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A 16-year-old Moab boy aimed a gun through a small crack of a bedroom door and shot Gregorio Salazar Campos three times in the head as he slept, according to Grand County Jail documents.
Charles Anthony Nelson, or "Tony," told a friend that he was persuaded to commit the March 25 slaying by his friend Brody Blu Kruckenberg, whose mother was dating Campos, according to the documents written by Grand County Sheriff's Office investigators.
Called "Gollo" by friends, Campos, 33, was in Kruckenberg's mother's bed when he was killed, the documents state.
"He describes the first shot as going through the bottom of the jaw," Grand County Sheriff's investigators wrote in the probable-cause statement. "[Campos] started to regurgitate and Tony shot him two more times."
It's not clear from the documents whether Corina Yardley, 44, was at her trailer park home, 608 River Sands Road, when her boyfriend was killed. She was arrested Tuesday on obstruction charges and is being held in jail on $10,000 bond. Formal charges have not been filed.
The documents also do not indicate whether police have recovered the weapon, what type of gun it was or who owns the weapon.
Investigators said Kruckenberg, also 16, initially wanted to shoot Campos himself but backed down. Nelson initially refused when Kruckenberg asked him to shoot Campos but then relented, jail documents say.
The teens then used Yardley's pickup to drive the body to the Colorado River, where they tied it to a metal bumper and dumped it into the river. The body was found in an area known as the "Old Boat Dock" by investigators on Sunday. Kruckenberg and Nelson were arrested hours later.
The jail documents also say evidence collected at Yardley's home indicates that tests found traces of blood on the wall and the carpet of Yardley's bedroom, and her "bed was found to be new and replaced" on March 30.
Police located the body after a tip from an unidentified person to whom Nelson had confessed the killing, jail documents say.
"Tony went on to say that [Campos] was an illegal so no one will miss him," according to the documents, which were obtained through a public records request by KUTV 2News and shared with The Salt Lake Tribune.
A telephone message left for Sheriff Steve White was not immediately returned Tuesday. Police had been looking for Campos since March 29, when he was reported missing by a relative.
Prosecutors on Monday charged Kruckenberg and Nelson as adults in 7th District Court with one count each of first-degree felony murder and second-degree felony obstruction of justice.
Both are scheduled for initial hearings on April 23 in the Moab court.
Under Utah law, 16- and 17-year-olds suspected of murder can be charged as adults without a hearing in juvenile court.