Chapter 1: What tragic event occurred to Brandon Rumbaugh and Lisa Guerreri in October 2003?
Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra, and the case I'm going to tell you about today takes place in an isolated recreation space in central Arizona called Bumblebee Road. According to the website azoffroad.net, there are more than 105 off-road trails in Arizona that wind between abandoned mining sites, historic monuments, and desolate swaths of desert.
The jurisdiction this case is in is Yavapai County, which is an area I've reported before about in the previous two-part episode of Park Predators, titled The Afterlife, Part 1 and 2. When Arizona became a formal territory in 1863, there were four original counties, and Yavapai was one of them. In the years since, other counties have been established in the original Yavapai County boundary.
According to the county's website, the Yavapai Native American word, Yavapai, means people of the sun. However, the case I'm going to dive into today did not happen with the benefit of sunlight. It was a crime that took place by the cover of night, and to this day is a mystery whose perpetrator remains unidentified.
The Yavapai County Sheriff's Office, which is the agency in charge of this case, has a dedicated team of detectives and cold case volunteers who specifically focus on crimes like this. And I believe, based on that unit's track record, which I explored in the Afterlife Part 1 and 2, it's only a matter of time before they could solve this double homicide as well. This is Park Predators.
so so
Around 3.30 p.m. on Sunday, October 19th, friends of 20-year-old Brandon Rumbaugh and 19-year-old Lisa Guerreri were walking by a dirt turnaround about two miles off Interstate 17 in rural Yavapai County, Arizona, when they spotted exactly what they'd been desperately wanting to find.
a white 2000 Ford F-150 pickup truck, which was the same color, make, and model that Lisa's mother, Paula Guerreri, owned. When the friends approached the truck, they peered inside the bed and saw both Brandon and Lisa tucked into their sleeping bags. At first glance, the couple appeared to be sleeping, but a closer examination revealed something truly disturbing. They were both deceased.
Initial coverage by the Arizona Republic explained that when Yavapai County Sheriff's detectives arrived on scene, they weren't able to tell right away exactly how the couple had died. There were no obvious signs of trauma.
However, the Sheriff's Office later walked back that statement when a spokeswoman for the agency clarified that there were signs of physical trauma initially observed on the victims. But as far as what those traumatic injuries were, the Sheriff's Office didn't immediately clarify.
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Chapter 2: What were the initial findings at the crime scene in Yavapai County?
When investigators got into his motel room, they found four handguns, but initially weren't sure if any of those firearms were related to Ray and Omer's murders. Further ballistics testing had to be done to determine if Rusty's father's service weapon was the gun used in the killings. But it's unclear from the available source material if that was ever established.
What is clear, though, is that Rusty's suicide essentially brought Ray and Omer's murder investigation to an end. However, no one could ignore the fact that the circumstances of the crime were strikingly similar to what had happened to Lisa and Brandon nearly seven months earlier. But the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office was very quick to stamp out any suggestion that the cases were connected.
Detectives stated to the press that they did not believe the crimes were linked. And really, it seemed like that was that, because several more months passed before any kind of update came in with regards to Lisa and Brandon's case.
Tony Laxon reported for the East Valley Tribune that in mid-August 2004, 10 months after the couple's murders, law enforcement investigators and representatives from the Silent Witness program released a videotaped reenactment of the crime in hopes of enticing additional witnesses to come forward.
A sergeant with the sheriff's office told the press that detectives suspected there were still some witnesses out there who had yet to provide information to authorities. The sergeant wasn't sure why those witnesses had not come forward yet, and waiting for answers was painstaking for the victim's families during this time.
Paula, Lisa's mom, said that she thought about the case every single day, and she hoped that whoever was responsible would be captured. Her hopes were seemingly raised right after that, when information about another young couple slain at random while camping in Northern California made national news.
Those victims were Lindsay Cutshall and Jason Allen, whose case I covered in a previous episode of Park Predators titled The Sand. Because Lindsay and Jason's shooting deaths happened under similar circumstances, investigators working their case initially considered whether their deaths might be linked to whoever had killed Lisa and Brandon.
Jason and Lindsay were murdered execution-style while they slept in their sleeping bags on a beach. Lisa and Brandon were killed in an eerily similar manner, but just in a desert environment. No signs of robbery or evidence like shell casings were found at the California crime scene, as was the case in Arizona.
But as quickly as investigators in California contacted Yavapai County authorities to compare notes, the lead fizzled. The caliber firearm used in the California case was different than the type of gun that had been used to kill Lisa and Brandon.
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Chapter 3: How did the investigation into the couple's disappearance unfold?
She was one of the main people who consistently spoke publicly about Lisa and Brandon's case. She regularly did interviews with the press, pleaded to the public for information, and maintained contact with investigators. It's obvious to me that she wanted so desperately to see her daughter's killer or killers caught.
And it's absolutely heartbreaking that she did not get the chance to experience that before she passed. Today, Brandon and Lisa's murders remain unsolved. If you have any information, please contact the Yavapai Silent Witness Program online at yavapaisw.com. That's Y-A-V-A-P-A-I-S-W dot com. Or find the link in the show notes. You can also call anonymously at 1-800-932-3232.
Unfortunately, they're not the only double homicide to mar the central Arizona community. If you've been watching the news, you know that in May 2025, the double shooting deaths of 18-year-old Pandora Shilsrud and 17-year-old Evan Clark were discovered in neighboring Maricopa County. The two teens had been on a camping trip together.
About four months later, a 31-year-old man named Thomas Brown was arrested for the crime. At the time of this recording, he's yet to go to trial, but believe me, that's a case I'm going to be keeping a very close eye on.
When news of that crime broke, outlets like AZ Central published reports that pointed out the fact that Pandora and Evans' case echoed so many aspects of what had happened to Brandon and Lisa.
The only difference being a suspect in the 2025 case was captured fairly quickly, and Lisa and Brandon's perpetrator or perpetrators remain unidentified.
In some of the initial coverage about Lisa and Brandon's case, a law enforcement officer with the U.S. Forest Service was interviewed, and he made a statement to the East Valley Tribune that I think is universally important and something we should all take to heart.
He said, quote, When you go camping, you need to think safety. Never take things for granted because you're out there underneath the stars.
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Chapter 4: What evidence did authorities uncover about the couple's last movements?
End quote.
Park Predators is an Audiochuck production. You can view a list of all the source material for this episode on our website, parkpredators.com. And you can also follow Park Predators on Instagram, at Park Predators.
I think Chuck would approve. Barking