular operators to obtain call details and the geoloccation of Tyler’s phone.

The results of the technical analysis came back a few hours later and only reinforced the suspicions.

The data showed that on September 19th, Weiss’s mobile device registered with the same base station covering the entrance to Spanish Fork Canyon.

The time period perfectly coincided with the moment when Scott’s phone was last pinged in the same area.

Moreover, Tyler’s digital trail had a characteristic anomaly.

Just after , his phone disappeared from the network for almost 2 hours as if it had been turned off or was in complete radio shadow and reappeared at the entrance to the city when the events in the canyon had probably already ended.

This digital failure looked like a deliberate attempt to hide the route.

After obtaining a warrant, the detectives arrived at Tyler Weiss’s house.

His pickup truck, a massive SUV with high ground clearance and wide tires, was parked in the driveway.

Even before the detailed search began, during a cursory inspection of the vehicle, the experienced detective noticed the condition of the undercarriage.

Fresh, thick layers of viscous red clay were found on the fenders, mud flaps, and suspension components.

Red clay is not uncommon in Utah County, but its concentration and specific shade, according to geologists, were characteristic of the eroded riverbanks near the flooded town of Teasel.

It was off-road soil where ordinary city cars cannot go.

Tyler was taken to the police station for questioning.

At first, he was defiant, denying any involvement and claiming that he had spent the whole day at home.

But when the investigator laid out phone billing printouts and photos of the dirt from his car on the table, Weiss’s line of defense faltered.

According to the interrogation report, after a long pause, Tyler changed his story.

He admitted that he had indeed driven to the canyon that day.

His motive was far from noble.

He knew about Scott’s plans and wanted, in his own words, to scare a competitor or ruin the shoot by appearing in the footage or causing a scandal.

Tyler claimed that he came to Tyel looking for Scott’s silver sedan, but never found it.

Angry at his failure, he allegedly decided to let off steam by driving on old dirt roads nearby, which explained the red clay on the car and the lack of communication.

I didn’t see him.

I didn’t even know he was there until I saw the news.

He insisted on the record.

To the detectives, this sounded like a halftruth.

The presence at the crime scene, the motive, the aggressive behavior, everything pointed to him.

Forensic scientists disassembled Tyler’s pickup truck almost to the last screw.

They were looking for microscopic traces of blood, clothing fibers, Scott’s fingerprints, or his belongings.

They treated the interior with Luminol, checked the luggage compartment, floor mats, and seat upholstery.

But the results stunned the investigation team.

The car was clean.

Not a single drop of blood, not a single fiber belonging to the missing person.

Not a single scratch that would indicate a struggle or transportation of the body or the bike.

The tread of the pickup’s tires was similar to the tracks found near Scott’s car, but due to the commonness of this model of rubber, experts could not make a definitive identification.

The district prosecutor, after reviewing the case file, issued a disappointing verdict.

The available evidence was insufficient to bring murder or kidnapping charges.

The circumstantial evidence created a picture of probability, but did not provide a fact.

Tyler Weiss was released, although he remained the main suspect in internal police documents.

Days turned into weeks.

Search teams combed the kilometers around the Tesla.

Divers checked flooded basement and drones scanned the canyons.

But the canyon was silent.

No body, no camera, no backpack was found.

Scott’s parents put up flyers all over the state, but the hotline was silent.

After three months of intensive but fruitless searching, a new stamp appeared on the file with Scott Romero’s case.

The investigation reached a dead end.

The active phase was curtailed and the case was officially reclassified as cold.

Hopes that the boy would be found alive melted away with the first snow that covered the red rocks of Utah, hiding all possible traces of that fateful meeting.

The silence surrounding Scott Romero’s disappearance lasted for 13 months.

Throughout this time, his name slowly disappeared from the pages of local newspapers, turning into another statistical unit in the archives of cold cases.

The red rocks of Spanish Fork Canyon did not provide any new clues, and the version of Tyler Weiss’s involvement crumbled due to the lack of physical evidence.

It seemed that the story ended where the silver sedan was found on a dusty roadside.

But on October 7th, 2017, the answer came not from the surface, but from several hundred feet underground.

That evening, a group of illegal diggers entered a mothball salt mine near the town of Redmond, 70 mi south of where the boy disappeared.

The facility, known among local adventurers as Old Horizon, had not been officially operational for more than 20 years.

The entrances were welded or filled in, but as is often the case, enthusiasts found a narrow ventilation hole leading to the lower levels.

According to testimony later given by the group to police officers, they plan to explore a level marked on old charts as Horizon 4.

It was a deep technical attit.

Moving along a dilapidated trolley track, one of the diggers noticed an unnatural spot of color in a far al cove that had probably once been used to store tools or explosives.

In the beam of a powerful flashlight, the gray salt walls suddenly gave way to a bright yellow color.

At first, the group thought they had come across an abandoned prop or mannequin.

Someone’s silly joke in a place that hadn’t been touched in years.

But as they got closer, the joke turned into a nightmare.

A man was sitting on the stone floor in an unnatural position.

The body had been dried out by the unique microclimate of the mine.

The salt had drawn out the moisture, turning the tissues into a kind of parchment, stopping the decomposition process and turning the deceased into a mummy.

The biggest shock was caused by the clothes.

It was neither a tourist suit nor ordinary student clothes.

The body was dressed in a vintage clown costume made of heavy yellow brocade that glistened in the dark.

A thick layer of professional makeup was clearly visible on the face, which had retained its features due to preservation.

A white base, an exaggerated red smile, and black tears under the eyes.

Panicstricken, the diggers immediately left the mine and called the 911 service despite the threat of arrest for trespassing.

Detectives and a rescue team arrived at the site around midnight.

The recovery of the body turned into a complex logistical operation.

Narrow passages and unstable rock required maximum caution.

When the body was finally brought to the surface and placed in a transport bag, forensic experts immediately noted that the clothing did not meet modern standards.

The fabric was old, the cut was reminiscent of stage costumes of the last century, and the makeup was applied with a skill not typical of amateurs.

The preliminary identification was based on indirect evidence, height, build, and dental records provided by Scott Romero’s parents a year ago.

Official DNA confirmation would take time, but detectives had no doubt that they had found the missing student.

However, the circumstances of the discovery turned the whole understanding of the case upside down.

In the first hours after the discovery of the body, the investigative team returned to the version of Tyler Weiss’s involvement.

The scene looked like an act of grotesque humiliation, dressing the enemy in a jester’s costume, applying makeup, and throwing him into a dark pit.

Such cruelty could be interpreted as an extreme form of revenge or perverted bullying that got out of control.

Detectives speculated that Tyler could have forced Scott to wear it at gunpoint to taunt him and the situation ended in murder.

This theory seemed logical right up until the autopsy began at the Salt Lake City Medical Examiner’s Office.

On October 8th, the state’s chief medical examiner began the examination procedure.

The body, thanks to the salt environment, retained many details that usually disappear within the first weeks.

When the expert began to examine the victim’s wrists, hidden under the wide cuffs of the clown costume, he stopped the procedure and called the lead investigator.

Scott’s hands were tied behind his back, but it wasn’t the chaotic winding of rope or plastic ties most often used in spontaneous crimes.

It was a complex system of knots made with thick braided cord.

The expert who had experience with different types of injuries and tools immediately recognized the specifics.

The knots were professional.

It was a combination used in industrial mountaineering, stage rigging, or circus aerial gymnastics.

The tying was done in such a way as to limit movement as much as possible without disrupting blood circulation too quickly, indicating an intention to keep the victim alive for a certain amount of time.

The person who did this has tied such knots thousands of times.

The experts phrase recorded in the protocol was a turning point.

It instantly destroyed the theory of the student avenger.

Tyler Weiss was an ordinary college kid who was interested in photography and partying.

He had no climbing classes, no theater work, and no access to specific rigging equipment.

He could hit, he could intimidate, but he couldn’t tie a knot that requires years of muscle memory.

In addition, the costume itself, upon closer inspection, under the bright lights of the operating room, turned out to be no cheap knockoff from a carnival store.

It was a handmade item, heavy with a lining designed for many years of use and frequent washing.

The yellow brocade showed signs of repeated repairs, neat handmade patches, and fraying at the folds, indicating that the costume had been worn professionally long before it was put on Scott.

The makeup was also applied according to the rules of theater art, taking into account facial expressions with clear contours that would not smear under the spotlight.

The investigation was confronted with a fact that was frightening in its absurdity.

The killer did not just get rid of the body, he prepared it.

He spent time dressing the dead or unconscious victim, applying complex makeup in the dark or semi-d darkness, tying his hands with knots that only a narrow circle of specialists knows, and lowering the body to a depth that is difficult to reach without special equipment.

The mine near Redmond was no longer just a place to hide evidence.

It became a stage.

and Scott Romero, frozen in an eternal yellow smile among the salt crystals, became the main character in a play directed by a mad professional.

Tyler Weiss no longer fit this profile.

The detectives realized that they were dealing with someone much older, more experienced, and more dangerous a man for whom the line between reality and theater props had long since blurred.

The investigation, which seemed to be complete, suddenly opened the door to a darkness that no one in Utah County had even realized existed.

After Scott Romero’s body was taken by relatives for burial, the only physical object that continued to speak to detectives was that yellow suit.

It lay in a sterile room in a Utah laboratory, laid out on a metal table under bright white light.

The fabric, soaked in salt and thyme, had become as stiff as cardboard and retained its shape even without a body inside.

For most investigators, this prop was just a gruesome symbol of the crime.

But Scott’s parents, Greg and Linda Romero, refused to see it as a dead end.

Greg Romero, repeatedly appealed to the leadership of the investigative department to conduct a second in-depth examination of the clothing.

He insisted that an item of this quality and specificity could not have appeared out of nowhere.

Under pressure from the family and given the deadlock in the investigation, the sheriff authorized a trace and textile examination.

This task was assigned to the laboratory’s leading forensic scientist who specialized in restoring markings on damaged surfaces.

The work was painstaking.

The expert had to clean the brocade centimeter by centimeter from salt deposits using soft brushes and special solutions that do not damage the fibers.

Under the microscope, the fabric revealed its true origin.

It was a heavy industrial textile produced in the mid80s.

The composition of the yarns and the type of weaving indicated that the material was intended for intensive use in aggressive environments, stage, circus or theater.

Such clothes were never sold at retail.

They were made to order in specialized workshops.

The breakthrough happened on the third day of work.

While examining the inside of the costume where the sleeve joined the shoulder seam, the forensic scientist noticed a faint, almost invisible pigmentation on the lining.

It was not a dirt stain.

It was the remnant of a stamp applied with indelible technical ink that had partially faded from sweat and time, but had been preserved by salt preservation.

By using a multisspectral camera with different light filters, the expert was able to extract the contrast of the inscription.

Latin letters and numbers appeared on the monitor screen, which became the first real clue in the case in more than a year.

The inscription consisted of two lines, LG G, circus, and below it, inventory number 402.

It was a classic inventory number that is put on props in large organizations to keep track of property.

Having received this information, the sheriff’s office detectives sent official requests to the Utah State Archives as well as to the National Registries of Entertainment Enterprises and Historical Circus Arts Associations.

The search lasted exactly a week.

The response from the business records archive of the neighboring state of Nevada put everything in its place while opening a new much darker chapter in the investigation.

The abbreviation LG was the acronym for the laughing giant traveling circus.

It was a medium-sized troop that toured the West Coast and mountain states in the 80s.

According to archival records, the circus ceased to exist in 1,993 due to financial insolveny.

The bankruptcy was high-profile and was accompanied by a complete sale of property to pay off debts to creditors.

Everything that belonged to the troop, from tents and animal cages to stage costumes and dressing tables, went under the hammer at a large auction in the suburbs of Reno.

This information became the basis for a new version of the investigation.

Costume number 402 was not a random purchase at a carnival store.

It was an authentic professional prop that had passed through the hands of specific people.

The person who put it on Scott Romero either attended that auction in 93 or had access to the collection of a person who bought up old circus junk.

For Tyler Weiss, who had remained the prime suspect all this time, it was a ticket to freedom.

In 1993, Tyler was a baby.

He could not physically buy that costume at auction, and no family ties to the circus world were found in his biography.

The killer’s profile changed instantly.

Now, the police were looking not for an impulsive student, but for a much older man, prone to collecting specific things.

nostalgia for the past and probably with deep psychological abnormalities that made him turn death into a theatrical performance.

The investigation received a thread that led back in time to the lists of participants in an old auction where the name of the killer was hidden among the names of the buyers.

While the detectives were checking the archives of the auction houses, another no less important part of the investigation was unfolding in the basement of the Salt Lake City crime lab.

The digital forensics department was focusing on a Canon film camera that had been found in a salt mine just a few feet from Scott Romero’s mummified body.

The camera had been in the aggressive environment for more than a year.

The metal parts of the body were corroded, the lens was clogged with salt dust, and the shutter mechanism was jammed.

However, the sealed film compartment fulfilled its task.

The dry, stable air of the mine, which preserved the body also preserved the emulsion on the 35 mm celluloid tape.

The process of developing the film was carried out manually with the utmost care not to damage the fragile image layer.

The technicians realized that this tape could contain the last moments of the boy’s life captured by his own hands.

When the negatives were dry, they were digitized in the highest resolution.

Most of the images were exactly what the investigators expected.

Canyon landscapes, red rocks, general views of the flooded city of Teasel.

Scott took pictures of ruins of houses sticking out of the mud, rusted barn roofs, and the remains of a railroad track.

The photographs were of high quality with clear composition which once again emphasized his talent.

But the last three shots were different.

They were dark, underexposed, and probably taken in a sudden change of light or in a hurry.

The last shot on the film aroused the most interest.

It depicted the facade of a dilapidated wooden house standing on the edge of a swampy factory.

Most of the windows in the building had been smashed decades ago, but one of the frames on the ground floor miraculously retained a large piece of dirty glass.

It was this piece of glass that caught the eye of the video analysis expert.

The glass worked like a mirror.

Scott was standing in front of the window while taking pictures of the house, and in the reflection, one could see not only his blurry silhouette, but also the space behind him, the road where he had left his car.

The image was low contrast and grainy.

On initial viewing, only a dark spot was visible against the gray sky.

Experts applied algorithms to improve clarity, removing digital noise and equalizing the white balance.

The reconstruction process took almost 2 days.

Layer by layer, pixel by pixel, outlines began to emerge from the darkness.

It was not Scott’s silver sedan, and it was definitely not Tyler Weiss’s pickup truck.

A massive angular silhouette of a vehicle, typical of automotive design from the 70s or 80s appeared on the monitor screen.

The software analysis of the body geometry, the angle of the windshield, the shape of the grill, and the roof line gave a clear result.

It was a full-size Chevrolet Ger van.

The vehicle had a modified high roof which was often installed on touring versions or specialized technical vehicles.

The color, judging by the spectral analysis of shades of gray on the black and white film, was dark blue or black.

The van was behind the photographers’s position, partially blocking the exit to the dirt road.

This explained the wide tire tracks found a year ago at the disappearance site.

The van driver had driven up close, blocking the sedan.

But the most important detail was revealed only after applying high contrast filters.

On the wide side panel of the van, where advertisements or company names are usually placed, there was a faded, barely visible airbrush.

It was not a clear inscription.

Years of use in the sun and rain had almost erased the drawing, turning it into a ghost of an image.

However, the outlines were preserved enough for the pattern recognition system to suggest variance.

It was a bear.

The animal was standing on its hind legs, balancing on a large multicolored ball.

One paw was raised up as if in greeting.

When the detectives superimposed this reconstructed drawing on archival photos of the laughing giant circus obtained from the Nevada State Library, there was no doubt the style proportions of the bear figure and the distinctive ball were identical to those that adorned the posters and vehicles of this circus in the 80s.

It was the same logo.

The results of digital forensics finally closed the circle.

Now, the investigation had not only a costume with an inventory number that pointed to a specific circus, but also a vehicle that was physically at the scene of the kidnapping at the time of the crime.

The van with the bare emblem was the link that connected the disappearance in Thistle Canyon with the body found in the salt mine.

Scott Romero, without knowing it, managed to take his last and most important picture.

He photographed not just the ruins of the old city.

He photographed the car of his killer a moment before he lowered the camera.

This ghost in the reflection of the window glass gave the detectives something they could not find in the archives.

A visual description of the car they were looking for.

Now the police’s task was to find this dark blue Chevrolet with a high roof which was probably still driving the state’s roads, hiding the instruments of madness inside.

The identification of the van’s model was a technical breakthrough, but it did not give the detectives the most important thing.

The name of the driver, the Laughing Giant Circus, ceased to exist in the early ’90s, and its internal archives disappeared along with the scenery.

There were no staff lists, payrolls, or tour schedules.

Investigators were faced with a blank wall.

They knew they were looking for a dark blue Chevrolet G series with a bear on it, but there was no such vehicle in the vehicle databases.

It was probably dregistered decades ago and was traveling illegally.

Faced with the lack of personnel documents, the investigators chose a tactic that the bureau calls financial archaeology.

If a circus went bankrupt, its property was sold off officially to cover debts to creditors.

This meant that somewhere in the state archives of the tax service or court registers, the auction protocol had to be preserved.

The search lasted 2 weeks.

Detectives manually sifted through boxes of documents from Nevada Liquidation Commissions going back to 1,993.

The success came in the form of a yellowed typewritten sheet.

The auctioneers’s final report.

In the list of sold property among the cages and stage lights, there was lot number 45, Chevrolet service van, year of manufacturer 1,989, color blue.

Opposite the lot was the name of the buyer who paid for the car in cash, Arthur Nash.

A check of this name revealed that Arthur Nash was a ghost.

He was supposed to be 54 years old at the time of the investigation, but he did not exist in the digital world.

His driver’s license had expired back in 2005.

He had no credit history, no bank accounts, no taxes, and no fines.

His last known address was a P.O.

box in Reno that had been closed more than a decade ago.

Investigators assumed that the suspect was living a marginalized lifestyle, avoiding any contact with the government, and living in a remote area using an old van as a home on wheels.

To find a person who does not use a phone or maps, detectives decided to look for a weakness in his car.

The Chevrolet Geries of 1,989 is a reliable but old vehicle.

To keep such a car running in the desert, you need spare parts.

And some of them are so specific that they cannot be found in a junkyard.

They must be ordered in a shop.

The analysts compiled a list of critical components for this model and sent out an APB to all auto parts stores within a 150 mi radius of where Scott’s body was found.

They were looking for any transactions related to the maintenance of this type of engine.

The answer came from the small town of Gunnison.

The manager of a local auto shop reported that three months ago, a customer ordered and repurchased a rarelyused mechanical gasoline pump that fits the engines of these vans.

The payment was made in small bills.

The investigation team immediately went to Gunnison.

The store’s surveillance cameras were old, but the footage was still intact.

On the grainy black and white video, detectives saw a man standing at the cash register.

He looked older than his years.

Long gray hair, unckempt beard, faded clothes that resembled rags.

His face was not clearly visible due to the poor quality of the recording, but one detail caught the investigator’s eye.

To confirm the identity, Scott’s father, Greg Romero, was invited to the police station.

He was not told who exactly he would see on the screen so as not to provoke a false identification.

When Greg was shown the freeze frame, he stared at the blurry silhouette for a long time and then his finger pointed not to the man’s face, but to his belt.

There, on a wide leather belt hung a worn brown cylindrical case.

Greg Romero recognized the object instantly.

According to his words recorded in the protocol, it was a vintage leather case for an interchangeable lens that belonged to Scott.

The unique thing was that 6 months before the disappearance, Greg had personally repaired this case for his son.

The original clasp had broken and the father replaced it with two custom copper rivets that he used in his workshop.

The video, despite its poor quality, clearly showed the distinctive shine of the metal in the exact places where Greg had installed them.

It was direct, indisputable proof.

The man who bought the part for Arthur Nay’s van was wearing the murdered students personal item on his belt.

After receiving visual confirmation, Gunnison police announced a quiet interception plan.

The suspect’s photo was shown to patrol officers serving remote areas of the county.

One of the sheriff’s deputies recognized the man.

He reported that the subject was known locally as a hermit living in an old trailer on the edge of the desert near abandoned mine workings.

The officer said he had seen an old dark van covered with camouflage netting near his home.

On several occasions, the circle had closed.

The police had a name, a vehicle, proof of a connection to the victim, and finally the exact address of the man who had turned his life into an invisible performance.

On October 25, 2017, at in the morning, a convoy of black tactical vehicles without headlights approached the deserted suburb of Gunnison.

The operation to detain Arthur Nay was assigned to a combined special forces team because the suspect could be armed and judging by his profile, psychologically unstable.

The target was an old rustcovered trailer that stood in the middle of nowhere surrounded by piles of scrap metal and tall dry shrubbery.

The assault began at 4 hours and 15 minutes.

The soldiers knocked down the front door with a battering ram and rushed in expecting resistance.

However, stun grenades were not needed.

Arthur Nash, a 54year-old man with the appearance of a biblical hermit, sat in an old chair in the middle of the main room.

According to the assault team commander report, the suspect did not even raise his hands when the gun was pointed at him.

He looked calm, almost indifferent, as if he had been waiting for this ending for a long time.

“The light is too bright for this scene,” was the only thing he mumbled as he was thrown to the floor to be handcuffed.

After Naise was taken out and put into a patrol car, detectives and forensic experts got to work.

The interior of the trailer amazed even experienced investigators.

It wasn’t just a poor man’s home.

It was a dressing room frozen in time.

The walls were covered with old theater posters from the 80s, yellowed with tobacco smoke.

Along the narrow corridor were hangers tightly packed with clothes.

This is where the collection that became one of the key pieces of evidence was found.

Dozens of costumes, velvet coats, beaded camisoles, papier mâe masks, and of course, clown overalls.

Some of them were neatly washed and packed in covers, while others were lying in piles covered with dust.

Experts noted that among these props were items with inventory numbers of the Laughing Giant Circus, which finally connected Naisee to the past of the missing circus.

On a table littered with sketches and lighting schemes, detectives found an old topographic map of the Redmond area.

On it, the entrances to abandoned mines, ventilation wells, and service tunnels were circled with a red marker.

One of the markers clearly pointed to the same horizon where a group of diggers found Scott Romero’s body.

This was direct evidence that Nash was wellversed in the underground labyrinths and used them for his own purposes.

But the most terrifying discovery was Arthur Nash’s personal diary, a thick leatherbound notebook written in small calligraphic handwriting.

This document provided a glimpse into the killer’s twisted mind.

After reading the first pages, the investigators realized Nash did not consider himself a criminal.

In his mind, he was a brilliant director, an unrecognized creator, staging the greatest play in the world.

He called his victims actors.

He described the preparation process not as kidnapping, but as casting and rehearsals.

His writings showed a complete loss of connection with reality.

He sincerely believed that the people he captured should be grateful for participating in his art.

In this scenario, Scott Romero was given the role that Nash considered to be the main one.

One of the entries dated late September 2016, a few days after the boy’s disappearance, made the detective’s blood run cold.

Nash wrote about the students death not as a tragedy, but as the achievement of an aesthetic ideal.

In his diary, he wrote in black ink, “Live actors spoil the scene with their breath, and he froze perfectly.

Salt will preserve this ending forever.

My eternal play.” This phrase became a confession.

It explained everything.

The choice of costume, the complex makeup, the pose in which the body was left, and the place of burial.

For Na, the salt mine was not a grave, but a stage where his actor could remain unchanged forever, unaffected by time and decay.

While one group worked in the trailer, another team of experts examined the yard.

Under an old tarp behind a pile of boards, they found the same dark blue Chevrolet van.

The vehicle was in a state of disrepair, but the ghost of a bear on a balloon was still visible on its sides under a layer of dirt.

Inside the van, Nash appeared to have tried to clean it up.

The lining was partially torn off and the floor had been washed with chemicals.

However, modern forensics is able to find what is invisible to the eye.

Biological experts took swabs from the cracks between the body panels and from the metal parts of the seat frame.

A rapid analysis conducted in the laboratory the next day yielded a positive result.

A human DNA profile was identified in the dust and dirt samples from the van’s interior.

These were epithelial cells, microscopic skin particles.

The genetic code matched Scott Romero’s samples.

This meant that the guy was definitely in that car and it finally destroyed any possibility of defense for Nace.

The evidence base was fully formed.

The investigation had a motive recorded in the diary, the tools of the crime in the form of costumes and a map, and biological traces of the victim in the suspect’s vehicle.

Arthur Nash, the director of his own madness, finally got a real audience in the form of detectives, prosecutors, and jurors.

Arthur Nash’s trial began in the Provo District Court 5 months after his arrest.

The trial lasted for 3 weeks during which the courtroom was crowded with journalists and relatives of the missing hoping to learn the fate of their loved ones through the defendant’s testimony.

However, Nace remained absolutely silent.

He sat motionless in the dock, staring at one point as if everything that was happening around him was just a boring intermission in his own play.

The prosecutor’s office built a prosecution line that left the defense no room for maneuver.

The jury was shown a complete chain of evidence linking the hermit to the students murder.

The key moment was the reading of excerpts from the seas diary where Nash described in detail the process of actor training and his distorted ideas about eternity.

Biological experts confirmed the presence of Scott Romero’s DNA in the defendant’s van, and digital forensic experts presented a restored photograph showing the killer’s car in the window.

The combination of physical evidence, motives, and the perpetrator’s own recordings created a monolithic picture of a premeditated, planned, and cold-blooded murder.

After a short deliberation, the jury reached a verdict.

guilty on all charges, including kidnapping and first-degree murder.

The judge read out the sentence, “Life in prison without the possibility of parole.

” Arthur Nash accepted this decision without emotion, without saying a single word of remorse.

In a separate ruling, the investigation officially cleared Tyler Weiss of all suspicion.

A detailed reconstruction of the events of that day showed how close their paths were.

Investigators found that Tyler’s pickup truck drove past the abduction site just 15 or 20 minutes after.

The layers of red clay on Tyler’s car were just a coincidence, the result of his aggressive driving on washed out roads in search of his rival, who was already being driven away in the darkness of the old van.

Tyler was there, but he was just a witness who saw nothing.

A month passed after the verdict was announced.

November in Utah brought the first frost and the air became crisp and prickly.

Greg and Linda Romero received an official notification from the sheriff’s office that all procedural steps regarding the physical evidence had been completed.

They were allowed to take their son’s personal belongings, which were no longer needed for the trial.

On Tuesday morning, they entered the station.

The procedure was short and bureaucratic.

The officer on duty took out a plain cardboard box from the storage room taped with a case number.

He put it on the table and asked him to sign a protocol for the transfer of property.

Greg signed with a steady hand.

Although Linda turned to the window, looking out at the gray parking lot.

The investigator in charge of the case came out to them for just a minute.

He told them what was formally already known.

The file on Scott Romero was officially closed and transferred to the long-term storage archive.

There would be no more calls, no more lineups, no more search parties.

The legal point had been made.

The parents took the box and went outside.

The wind picked up the dry leaves on the asphalt.

They walked to their car and Greg opened the back door.

Inside the box were the objects that had once made up their son’s world.

The professional cannon camera that had captured his killer.

The leather case with copper rivets that had helped find the criminal.

The wristwatch that had stopped in the darkness of the salt mine, and the backpack that had never been to class.

They did not speak.

Greg carefully placed the box on the seat as if it were fragile and closed the door.

The sound of the lock sounded like a final cord in the silence.

They got into the car and slowly drove out of the police station and onto the highway.

Ahead of them was a long drive home where Scott’s room remained the same as the morning he left to film the ghost town.

The life of the Romero family continued, but now it was forever divided by the thick line of the archive number into two parts.

Before the silver sedan stopped on the gravel and after they picked up the cardboard box of evidence.