SAWMILL, Ariz. — The FBI is asking the public for help in finding answers after two Ohio brothers went on a road trip across the country and were found murdered on the side of an Arizona road last March.
“This is a nightmare like I keep thinking I’m going to wake up but I’m not,” said Maureen Shear, one of the brothers’ sisters.
The pain is as raw as if it had happened yesterday for the sister and mother of Phil, 29, and Matthew Reagan, 39. The brothers were found killed on the Navajo Nation reservation. They were headed from Cleveland, Ohio to California after Phil landed a new job there.
They were supposed to arrive in California a few days later but their bodies were found in Sawmill, Arizona, about five hours northeast of Phoenix.
“They were doing some sightseeing along the way to break up the drive and from what we were told, Phil’s car got stuck in mud and it looked like they were walking back for help when they were murdered at the side of the road,” Shear explained.
But who did it and why? These are the questions the FBI is still working to figure out. They announced a $10,000 reward in the case for any information that can help in the case.
“This is a priority case for the FBI. We have been doing interviews, we will leave no stone unturned and we were aggressively pursue this investigation,” explained Jill McCabe, public affairs specialist for the FBI Phoenix field office.
The FBI has also yet to release how the Reagan brothers were killed and what lead to their murders. But they do know it was a random, senseless act of violence.
Their family’s plea for help is growing more desperate as months drag on with no answers. “Closure for the kids and the family too I mean we don’t have answers but what are we going to tell them about their uncle and their dad,” Shear said
But Shear knows even those answers won’t bring her brothers home.
“They won’t be at the bigger events that happen either but it’s like almost the day-to-day, things you take completely for granted that they just won’t be there," she said.
