As he stood next to a photo of his older brother dressed in a suit, Angel Reyes became emotional.
Alejandro Reyes — who was 26 when he was found dead in Butterfield Canyon in 2016 — had always been there when Angel got home from school, ready with a snack and advice.
“I miss him. So much,” Angel Reyes said, his voice strained as he spoke at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
Violent crimes are devastating to families, Sheriff Rosie Rivera of Unified police said, including the “vicious” beating of Alejandro Reyes. She announced Tuesday that the Utah Bureau of Forensic Services has identified “multiple” possible suspects in Reyes’ slaying through DNA.
But authorities don’t have names to match to those DNA samples yet, Rivera said, and she called on the public to help solve the cold case killing.
Whether someone may have noticed something in Butterfield Canyon between the night of Oct. 1, 2016, and the afternoon of Oct. 5 — when his body was found — or whether someone has details about where Reyes was within that time frame, Rivera pleaded with them to come forward.
“We can’t bring Alejandro back, but we can bring this family justice,” Rivera said.
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
A ‘troubling death’
On the afternoon of Oct. 5, 2016, a hiker in Butterfield Canyon — west of Herriman in the Oquirrh Mountains — stumbled upon a large package wrapped in thick, bloodied plastic and taped at the seams. The man immediately drove out of the canyon and called police.
“When we got up there, it alarmed our officers,” former Sheriff Mike Winder said at a news conference in 2016. The body inside was later identified as Alejandro Reyes, from West Jordan.
Winder noted that the body looked “hastily dumped” and whoever placed it there, almost 4 miles up the canyon, did not attempt to hide it. The state medical examiner determined that Reyes had died from blunt force trauma, but whether a weapon was involved was unclear. Unified police said they were investigating Reyes’ death as a homicide.
Reyes’ pickup truck — a red 2002 Toyota Tacoma — was reported missing the day after his body was found, but officers located it at an apartment complex in Riverton that night. Police are still unsure if Reyes has a “connection” to someone living at the apartments or whoever drove the vehicle there.
“It’s a very disturbing situation,” Winder said a couple of days after the body was found. “It’s a troubling death. I’m anxious for our detectives to understand how this occurred. I’d like to see these people apprehended.”
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Edgar Reyes, left, holds a photo of his brother Alejandro Reyes as Sheriff Rosie Rivera speaks at a news conference from Unified Police's Cold Case Unit about Alejandro Reyes, whose body was found in Butterfield Canyon in October 2016, on Tuesday, March 29, 2022.
Holes in the timeline
Alejandro Reyes’ brother Edgar said at Tuesday’s news conference that the last time he talked to Alejandro was the evening of Oct. 1, 2016, a Saturday.
Edgar Reyes had invited his brother to come over and hang out, but Alejandro said he’d probably stay home and watch a movie instead — which was typical for him to do, Edgar said.
Alejandro Reyes’ family reported him missing the following Wednesday afternoon, three hours after his body had been found. But the medical examiner hadn’t identified the body by then, so Reyes’ family didn’t know he was already dead.
“Even after five and a half years, going on six years, that he’s been taken from us, it still hurts us,” Edgar Reyes said.
On Tuesday, Rivera reiterated the same plea to the public that Winder did in 2016, asking people to call Unified police if they knew why Reyes’ truck was found at the Legacy Springs apartments in Riverton, who he associated with, and where he was between Oct. 1 and Oct. 5.
Edgar Reyes said his family never spends time in the canyons, and that he can’t think of a reason why his brother would go up there.
“I don’t know why they did this,” Angel Reyes said. “He wasn’t tied to anything bad that I knew of.”
Rivera said the DNA evidence was identified thanks to technology that has been made available in the years since Alejandro Reyes’ body was found. But she declined to specify whether the DNA had been matched with any samples in national databases, and didn’t provide other details.
“What I would like to say to those individuals that were involved in this case, we’re going to solve it,” Rivera said. “We’re going to find out who you are. It’s better for you to come forward and work with us on this.”
Anyone with information about Reyes’ death may call Unified police dispatch at 801-840-4000 or detective Ben Pender at 385-468-9816.
