Based on evidence found at the site, investigators believe the remains are those of Lance Leeroy Arellano, the man suspected of shooting park ranger Brody Young, the release says. The remains will be taken to the Utah Medical Examiner's Office for positive identification. 
 
 The sheriff's office said the student, Caleb Shumway, was specifically searching the area for Arellano. 
 
 Shumway, a 23-year-old Utah Valley University student, said he and his 15-year-old brother had decided to spend two weeks over winter break searching for Arellano — a mission their police officer father helped with five years earlier. An outstanding $30,000 reward for Arellano was part of the draw, Shumway said. 
 
 "For a poor college student, that's pretty appealing," he said. 
 
 Shumway added that resolving the case was a big thing for the Moab community. "There's lots of closure that would come with finding this guy because no one really knew if he was dead or alive," he explained. 
 
 Shumway, an Eagle Scout who grew up exploring caves and canyons in the area, said he was confident he could find Arellano's body after studying the case and discussing the search area with his father. 
 
 "I kind of had a good idea of what had happened," he said. 
 
 He and his brother were two days into their search when they discovered a bone and the bag with the gun near the mouth of a cave on Wednesday. 
 
 Shumway hopped down and under boulders and took pictures. Then they met with police Thursday and took officers back out to the site. They found more skeletal remains, clothing and another backpack with another gun deeper in the cave. 
 
 Shumway believes the first bone and bag he spotted had been dragged to the cave's mouth by an animal recently. He was awaiting word on whether he would get the reward. 
 
 At the time of the shooting, Young, then 34, had pulled into the Poison Spider Mesa trailhead just after 8 p.m. the day of the shooting to speak with the driver of a parked vehicle. The man had no identification but gave a fake name and birth date. 
 
 As Young walked to his truck to check the information, the man shot him nine times from behind. The ranger fired back several times and then crawled 30 feet back to his truck to call for help. Bullets were lodged in his lung, heart, shoulder, back, hip and groin. 
 
 The suspect had a gunshot wound and fled into the desert outside Moab. Deputies searched the area but did not find Young's attacker. 
 
 Arellano, then 40, was later charged with attempted murder but never found. Young returned to work about a year after the shooting and is now assistant coordinator of Utah's statewide boating program.. 
 
 pmanson@sltrib.com 
 
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 LONE TREE, Colo. -- A Highlands Ranch mother and her two sons who were reported missing were found dead on Wednesday morning, the Lone Tree Police Department said. 
 
 Jennifer Laber, 36, was reported missing at 8 p.m. Tuesday after not returning home with her sons, 3-year-old Adam Laber and 5-year-old Ethan Laber, to the area of North Hampton Court and Hibiscus Drive in Highlands Ranch. 
 
 A 2011 silver Chrysler Town and Country minivan matching the one being driven by Laber was found next to a secluded loading dock of a closed Sports Authority store at 7848 E. County Line Road. 
 
 "We certainly did not see this horrific ending that this case has come to today," Douglas County sheriff's chief deputy Steve Johnson said. “We do not have a lot of answers.” 
 
 Police received a call about 7:45 a.m. from a passerby that the minivan was found. Johnson did not say how the three died. It's not clear how long the minivan was outside the abandoned store. 
 
 The minivan was parked several feet from County Line Road and was shielded by a wall. 
 
 Law enforcement notified the family, including Jennifer Laber's husband, Ryan Laber. Johnson said Ryan Laber, who reported the three missing Tuesday night, is cooperating with authorities. 
 
 Police said there is no indication there is any public danger and there are no suspects. 
 
 The Douglas County Sheriff's Office released information about Laber and the children late Tuesday night after they were reported missing. Johnson said an Amber Alert was not issued because it didn't appear to be needed. 
 
 "There were no red flags," he said. 
 
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 Laber was last seen picking up her sons from Bear Canyon Elementary School in Highlands Ranch about 2 p.m. Tuesday. Johnson said the children were pulled out of a school about an hour early but it's not known why. 
 
 The three were seen leaving through the main door and nothing appeared unusual. 
 
 "No red flags whatsoever," Johnson said. 
 
 Johnson said the investigation is active and ongoing. 
 
 "We need a little bit of time and space to let this husband and father to process what has taken place overnight and to allow us and the Lone Tree Police Department to piece this together and give this father the answers he so desperately is going to need as he faces this real hollow time in his life," Johnson said.
– As far as winter breaks go, Caleb Shumway has had an unusual and potentially lucrative one: The Utah Valley University student likely found the human remains he was looking for. The 23-year-old Moab native is the son of an officer, one of the 150-plus law enforcement members who in 2010 spent days hunting for Lance Leeroy Arellano, who allegedly shot Utah State Parks ranger Brody Young nine times on Nov 19 of that year near the Poison Spider Mesa Trailhead. Arellano was believed to have himself been shot and was thought to not have made it out of the desert; officers combed a 15-square-mile area without luck, and a $30,000 reward has remained on the table since. "For a poor college student, that's pretty appealing," Shumway tells the Salt Lake Tribune. Two days into his search, he found something. Shumway and his 15-year-old brother decided to zero in on a two-mile area that contained a number of caves, and on Wednesday at the mouth of a "cave-like area" near Tangri-La Ranch found a bone and bag. They returned the next day with police, who were unable to fit inside what the Grand County Sheriff's Office describes in a press release as a "narrow entrance way to a void in the rocks that was approximately 6 feet long and 3 feet high and approximately 3 feet wide." Shumway went in and found more bones, clothing, and a bag with a gun in it; he believes an animal dragged the initial items he found from the cave. The release states that "evidence ... located with the remains" points to them belonging to Arellano, but the state medical examiner will make the final determination. The AP reports that Young survived, with his Kevlar vest and a credit card in his pocket blocking three bullets.