Memorial honors slain teens Pandora Kjolsrud and Evan Clark
Pandora Kjolsrud, 18, and Evan Clark, 17, were found dead with gunshot wounds off of State Route 87 near Mount Ord, north of Sunflower.
- An arrest has been made in the case of two teens killed while camping northeast of Phoenix in May 2025.
- The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office apprehended and booked Thomas Brown, 31, in connection to the deaths.
- Evan Clark, 17, and Pandora Kjolsrud, 18, were found with gunshot wounds near Mount Ord.
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 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, whose deputies 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.”
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,” Sweeney said.
Sheriff Jerry Sheridan will hold a news conference about the arrest on Oct. 3, Gillett said.
On the morning of June 3, Pandora’s mother, Simone Kjolsrud, told The Republic that on May 26, the pair were victims of a double homicide while the teens were on a camping trip.
Sweeney said in June that she did not want her son to take the trip because he would be “off the grid.”
The trip was “to celebrate the start of summer vacation,” Simone Kjolsrud 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 Clark and Pandora Kjolsrud were students at Arcadia High School.
Friends of Evan gathered in late June and remembered how he would help them with car trouble or stay on the phone if they felt unsafe.
Simone Kjolsrud remembered her daughter for being adventurous and someone who enjoyed being outdoors or playing the violin and cello.
“She was a bright light in this world who loved every single person she met and had a very unique ability to make every person feel special and loved,” Simone Kjolsrud told The Republic in late May.
The Republic’s Rey Covarrubias Jr. contributed to this story.
(This story has been updated to add more information.)