An arrest has been made in the case of the two Valley teens killed in May while camping northeast of Phoenix, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office said.
The Sheriff’s Office apprehended and booked Thomas Brown, 31, in connection with the deaths of Evan Clark, 17, and Pandora Kjolsrud, 18, according to spokesperson Calbert Gillett.
Clark and Kjolsrud were found with gunshot wounds just off State Route 87 near Mount Ord, north of Sunflower, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, who found the bodies on May 27.
“I’m elated,” said Clark’s mother, Sandra Malibu Sweeney, in a tearful interview Oct. 2 with The Arizona Republic. “It’s been a nightmare. He was my everything, Evan was my everything.”
Malibu Sweeney said she learned of the arrest in the case only a little more than an hour before the Sheriff’s Office posted the news on social media. She thanked Sheriff’s Detective Fernando De La Torre for his work on the case.
“To have this is closure for me, and I don’t wish anything bad for the person that did this,” Malibu Sweeney said.
Sheriff Jerry Sheridan will hold a news conference about the arrest on Oct. 3, Gillett said.
On the morning of June 3, Kjolsrud’s mother, Simone, told The Arizona Republic that on May 26, the pair were victims of a double homicide while the teens were on a camping trip.
The trip was “to celebrate the start of summer vacation,” Simone said in a statement.
Bill Clark, Evan’s father, confirmed to The Republic on June 3 that the teens went on the trip. Evan left their Paradise Valley home to head to the campsite less than an hour away, Bill Clark said.
Evan and Pandora were both students at Arcadia High School.
The Republic’s Rey Covarrubias Jr. contributed to this story.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Man accused in camping teens’ deaths northeast of Phoenix
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