Arrest warrant issued for Dylan Rounds’ neighbor on firearms charge
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LUCIN, Utah — An arrest warrant has been issued in Utah for a man living near Dylan Rounds, a 19-year-old eastern Idaho native who has been missing for over a month.
The warrant against 59-year-old James Brenner is for possessing a firearm as a felon and was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court. KUTV reporter Jeremy Harris was first to report the news.
This isn’t the first time Brenner has faced that charge: He was sentenced in 2012 to 33 months in prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm. He has other felony convictions on his record.
The arrest warrant indicates Brenner was “squatting” in a trailer about five miles from Rounds’ property. He and another man, referred to as D.H. in court documents, were friends of Rounds and his family.
Rounds had been farming in the rural town of Lucin near the Utah/Nevada border and last spoke with his grandmother on May 28. Since then, nobody has heard from him, and other than a pair of Rounds’ boots on the property, there has been no sign of him anywhere.
The Box Elder County Sheriff’s Office interviewed Brenner on June 7 during their search for Rounds, according to court documents. Nine days later, court documents indicate the sheriff’s office and FBI executed a search warrant on Brenner’s trailer.
“During that search, ball ammunition, ignition caps, black powder and speed loads, all related to ‘muzzle loading’ were located and photographed in the trailer, but the items were not seized by (Box Elder County Sherriff’s Office). There was no muzzle loader firearms located in the trailer at that time,” the arrest warrant says.
Law enforcement spoke with D.H. on June 20, and court documents say he told investigators that after Rounds went missing, and after Brenner spoke with police on June 7, Brenner brought three black powder guns to D.H.’s residence and asked him to “safe keep” them.
“When D.H. asked why, Brenner stated that he needed to do this for ‘his own safety’ and that ‘the last time he had trouble with the law, they took everything from him, and he did not want the things he had left to be taken again,'” the arrest warrant says.
D.H. agreed to store the muzzleloaders and later turned them over to the Box Elder County Sheriff’s Office, where they were booked into evidence.
The next day, the FBI interviewed D.H. again and he reportedly told investigators Brenner also brought him a .22-caliber rifle around the same time he brought over the muzzleloaders.
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“D.H. told us that he didn’t mention the .22 rifle when interviewed before because he had been owed money by the rifle’s original owner and that he felt that he should have a claim over the .22 rifle that Brenner asked him to store to cover the debt,” the warrant says. “He explained to us that the rifle had been left in a trailer on the property where Brenner had been living, prior to Brenner living there, by a person who owed D.H. money.”
When Brenner moved in, he took possession of the gun, according to D.H. During the interview, D.H. told investigators he knew Brenner wasn’t allowed to have firearms because of his criminal history, and D.H. turned over the rifle and case to enforcement. It was loaded with five rounds of ammunition.
Another search warrant was issued on Brenner’s trailer, and the sheriff’s office seized a muzzleloader, boxes of ammunition, ignition caps, four pounds of black powder and speed loads.
The warrant does not mention if Brenner is a suspect in Rounds’ disappearance and does not include any further information on the search for the missing man.
Read the arrest warrant here.