ST. GEORGE — The family of Steven Koecher, who has been missing since mid-December, announced Friday that they are now offering a monetary reward to help them find their son.
The family said police investigators may also be looking for connections between his case and that of missing West Valley City woman Susan Cox Powell.
Koecher's father, Rolf Koecher, said St. George police detectives had indicated to him that Powell's family had asked the department to look for any link between the two cases. He told the Deseret News that while he has personally dismissed the notion, his family is open to any investigation.
"I personally don't think there's a connection, but Dec. 7 she disappeared and he traveled through that area around that date. … There's some speculation that maybe he and Susan Powell took off together," Rolf Koecher said.
He elaborated later in a written statement.
"While it appears that Steven is close in age to Susan Powell and was driving through the Salt Lake City area within a day or two of her disappearance, any connection between the two seems entirely coincidental to us," he said. "Because we want to remain open to all possibilities, no matter how improbable, we have no issue with an exchange of information between the St. George and West Valley City police departments."
Cox family spokeswoman Shelby Gifford said Friday she did not know whether the family had made such a request, but said it was "possible" as Susan Powell's family has asked West Valley police to investigate any cases that may reasonably be related.
The Koecher family, of Bountiful, held a press conference Friday to announce that they are now offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who can provide information that will lead "to the safe return or prosecution and conviction of anyone who may have done him harm," Rolf Koecher said.
Steven Koecher, 30, has been missing since Dec. 13 when he was last seen leaving his 2003 Chevrolet Cavalier in an "upscale" community for the 55-and-older set in Henderson, Nev. He was seen on a security camera set up at the home of one of the neighborhood residents walking from the neighborhood around noon.
Searches have been mounted, posters have been distributed and his face has even been printed on the side of a milk carton, but there are still no new, real leads in the case.
"We just want to encourage people to come forward," Rolf Koecher said. "There might be people who have knowledge and are uncomfortable about it, but might be persuaded to part with that knowledge for a reward. We hope anybody who has clues might be willing to share information."
He said the family is also asking the citizens of Henderson to make next week "a week of vigilance," to focus their effort on finding the missing man. Koecher was formerly employed working nights on the online site at The Salt Lake Tribune but relocated to St. George after a rough winter and strain from the night shift took a toll on his morale. His parents said he seemed better after the move, though he struggled to find full-time employment. He was working part-time for a home services company in St. George at the time of his disappearance.
No one knows what took him to Nevada that Sunday in December. Rolf Koecher said a question until recently was the location of Steven Koecher's passport. Police were checking airline logs out of Las Vegas to determine whether he'd left the country, but Rolf Koecher said he located the passport, which was buried in a clothes drawer, last week.
"We would have been OK with it if he had gone back to Brazil, where he was a missionary, because he knows people there and we have a way to check down there," Rolf Koecher said. "We're grateful for the fact that his passport was found but also deflated because it doesn't give us a track to follow."
As part of the vigilance week, members of Steven Koecher's extended family in Henderson, Nev., and of his LDS ward in St. George will also be distributing posters, Rolf Koecher said.
Anyone with information is asked to call Henderson Police Crimes Against Persons at 702-267-4750 or St. George police at 435-627-4300.
e-mail: emorgan@desnews.com