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True Crime with Rachel Shannon

The Murders of Lisa Gurrieri and Brandon Rumbaugh

12 Dec 2025

Transcription

Chapter 1: What are the details surrounding the murders of Lisa Gurrieri and Brandon Rumbaugh?

0.031 - 20.317 Rachel Shannon

Hello everybody, my name is Rachel and welcome back to my channel or if you're new here, welcome to my channel. So today's case involves two murders that have gone unsolved for almost 20 years and it's just such a bizarre case and I just hope that by adding some exposure to this case and spreading some awareness that maybe someday soon we will get some answers.

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20.638 - 26.325 Rachel Shannon

Today we are going to be discussing the unsolved murders of Lisa Guerreri and Brandon Rumbaugh.

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Lisa Guerrieri was born on July 14, 1984 to John and Paula Guerrieri. Lisa was described as an energetic, outgoing, and bubbly young woman. She graduated from Mesa High School and at the time of her murder, she was a sophomore at Mesa Community College studying business management and had dreams of becoming a wedding planner.

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She sang in the choir at the Christ is King Catholic Church and she worked at Salt River Project in Arizona. She was just the type of person to smile at everybody and say good morning to everybody she saw. Lisa's father unfortunately passed away of cancer when she was very young, so her Uncle Mike took over and helped raise her, so he thought of her as his own.

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Uncle Mike said that she sang at his wedding and was just such a joy to have at his wedding and just a joy to have around in general. She was known as the type of girl who could brighten anybody's day. At the time, Lisa was dating a handsome 20-year-old man named Brandon Rumba. Brandon Rumba was born on May 7, 1983 to Robert and Desiree Rumba.

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He graduated from Coronado High School in 2011 and then went on to join the US Marine Reserves while attending Arizona State University. He was described as spontaneous and goofy with a great sense of humor. He was always making everybody around him laugh and he was very optimistic about everything that he did.

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He was described as this tall, skinny kid growing up, but he built himself into this big, muscular, strong man. He loved fitness and working out and he had big dreams of one day opening up his own gym. But for the time being, he worked as a personal trainer at the Fitness Works gym in Mesa. He also loved music just like Lisa and he also played drums in a local band.

Chapter 2: Who were Lisa Gurrieri and Brandon Rumbaugh before their tragic deaths?

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He also loved to paint and sculpt and he was really just this man who had many talents and passions. The couple was described as having a really amazing and healthy relationship. The two lived together in Scottsdale and they had plans to be married someday. Paula, Lisa's mother, said that Brandon treated Lisa like a queen and she really liked him.

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I'm not sure if this is 100% true, I saw this in some sources but not mentioned in others, but apparently just before the murders, Brandon and Lisa had just gotten engaged, but Paula had never gotten the chance to see the engagement ring. Now, in October of 2003, Lisa and Brandon decided that they needed to do something really special to celebrate their first year of dating.

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Initially, they planned on going to Disneyland, which would have been around a five-hour trip from where they lived in Scottsdale. However, this idea ended up being really expensive, so they opted on going on a camping trip together instead. They ended up going to Bumblebee near Sunset Point around 60 miles north of Phoenix off the I-17.

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Bumblebee, Arizona is known as a ghost town in the Bradshaw Mountains nearby Bumblebee Creek. This is a campsite that's very commonly used by RVs in the winter when it's a bit cooler to be outside during the day. So it's definitely a little bit of a desolate area, but it's definitely a well-known and busy camping spot.

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now lisa had never been camping before so she was a bit nervous for this new adventure but she loved brandon and she was really excited to get some time alone with him to camp and stargaze they asked paula lisa's mother to borrow her white 2004 f-150 pickup truck for the trip paula was a little bit reserved to let them borrow the truck at first because one it needed an oil change but two

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These were two kids going on an adventure and who knows where they would be taking that truck. But she did end up letting Lisa and Brandon borrow the truck for their anniversary. They planned to leave in the evening on Friday and promised to return the truck by the next day that Saturday. So, on October 17, 2003, the couple set off on their adventure.

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Brandon hugged his mom goodbye and she told him to be careful. She gave them a couple of extra blankets and told them to give her a call if they needed anything. Lisa asked her mother not to tell Uncle Mike where the two were going because she knew that if he knew, that he would really worry about her.

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The two set off for their adventure and eventually the two landed at their campsite on Bumblebee Road. However, when the next day came without them coming home when they said they would, Paulo really began to worry. Brandon actually had work that day and he was definitely not the type to miss work. So when he didn't show up to work that morning, his family knew something was off immediately.

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So a friends and family decided to go ahead and start searching around possible campsites that they thought that the couple could be at. Some of their friends suspected that they would be at Bumblebee Camp, so that is where they started their searches. And their searches did not last long before they actually ended up finding both Lisa and Brandon.

Chapter 3: What led Lisa and Brandon to go camping in Bumble Bee, Arizona?

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So now that brings me to the main theories in this case. So the first theory is that someone in Lisa and Brendan's friend group was involved with the murders. So this is the theory that Lisa's uncle Mike thinks is possible. He points to this particular friend who was in the initial search party as being responsible.

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According to uncle Mike, one of Lisa's friends had very strong feelings for her and he wanted to be with her more than anything. The rest of the family even knows him and they all think that he definitely had the motive to kill them both. Not only did this man want to be with Lisa, but he was also with the group of friends that happened to find both Lisa and Brandon.

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Like I said, they sort of just assumed that they were gonna be there and then they found them right away. but how would they have just known that they were going to be there? I'm not sure if Lisa and Brandon ever told them, but from the sounds of it, they didn't tell them because otherwise, why would Uncle Mike be so suspicious of why they found them right away?

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The other weird behavior that this man had was right after the murders. This man suddenly packed everything he had up and moved all the way from Arizona to Washington. And then, according to Uncle Mike, when they looked at his home after he left, The home was completely clean and absolutely spotless.

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There was nothing left behind in this house and it looked like he had cleaned every square inch of that entire house. This man was given a polygraph test and he passed, so he was immediately cleared by the detectives that were working the case at the time.

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But the detectives who are on the case now say that they want to look at him again and they agree that the crime scene was not properly investigated as thoroughly as it should have been. These new detectives said that they would not have just cleared anyone based on a polygraph test, so according to these new detectives, he's not cleared to them.

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So obviously, all of this does not look good for this friend and it is pretty sketchy. However, finding the bodies of their friends does not necessarily mean that he was involved. He may have just known about the general area that they have been in. Maybe the couple had mentioned it to the friend group in passing and Uncle Mike just didn't know about it.

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Or maybe they had been talking about wanting to go there for a while, so the friends just knew. Maybe it really is just this popular of a camping site that they knew that they would be there. I'm honestly not sure. Then, of course, the other thing that you have to question is why, if he was obsessed with Lisa, would he choose to take her life?

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I could see this person wanting to get Brandon out of the way, but why would he kill the person that he wanted to be with? I could see a situation in someone's messed up mind where they think, oh, if I take away her boyfriend, she's going to be so distressed and be looking for a shoulder to cry on.

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