Charles Youngkuom Yoo has been sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the 2024 murders of two men in Southern Utah, with the sentences for each count of aggravated murder to run concurrently. Judge Don M. Torgerson handed down the sentence earlier this month in the Seventh District Court, as reported by ABC4 News. Yoo had previously admitted to fatally shooting victims William Drew Bull and Christopher Owens.
On February 27, 2024, authorities were alerted to the disappearance of Bull and Owens who were last seen on February 25 at the Maverik gas station in Blanding, Utah. Following an investigation that utilized cellphone data, officers tracked the signals to Yoo's house in Blanding, where they remained until February 27, after which the phones went dead, as Gephardt Daily detailed.
Investigators executed a search warrant at Yoo's residence on March 8, finding evidence of possible burned clothing and carpet as well as "red-brown spots on the wall and ceiling that appeared to be blood," according to official statements, as obtained by KUTV. The breakthrough in the case came when, on March 22, the bodies of Bull and Owens were found in Arizona, both with gunshot wounds. Ballistic evidence linked the bullets to one of Yoo's guns, bolstered by cell phone records placing Yoo's phone in the vicinity where the bodies were discovered on March 1.
During the sentencing hearing, the court recommended that Yoo never be granted a parole hearing; however, the final decision rests with the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole, as stated in reports from KUTV. Yoo's guilty plea came in September 2025, just over a year and a half after the crime had been committed.
The successful prosecution of the case was a joint effort between the Utah Attorney General's Office and the San Juan County Attorney's Office, with Justice Division Director Craig Peterson and San Juan County Attorney Mitchell Maughan taking the lead. While Yoo faces a considerable duration behind bars, the shadow of this tragedy persists for the families of Bull and Owens, as well as the Blanding community, a small town marred by the violent acts of one of its residents.
