A 31-year-old Arizona man was arrested this week for the apparently random murders of two teens who had been camping at Mount Ord in May.
Thomas Brown, 31, has been charged in the shooting deaths of 17-year-old Evan Clark and 18-year-old Pandora Kjolsrud, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office said.
The Arizona Republic said that the two teens were found dead from gunshot wounds on May 25. Investigators found shell casings and blood on several items, including gloves and a pillowcase found inside Clark’s SUV.
The sheriff’s office said that Brown wrote on his Facebook account on the day of the murders that he had been camping at Mount Ord and regretted staying an extra night because of a “gan of rando adults playing music and camping next to me.”
According to court records, Brown reached out to authorities after the murders and told them he’d been in the area and had a drone video he could share. He said he’d seen the teens and their vehicle at a campsite near the top of Mount Ord and that he’d gone through a tote he saw near the vehicle but didn’t take anything and had no “physical contact” with them.
As the investigation continued, detectives obtained a search warrant for Brown’s DNA, and on August 4, test results confirmed that his DNA matched the DNA inside the gloves. Kjolsrud’s blood was on the outside of the gloves.
“What a senseless, violent act,” Sheriff Jerry Sheridan said. “The murder of two young teenagers while out camping.”
Prosecutors said at Brown’s initial court appearance that the teens had been shot multiple times and their bodies moved into nearby brush to conceal them.
According to the Arizona Republic, a group of a five campers told police they had encountered Brown in the area and that he was “strange.”
Brown said he’d been in the area with his wife since May 23, but that his wife left on May 25. He stayed another day.
Brown has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder and was ordered held on a $2 million bond.
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[Featured image: Thomas Brown/Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office]
