YAVAPAI COUNTY, AZ — In this episode of Arizona's Coldest Cases, we highlight the double murder of a young couple in Yavapai County on Oct. 17, 2003.
It's been nearly 20 years since the murders of 19-year-old Lisa Gurrieri and 20-year-old Brandon Rumbaugh. The couple was celebrating their one-year anniversary by camping off Bumble Bee Road - a remote part of the desert - when they were found shot to death in the bed of their truck.
ABC15's Ashley Paredez sat down with Commander Tom Boelts with the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office to go over the details of the case and find out where things stand today.
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"We have a new detective on the case, he's been working on it for a couple of years now. We have some volunteers that help him out. We are... it's just a constant reviewing evidence, seeing what's been sent in, what the results were. Right now, we're in the phase where we're working with genealogy, trying to get some identification from some of the DNA that was at the scene so that we can generate some leads and hopefully find out who did this," said Commander Boelts.
ABC15 has spoken with Lisa's mother, Paula Gurrieri, several times over the years. She is still waiting for answers as to who committed this violent crime and why.
"I don't want a memory of a gun; I want to remember my daughter and I want her back. I want her back so badly," said Paula.
At the time, Lisa was working at SRP, and her boyfriend, Brandon, was a personal trainer. They were both living in Scottsdale and decided to go camping underneath the stars.
"So, they ended up off I-17 off Bumble Bee Road. It's pretty popular now for folks going to Crown King, wasn't quite as popular back then but it's a desolate part of high desert," said Commander Boelts.
Lisa's mother told us she called the couple on their drive up and everything seemed fine.
"I called them to check on them... I had to ask her if she was there yet. She said, 'No, we're not there yet, Mom, we got so many miles to go.' I said, 'OK, just be careful,' and that was the last conversation I had, other than 'I love you,' the normal," said Paula.
It wasn't until the next morning when Paula didn't hear from them that she started to worry.
"The day that she went missing, I knew that there was something wrong. Call it a mother's instinct, I don't know what it was, but I knew there was something wrong," said Paula.
Lisa's mother called as many people as possible to start searching. She also called law enforcement at that point.
"Some friends of Brandon became alarmed when he didn't show up for work. They had conversations with them before, that Lisa and Brandon went up there. That, just vaguely, that they were going to go camping someplace that Brandon had camped with this group of friends before and so, they started driving up Interstate 17. I believed they went up all the way into Coconino County and drove around. They knew it was somewhere pretty close to the interstate and so, they would get off at an off-ramp, drive around. They didn't find them, and they kept doing that until they got down to Bumble Bee Road. and then they saw the truck and then went and found the two of them in the bed of the truck," said Comm. Boelts.
Detectives believe the couple was asleep or getting ready to go to sleep when they were attacked.
"There's evidence that Lisa probably woke up at some point, during the attack, but we can't say for sure right now," said Comm. Boelts.
We're told Lisa and Brandon both had multiple gunshot wounds that did not appear to be accidental. Lisa's mother said two items were missing — a camcorder they had borrowed from her and Lisa's keys. However, detectives did find a disposable camera at the scene which provided some key evidence.
"The camera, we were able to show that it was purchased while they were on their way up there. They purchased it at a grocery store in the Scottsdale area the day that they left. We were able to recover some of the photos off of that camera. Two of them were pictures of Lisa in the bed of a truck and then Brandon in the bed of the truck. Then, there's also another picture that was overexposed - we believe when the camera was thrown - that just shows a very small corner that was not overexposed," said Comm. Boelts.
The overexposed photo is thought to have been taken inside a business in Bumble Bee, which was a restaurant in 2003. The individual photos of the couple are the very last taken before their murders. Detectives don't believe anything was amiss at that time.
"There are still persons of interest. There are a lot of people we've interviewed, a lot of people that we've investigated. We can't say any of them are no longer persons of interest but it's a, yeah, the nature of these is you start big and get small and we're still in that medium phase, where a lot of people are still on the radar. We're just waiting for something to break - somebody to come forward to tell us something or DNA or some other test that may be coming down the pipe," said Comm. Boelts.
Lisa's mother has always wondered if this was a jealousy situation but that is still unknown. She told us, no matter how much time has passed, she is never giving up hope.
"So, it was hard... I lost my daughter, and I lost my best friend at the same time," said Paula.
An item found at the scene is currently at a DNA lab undergoing testing. Detectives are hopeful this case will get solved.
"It would be great if somebody who's out there who knows something about this... even if it's something that they don't, that before they thought it wasn't that big of a deal or they didn't understand the context, but they know somebody who would have been in that area off of I-17, north of Black Canyon City, that was acting weird... give us a call; call Silent Witness," said Comm. Boelts.
Yavapai Silent Witness is offering up to a $10,000 cash reward for information that leads to an arrest in this case. You can call 1-800-932-3232 or submit a tip at yavapaisw.com. All tips are anonymous.
