Disappearance of Steven Koecher

At midday on December 13, 2009, Steven Koecher (born November 1, 1979) parked at the end of a cul-de-sac in the Anthem neighborhood of Henderson, Nevada, United States, and got out of his car, an action recorded on a nearby home's security camera. After returning shortly afterwards, Koecher retrieved an unknown object from the vehicle and walked away, with another security camera capturing his reflection in a car window. He has not been seen since, although some activity was recorded on his cell phone over the next two days.

Koecher's absence from his home, work and church activities in St.George, Utah, was not noted for several days; eventually, the homeowners' association of Anthem contacted his employer and then his parents about the abandoned car, at which time he was reported missing. Police initially had few leads, since it appeared he had intended to return to Utah and did not appear to be involved in any criminal activity. The reason for his trip to the Las Vegas area that day has never been determined; his family believes he was looking for work since he could not make the full rent payments on his apartment with the job he had. Searches in the area around where he was last seen yielded no evidence.

Further investigation found credit card and cell phone receipts and witness statements showing that in the week prior to his disappearance, Koecher had been driving great distances around Utah and Nevada, including almost 1100 mi in one day. The purpose of these trips is also unknown; on one trip he stopped to visit a former girlfriend's parents and had lunch at their house.

Joshua Powell, a West Valley City man suspected of murder in the disappearance of his wife Susan Powell – which took place a week before Koecher's – argued along with his father and brother that the two cases were related, suggesting Susan and Koecher were romantically involved and had run off together. Both Susan's family and Koecher's have dismissed that theory. The Koecher case has been the subject of an episode of Investigation Discovery's documentary series Disappeared.

Background
Steven Koecher was born on November 1, 1979, in Amarillo, Texas, one of four children of Rolf and Deanne Koecher. He was active in the Boy Scouts of America, eventually making Eagle Scout. After graduating from Amarillo High School in 1998, Koecher, a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), attended first Ricks College (now Brigham Young University–Idaho) and later the University of Utah, where he received a degree in communications. He performed missionary work in Brazil and learned to speak Portuguese.

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

In 2007, Koecher began working for the Salt Lake Tribune's digital advertising division. According to his mother, he liked the work but disliked working the overnight shift. The many temperature inversions in the Salt Lake City area that winter also bothered Koecher, so after a year he decided to leave his job at the Tribune and relocate to St.George, in the warmer southwestern portion of Utah.

Koecher initially worked with another online advertising firm, Matchbin, but that employment ended soon after he relocated. With the Great Recession underway, it was difficult for Koecher to find a new job. He was able to find some work handing out flyers for a local window-washing firm, but this did not provide him with enough income to meet his expenses; by November 2009 he was several months behind on his rent. Greg Webb, one of Koecher's church acquaintances, 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. Because of this, Koecher was actively seeking another job, using connections from the local ward where he volunteered.

December 10–12, 2009
On December 10, 2009, Koecher apparently left St.George in the early morning hours and drove his Chevrolet Cavalier 300 mi north on Interstate 15 to Salt Lake City, where he bought some gas with a debit card. He then traveled west on Interstate 80 another 125 mi to West Wendover, Nevada, where he again pulled off the highway to refuel. After that he continued another 100 mi to the Ruby Valley ranch of the Neff family.

Koecher had previously dated Annemarie Neff and visited the ranch; he told her parents, who had not been expecting him, that he thought he would stop by to see her. She was not there, but the Neffs served Koecher lunch anyway. He told them he was on his way to visit family in Sacramento, California, but was not certain whether he could continue in that direction due to bad weather. After two hours he left and decided to return to St.George the way he had come, stopping to buy gas again in Salt Lake City and Springville, followed by dinner at a Taco Time in Nephi. By the time Koecher returned home he had driven nearly 1100 mi.

During the day Koecher talked with his mother on the phone. The two discussed his plans for returning to the family's home in Bountiful for Christmas. Koecher's mother said he seemed upbeat about the upcoming holiday and his job prospects despite his financial difficulties. He did not tell her of his road trip that day.

The next day, while handing out flyers for his employer, Koecher encountered two young girls who had inadvertently been locked out of their family's apartment. Learning of their plight, he tried to call their mother. When she did not answer, he looked for someone in the neighborhood who could take them in temporarily until someone arrived who could let them in. That same day, Koecher spoke with his ward's bishop, who also described Koecher's mood as positive. The bishop was also trying to help Koecher with his employment issues and had promised he would have a job available by the beginning of 2010.

On December 12, Koecher embarked on another road trip. That morning his phone pinged a cell tower near Overton, Nevada, at the north end of Lake Mead. In the evening he bought gas and snacks at a convenience store in Mesquite, along I-15, just over the Arizona state line. Why Koecher went to Nevada that day is unknown; three hours after his Mesquite purchase, he purchased a baby's bib and cookies, believed to be Christmas gifts for his brother and his family, whose names he had drawn in the family's annual Christmas gift exchange, at a Kmart outside St.George.

Disappearance
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 is possible he could have. The next morning, on 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 mi away, but would return home if needed. Webb told him not to worry and that he would try to get back in time. 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.

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 car driving into the cul-de-sac where it was later found. Six minutes later a figure dressed in a white shirt and slacks, believed by his family to be Koecher, 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.

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 mi northeast of where he had parked. Two hours after that, it pinged another tower near Henderson's Whitney Ranch subdivision, two miles (2 mi) 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 the phone 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.

A day after that last ping, Sun City's homeowners' association 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, and, realizing no one else in the family had talked to him in a week and were unable to locate him, reported him missing. Koecher's brother and sister drove to St. George from the Salt Lake City area to start searching.

Investigations
Koecher's family went to jails, morgues and hospitals in the Las Vegas area in their search. 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 family to conclude he was not Koecher.

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

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 (0.5 mi) stretch in two hours. Bone fragments were found, but they were not human.

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

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. Members of the WebSleuths Internet forum also took up the case; they assembled a timeline of events based on newspaper accounts and social media posts by Koecher's family and friends.

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.

Theories
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. Koecher's family believes, given his financial circumstances at the time, that he had gone to Henderson that morning for a job opportunity. Despite the odd location where he parked his car, on the security video Koecher is neatly dressed and 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.

Beyond that, however, there is no evidence to suggest what happened afterwards, nor has any information 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. Koecher's financial difficulties notwithstanding, his family does not believe he chose to voluntarily disappear or take his own life. His mother 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.

Koecher's car and its contents also suggest he intended to return to St.George. His father said that the car was in working order and the gas tank was half full when he found it on December 17, after his wife was contacted by the Sun City homeowners' association. 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 homeowners' association find his parents. At Koecher's apartment, his clothing and possessions remained where he stored them and had not been disturbed or packed.

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 his car but did not alert on anything. 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.

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. One unknown phone number turned out to be the family of the two girls Koecher had been helping on the day before he went to Las Vegas.

A search of Koecher's 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.

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. Koecher's mother believes the trips were just his way of keeping himself busy despite his underemployment.

While there is no evidence that would suggest Koecher was murdered or kidnapped, neither the St.George nor Henderson police have found any evidence to eliminate that possibility. "There's nothing that makes us suspicious," Detective Adam Olmstead of the St.George police told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "But at the same time, it's a strange situation."

Theorized connection to Susan Powell disappearance
Koecher disappeared a week after Susan Powell disappeared from her home in the Salt Lake City suburb of West Valley City, Utah. The latter case received much more media attention as suspicion centered on her husband, Joshua, with whom she had been having marital difficulties. The night after a neighbor last saw her in the family home, Joshua had left after midnight to take the couple's two sons camping in Tooele County. Police officers who came to investigate the next morning forced entry into the house and found two box fans blowing at a wet spot on the couch.

Early in the Koecher investigation, tips were posted to the Internet and brought to the family's attention suggesting a connection between the two disappearances. In 2010, Joshua's family began making those allegations publicly, claiming on a website they had ostensibly set up to find Susan that she had, with her family's help, framed her husband for murder and eloped with Koecher. Steven Powell, Joshua's father, outlined the theory in a February letter to police and FBI agents investigating his daughter-in-law's case.

Police investigated the connection but found nothing to support it. A Koecher family friend, who by 2011 had taken over managing the Facebook page about Koecher, called the allegations "nonsense". Joshua moved to Washington, where he died along with his sons in a 2012 murder-suicide; his father Steven, who had been convicted of child pornography and voyeurism after, among other things, explicit pictures he had secretly taken of Susan were found on his computer, died in 2018, a year after finishing his prison sentence.