Steven Koecher

Case background and investigation

Steven Thell Koecher was a 30-year-old former journalist living in St. George, Utah, in December 2009. He had worked for the online division of the Salt Lake Tribune and as a stringer for the Davis County Clipper before moving to St. George in April 2009, where he struggled to find steady work and supported himself in part by distributing flyers for a window-washing business. In the days before he vanished, his movements were puzzling: on December 10 he drove roughly 1,100 miles in a single day through northern Nevada, and on December 12 his phone pinged near Overton, Nevada, before he bought gas in Mesquite and purchased Christmas gifts at a Kmart near St. George late that night. Family members said he seemed upbeat about the holidays, and his LDS bishop, who met with him on December 11, described him as optimistic about job prospects.

On the morning of Sunday, December 13, 2009, Koecher called two church friends and told them he was in Las Vegas and might miss services. At 11:54 a.m., a home security camera in the Anthem community of Henderson, Nevada, recorded his white 2003 Chevrolet Cavalier entering a cul-de-sac on Savannah Springs Avenue. About six minutes later, another camera captured a figure in a white shirt and slacks — believed by his family to be Koecher — walking down the sidewalk carrying what appeared to be a file folder. He was never seen again. No one has established why he was in Henderson; his family believes he may have gone there to pursue a job opportunity.

Cell-tower records became a central piece of evidence. Around 5 p.m. that day his phone pinged a tower more than ten miles northeast of the parked car, near Arroyo Grande Boulevard; around 7 p.m. it registered near the Whitney Ranch area, and by early December 14 it was pinging near the Interstate 515/U.S. 93 and Russell Road interchange, where it remained for about two days before going silent, consistent with the battery dying. According to Wikipedia's account of the investigation, a homeowners' association employee noticed the abandoned car on December 17, and the flyers inside led authorities to his employer and then to his mother, who reported him missing.

The car contained Christmas presents, job applications, and work flyers, and had roughly half a tank of gas. Investigators found no red flags in Koecher's computer, finances, or phone records apart from the unexplained road trips, and police have said there is no evidence of foul play — though none ruling it out either. Searches by police and volunteers, including a 70-person desert search south of Henderson Executive Airport in April 2010 and another effort in 2015, found nothing. A widely publicized 2010 theory linking Koecher to Susan Powell, who disappeared from West Valley City, Utah, a week before him, was investigated by police and dismissed by both families as baseless.

The case remains open with Henderson police and St. George police. In 2018, a St. George detective said investigators knew "about as much now as we did the second we realized he was gone." Private investigators Kevin Wyatt and Jim Berk, working pro bono in recent years, have suggested Koecher's financial desperation may have drawn him into something dangerous, and said they have shared new information with Henderson police, though no findings have been publicly confirmed. Anyone with information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 702-385-5555 or St. George police at 435-627-4950.