Disappearance of Steven Koecher

Koecher was born in 1979 in Amarillo, Texas, one of four children of Rolf and Deanne Koecher. He was active in the Boy Scouts, eventually making Eagle Scout.[2] After graduating from Amarillo High School in 1998,[5] Koecher, a devout Mormon, attended first Ricks College (now Brigham Young University–Idaho) and later the University of Utah, where he received a degree in communications. He did his missionary work in Brazil, and learned to speak Portuguese.[6]

After college, he interned in the state governor's office for nine months. A year and a half later, he went to work for the Davis County Clipper,[7] a Bountiful-based bi-weekly newspaper edited by his father, as a stringer. He remained there for another year and a half, with some articles he worked on receiving awards from the Utah Press Association.[8]

In 2007 he began working for the Salt Lake Tribune's digital advertising division. He liked the work, according to his mother, but not working the overnight shift. The many temperature inversions in the Salt Lake City area that winter also bothered him, so after a year he decided to leave his job at the newspaper and relocate to St. George, in the warmer southwestern portion of the state.[6]

At first he had work with another Internet advertising firm, Matchbin, but that employment ended soon after he relocated. With the Great Recession underway, it was difficult for him to find a new job. He was able to find some work for a local window-washing firm, handing out flyers for it. It did not provide him with enough income to meet his expenses, and by November 2009 he was several months behind on his rent. Greg Webb, the singles' ward president, claims the local electric utility was threatening to terminate Koecher's service for nonpayment, although his mother says that would have been the landlord's responsibility. So he was actively seeking another job, using connections from the local ward where he volunteered.[6]

A neighbor of Koecher's recalled seeing him return to his apartment around 10 p.m. A half-hour later, he left again; while he was not seen to return later that night it was possible he could have. The next morning, December 13, Webb called Koecher, saying he was on his way back from Las Vegas and feared he might not make it to St. George in time for the 11 a.m. service, asking if Koecher could lead it in his absence. Koecher said he, too, was in the Las Vegas area, 150 miles (240 km) away, but would return home if needed. Webb told him not to worry and that he would try to get back in time.[lower-alpha 1][6][11] Another ward member called again later that morning with a similar request, which they dropped when Koecher told them where he was. Neither he nor Webb asked Koecher why he had gone to the Las Vegas area that morning; they found nothing unusual about their conversations with him.[9]

External video
Security camera footage of Koecher in Anthem

At 11:54 a.m., a home security camera on Savannah Springs Avenue in Sun City, a retirement community in the Anthem development in southern Henderson, recorded Koecher's Cavalier driving past it to the cul-de-sac where it was later found. Six minutes later, a figure that seemed to be Koecher (his family believes it was him), wearing a white shirt and slacks, walked the opposite direction down the sidewalk in front, carrying something in one hand that appeared to be a file folder or portfolio. Shortly afterwards another security camera in a garage on adjacent Evening Lights Street caught his reflection as he walked north. Koecher has not been seen since.[2]

Koecher's phone remained active. Around 5 p.m. that day it pinged a tower at the intersection of Arroyo Grande Boulevard and American Pacific Drive, more than 10 miles (16 km) northeast of where he had parked. Two hours after that, it pinged another tower near Henderson's Whitney Ranch subdivision, two miles (3.2 km) north of the previous ping. Early the next morning, the phone pinged a tower at the interchange between Interstate 515/U.S. Route 93 and Russell Road, two more miles to the north. Koecher's landlord sent a text, and then an hour later it was used to check Koecher's voicemail. The phone remained in that tower's vicinity for the next two days, suggesting that its battery died. There has been no activity since.[2]

A day after that last ping, Sun City's homeowners' association parking enforcement took note of the car at the end of the Savannah Springs cul-de-sac and tried to find its owner. Through the windows they saw one of the flyers Koecher had been distributing for the window-washing company in St. George and called the number on it. Eventually they spoke with the owner, who gave them Koecher's cell phone number, where they left a voicemail. Later they called his mother; she returned their call on December 17,[10] and, realizing no one else in the family had talked to him in a week and unable to locate him, reported him missing.[11] Koecher's brother and sister drove to St. George from the Salt Lake City area to start searching.[2]

The Koecher family went to jails, morgues, and hospitals in the Las Vegas area in search of him. At one point, when employees at an International House of Pancakes told them that a man fitting Koecher's description had eaten there for three weeks straight, they themselves ate there for four nights. Another employee eventually gave them a more detailed description of the man and his eating habits, which led the Koechers to conclude he was not Steven.[10]

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police (LVMPD) canvassed the houses in the neighborhood where the Cavalier had been parked. With the help of volunteers, they used helicopters, all terrain vehicles, and dogs.[10] By Christmas, the media in Salt Lake City and Las Vegas had begun reporting the story.[1][12] A local dairy put Koecher's picture on a milk carton,[13] and the LVMPD put a video with information on the case on its YouTube channel.[10]

In April 2010, another party of searchers scoured the open desert south of the Henderson Executive Airport to the west of where Koecher had parked in response to a tip passed along to a former LVMPD officer working as a private investigator for the family. A group of 70 covered about a half-mile (1 km) stretch in two hours. Bone fragments were found, but they were not human.[14]

Rolf Koecher, Steven's father, died in February 2011 after a brief illness that may have been toxic shock syndrome.[15] Rolf had, with his wife and family, recently finished filming an episode of the Investigation Discovery cable channel's show Disappeared about Steven's case. It aired two months later.[16]

A cousin of the Koechers started a Facebook page devoted to the case. It generated not only some tips but suggestions for how to investigate further.[7] Members of the WebSleuths Internet forum also took up the case; they assembled a timeline of events in the case based on newspaper accounts and social media posts by family and friends.[2]

In 2015, a local search and rescue group organized another effort, this time going high up the hills south of Anthem, on a different theory of what Koecher might have been doing. They did not find anything.[3]

We've considered every possibility. But each possibility has a contradiction. Is it plausible that someone is walking
down the street and then suddenly they've vanished? All clues are consistent with that, but that's not possible.

— Rolf Koecher, [10]

Koecher's family believes, given his financial circumstances at the time, that Steven had gone to Henderson that morning for a job opportunity.[2] Despite the odd location where he parked his car, on the video the neatly dressed Koecher is walking purposefully, suggesting he knew where he was going and what he was going there for. "He doesn't look confused or dazed", Steven's brother Dallin said in 2018.[17]

But beyond that, there is no evidence to suggest what happened afterwards, nor has anything emerged subsequently which could. "We know about as much now as we did the second we realized he was gone," the St. George police detective in charge of the case said in 2018.[17] Koecher's difficulties notwithstanding, his family does not believe he chose to voluntarily disappear in order to escape them, or take his own life. Deanne Koecher said that in her last conversation with him, on December 10, he was optimistic about his ability to find another job and the two were making plans for his Christmas visit home.[1]

The Cavalier and its contents also suggest Koecher intended to return to St. George. Rolf Koecher said that it was in working order and the gas tank was half full when he reached it on December 17 after the Sun City parking authority called his wife about the car.[11] In the car were the Christmas presents Steven had bought for his brother and his family at KMart the previous day, as well as job applications and the flyers from his employer that had helped the parking authority find his parents.[10][12][17] At Koecher's apartment, his clothing and possessions remained where he stored them and had not been disturbed or packed.[9]

Koecher's unusual, and mostly unexplained, travel in the days leading up to his disappearance has led to suppositions that he may have turned to some sort of illicit activity for income. A drug dog was taken to sniff over the Cavalier but did not alert on anything.[12] Another vehicle seen on the security camera footage driving up and down the street around the time Koecher parked and walked away from his car was investigated, and turned out to be a local real estate agent showing a house in the area.[11]

Checks of Koecher's financial history and phone records turned up nothing unusual aside from the trips. A single charge to his credit card since the disappearance was just an automatic charge made to webhosting company GoDaddy ensuing from his days at Matchbin.[10] One unknown phone number turned out to be the family of the two girls Koecher had been helping get back inside on the day before he went to Las Vegas.[9]

A search of his computer and Internet browsing history found nothing unusual. Investigators also checked his borrowing history at the St. George library and found nothing there that suggested any unexplored leads. Koecher kept a diary, but recorded no problems in his life at the time of his disappearance beyond his monetary issues and his ongoing bachelorhood, neither of which he believed would last much longer.[18]

The family does not consider Koecher's travel to be particularly unusual, either. One of his reasons for moving to St. George was to research family history in that area; he often went on tours of cemeteries looking for ancestors' graves. His mother believes the trips were just his way of keeping himself busy despite his underemployment.[11]

While there is no evidence that would suggest Koecher was killed or kidnapped, neither the St. George nor Henderson police have found any evidence to eliminate that possibility. "There's nothing that makes us suspicious," a detective from the former department told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "But at the same time, it's a strange situation."[12]

• List of people who disappeared
• List of Disappeared episodes

Other missing people who were last seen alone by security cameras

• Rebecca Coriam
• Andrew Gosden
• Lars Mittank
• Brian Shaffer

• Steven Thell Koecher at NamUs
• Case timeline compiled by WebSleuths