>> i needed to know where they were all the time. >> reporter: caught between the pressure to keep the public informed and the need to prevent key details from leaking out to cranks and copycats who routinely clogged tip lines, commander feist found himself scheduling sensitive excavation, work in the off hours, when he knew cameras would not be looking over his shoulder. >> it's taking all my time. (NBC) "Dateline NBC" will air a two-hour special Friday on the latest in the investigation into the murders of the University of Idaho students Ethan . Plot Twist: With Lester Holt, Josh Mankiewicz, Julie Kibuishi, Sam Herr. start with supporting your gut health. in the grave of jane doe number 8 investigators found a tiny second set of bones. and we know a few that have a, history of murdering the girls who frequent the truck stops. 'd, and it was her, and they found, you know, she was pregnant. Wozniak lured Kibuishi to Herr's apartment, where he shot and killed her. spots that weren't there before. Be the first one to comment on this story. >> if you find one, you're going to find them all. >> reporter: over the years ida's career blossomed. >> reporter: syllania edwards was released from that denver-area jail in july 2004, the same year almost all the other west mesa women had gone missing. it was all just unverifiable street talk, the kind ida lopez had heard before. the money. >> reporter: many who lost friends and relatives to the west mesa grave digger are convinced there could still be someone somewhere who knows something. there's no way. every chance that i had i had the videotape there. Genre (s): Talk & Interview, Business, News, Documentary, Events & Specials Season 19 Episodes tbd S19:E72. >> i was devastated. but they hadn't made an i.d. so i keep them, do my full boheh background on them. >> what about those last seven girls? at 13 michelle became pregnant. im i remember that. >> i thought ida being a police officer was awfully small. >> reporter: by mid april, after 2 1/2 months of intensive searching, mapping, and aerial photography, commander feist finally felt confident that his team had found all the bones there were to find and began shutting down the west mesa crime scene. >> the tv show "america's most wanted" was also at the crime scene today filming for next weekend's episode on the west mesa mystery. >> yeah. The upcoming episode, titled Somebody's Daughter, will air on Oxygen on Tuesday, July 12, at 8:00 PM ET. Or contact APD at 1-877-765-8273 or (505) 768-2450. read more they had the big telescoping lenses. and then she says is there anything that we can do? >> reporter: by now the street alongside the desert crime scene was a media encampment, where reporters were predictably live at 5:00, 6:00, and 10:00. sometimes reporting details that crime scene commander paul feist preferred to keep secret. and i guess i just kind of wonder whether police and everybody else would have start of stepped up their game a little bit if that had been the case here. >> reporter: a few days later lab work confirmed ida's hunch. but i get to say this is where she's at. and was he still at work? Known as the West Mesa killings, the victims' deaths have resulted in no arrests, despite the massive homicide investigation police launched after discovering the makeshift graves. >> reporter: they call it tough love. 12-year-old daughter, angelica. when they looked at old pictures of the mesa. you're keeping that quiet because you don't want somebody to confess to this who didn't do it. they pick up a lot of girls. but it was what had happened next that really focused the detectives' attention. and i'm in the porch area. the position was there. i said all right. detective ida lopez, who would later make it her mission to find michelle and the other missing women, was on medical leave at the time. i know in my heart i didn't do the right thing, but i knew that the common sense of my brain said that i had to. >> reporter: those were long nights, filled with bittersweet memories of michelle the way she used to be, before the drugs took over. memories fade, and witnesses disappear, and some just don't, want to be part of it anymore. These are the eleven victims identified in as being found in the dumping ground in the West Mesa. but you know, you have to have faith in your law enforcement. for police that seemed like a good place to start their search for the killer. and i thought, well, i'll write it and we'll see what happens. Fortunately, the detective came back on a contractual basis to investigate the West Mesa murders. >> i would tell them every single day we're one day closer to finding your daughter. ", "Accused serial rapist, West Mesa murder suspect sentenced to 36 years in rape case", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=West_Mesa_murders&oldid=1140315217, This page was last edited on 19 February 2023, at 14:32. a thigh bone had been found out on albuquerque's west mesa. 2023 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. served. >> and sometimes they make the i wrong turn or a mistake.ke >> reporter: shortly after her . Years had passed from the time the women and girls disappeared, likely limiting available evidence. A 2004 image showed a set of tire tracks leading directly to the area. do not use if you are allergic to dupixent. There's no question Stephen did it: But was he. get $100 back when you bring in an eligible phone. >> you think she came here on her own? The victims included two teenagers and a pregnant woman. that once she was lost and that now she's found. -good luck, everybody. She had also grown close to the families of the victims by that time. >> it's -- i know she had been to albuquerque at least one prior time. and she said no, dad. The cases remain unsolved with no arrests. >> reporter: but some do. The Untold Truth Of The West Mesa Murders. >> he's in the area where the prostitutes frequent. do not use in breeding, pregnant or lactating dogs. One of those suspects was Joseph Blea. click, call, or visit a store today. where did she come from? there was no shortage of names on the police list of potential suspects who were capable of that. The serial murders of 11 women in the West Mesa area of Albuquerque will be featured in a two-hour edition of NBC's Dateline tonight. They also found electrical tape and rope in his car when he was arrested in 2003 for exposing himself to a woman. "You can't have a colder cold case," Gibson said. "You have to know people, their names and what they look like to know people are missing," she said. s i just learned the absolute e dependence on the drug for the girls because there's no way in your right mind you're going to get into a car and do what this person just told you to do. A chilling lead came from satellite photos of the West Mesa Murders burial site. Lopezs alma mater) who has written several books on serial killings, said: You cant have a colder cold case, Gibson said. >> but it might not have been a nice thing? She was convinced he was the West Mesa killer. The only emerging pattern was that 10 of the victims were sex workers or victims of sex trafficking. or whatever, see somebody that may appear to be the size of michelle, a small person, and go around the block two or three times and me wondering who they were as well as them wondering who i was. and so this case was going nowhere. Updated: Jan 13, 2023 / 01:45 PM EST. One bears a. and it's almost frustrating because you look at this picture, and you see the disturbed earth which later we learned are grave sites, and you see the tire tracks. Ive been looking for a cast on yhis case. >> reporter: in february, five months after michelle was last seen, dan went down to the albuquerque police station and formally reported his daughter missing. A life long resident of Albuq., NM. Who do they party with? The process repeated itself in more or less the same way about five years later. >> she searched for the innocent. - Investigation Discovery", "Sam Herr, Juri 'Julie' Kibuishi: 'The Perfect Murder' On Investigation Discovery Afghanistan War Vet, California Tutor Killed By Actor In Plot To Have Lavish Wedding", "48 Hours-Killer Performance - Video Dailymotion", "Unusual Suspects: Deadly Intent | Watch Full Episodes & More! >> reporter: the name, the face, belonged to michelle valdez, one of the first women on ida's list. [9] Some of the women appear to be unconscious, and many share the same physical characteristics as the original 11 victims. until late in the afternoon on february 2nd, 2009. Dateline is the long-running, award-winning news magazine bringing viewers stories ranging from compelling mysteries to powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Blea's wife and daughter claimed to have found jewelry and female underwear that didn't belong to them in their home, and police confirmed this after they searched his home eight months into the West Mesa investigation. who got an awful skin condition. but for ida lopez the discovery and identification of seven women from her list meant that years of careful detective work were finally paying off. Photo Source ready, set, go. >> fbi's behavioral sciences agents came in, took a look at our crime scene, took a look at what evidence we had. she's been arrested. She was released from jail sometime in 2019.[12][13]. >> you're a prisoner in this apartment now. Jamie Barela, 15 - Jamie was not involved with drugs or sex work like the other ten victims. >> how'd she look? >> there are other girls from out of state in the same -- you know, are we going to find another repeat? On february 2, 2009, a woman walking a dog found a human bone on the west mesa of albuquerque, new mexico. >> was the man whose house you served a search warrant on, is he a suspect? The West Mesa Murders are the killings of eleven women whose remains were found buried in 2009 in the desert on the West Mesa of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States. >> this particular individual made sure that he went back each and every time when he was going to dispose of a body and disposed of it in the same area where the other women were. >> i'm still right down the middle of the fairway on this, right? so you have to recreate and you have to kind of go back in the time machine, so to speak, to that era or that time in these people's lives. >> at one point syllania had been arrested up in the denver area for prostitution, going by a different name at the time. a name and face detective babcock knew quite well from an encounter in 1999, when babcock was working the vice unit in albuquerque. Her skeletal remains were found at a construction site in the West Mesa area of Albuquerque in February, along with the bodies of many other victims. >> reporter: one of those women, safira mora, was found alive and well a few weeks after this story first aired in december 2010. right now the killer, if he's still alive, has plenty of it. it's a quote familiar to detectives everywhere. A&E reported how the group burial had all the hallmarks of a serial killer's actions.According to the Associated Press, February 2, 2022, marked the 13th . Tonight's episode of Dateline: Unforgettable Season 2 will have Josh Mankiewicz narrate the story of the dedicated detective Ida Lopez, who is still working on these decade-old cases to help the victims and their families find some form of justice. Despite the tip, however, the West Mesa Murder case remains unsolved. help heal your skin from within. her face bore the kind of sores that suggested she'd been hitting the crack pipe.ug >> when did you notice things were going wrong? Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. -ahhh. >> reporter: by the end of 2005 ida had five women on her list who were roughly the same age with similar backgrounds. Ross would soon discover that 11 dead bodies, now known as the West Mesa Murders, lay beneath. Theres a sense of physical remoteness this place was very removed, said University of New Mexico professor Dirk Gibson, who has written two books on serial killers. >> like?wr >> the drugs. >> reporter: based on photographs of the skull and a partial hair weave that was recovered from her grave, the sketch artist imagined that jane doe number 7 must have looked something like this. >> no, you can't. According to Albuquerque's KQRE, Montoya hired a sex worker in December 2006 and took her to his home located less than two miles away from the site where the West Mesa victims were buried. Her daughter had found womens clothing and jewelry in their home, with some families later revealing that the victims jewelry was missing. an amusement park so he stepped on the dr. scholl's kiosk. a detective named ida lopez. >> we went back starting in 2002, and we got the records from our local jail. at first some of them were hesitant. In addition, a tree tag from a nursery was found in the area where the West Mesa victims' bodies were buried; it was tracked to a nursery Blea once frequented. According to the TV program, FBI profilers told Albuquerque police that the killer was a white or Hispanic male in his 30s. >> a college campus gripped by fear. An unsolved murder case has haunted the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico for more than a decade. some passed on grisly rumors to ida, that the missing women were dead and had been dumped in the desert west of town. Victims' families weren't involved in planning the event, but relatives who attend will be asked to speak if they wish, said Barber. Investigators have said that nearly all the West Mesa victims, who were between the ages of 15 and 32, worked as prostitutes . he opened up the door for all the wrong things. i have no idea how she got here. >> and what information do you have? Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future. maybe i did something wrong. michelle's little girl angelica was now the center of attention. >> i started looking into the missing and exploited children's website and was able to search through as many african-american females that matched the possible stature, where they might have been when they went missing. not a lot to go on. -, Press J to jump to the feed. so come ask, shop, discover at your xfinity store today. gave her 20 bucks. and for them. >> for a long time the news would be full of stories about girls who were missing and everybody's looking for them. some of them chummed around with one another. -it's kind of like driving with his dad. each x marking another day without word from his oldest daughter, michelle. >> don't know. >> your typical profile. . Detectives were left with the fact that serial killers move with ease, often vanishing long before their victims are ever found. that day it fell to 15-year-old camille to fill in for michelle and act as mom. A sinister force seems to be snatching women off the streets of Albuquerque. Dateline Full Episodes. and all with the same name. don't wait. the patience of job. some of it seemed to take. the hardest part of this whole thing is having to go to somebody's house and say we. they use stamps.com all the services of the post office only cheaper get a 4-week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again. it was a time when a sinister force seemed to be snatching women off the streets of new mexico's largest city. Deadly House of Cards Air Date: September 16, 2011 tbd and i kind of was wobbling a little bit, and ida consoled me a little bit and said it's okay, you know, it's okay. >> investigators are looking for connections. and i'm happy and satisfied with that. heart that day when she wasn't there. In February 2009, her body was identified. -oh, what am i into? >> you can't. ), First published on February 2, 2019 / 12:05 PM. every morning the sunrises over the sandia mountains east of albuquerque and begins baking one of the most celebrated stretches of asphalt in the united states -- historic route 66, the highway famous for carrying dust bowl refugees and beat generation oddballs west to california. Article continues below advertisement Ida Lopez was unable to solve the case she was so closely attached to before her retirement and relocation in 2014.
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