The last time anyone saw Michelle Valdez, she was working the streets of the “War Zone,” a neighborhood of housing projects, heroin and sex shops near the University of New Mexico.
It was 2004 and, like a growing number of young prostitutes, Valdez, a 22-year-old mother of two, had vanished one day. Save for the close-knit group of women she hustled with and the parents who had lost her to the streets, Valdez’s disappearance went virtually unnoticed.
But on Feb. 2, a woman walking her dog came across bones scattered about a dusty mesa on the western edge of the city. Soon after, the police found Valdez’s remains and those of the four-month-old fetus she was carrying. They also discovered the remains of 11 other bodies — bodies the police say could match a list of at least 16 young women who disappeared in Albuquerque from 2001 to 2006.
The emerging story of the bodies on the West Mesa has held the city rapt for weeks, unmasking a darker Albuquerque where young women were vanishing and not many people were paying attention.
“Even with her faults, Michelle was sensitive, generous and loving,” said Karen Jackson, who had been searching for Valdez, her daughter, since the day she stopped calling home. “That somebody would do this to my daughter and dump her like she was a piece of trash and leave her lying out there with no dignity. I am devastated and I am angry.”
Three other bodies have been identified — Julie Nieto, 28, Cinnamon Elks, 36, and Victoria Chavez, 30 — and the police say the women knew each other from the streets. Police Chief Ray Schultz said that the 40-hectare crime scene was the largest in the city’s history and that his department had committed considerable resources to the case.
“We are looking at every different possibility and scenario,” Schultz said. “Everyone in the organization is taking this case personally.”
Lori Gallegos, whose childhood friend Doreen Marquez vanished in October 2003, said Marquez’s family had relayed many tips to the police, but waited months before hearing back.
“You would think the police are supposed to help,” Gallegos said. “It makes me angry. They disregarded Doreen as if it was not important she was missing.”
Schultz disputed accusations that the cases were ignored because many of the women were prostitutes.
“We didn’t write these cases off,” he said.
He said some of the women were not reported missing until months after they had disappeared, making the investigation difficult.
One of many theories the police say they are considering involves a man named Lorenzo Montoya.
On Dec. 16, 2006, in a well publicized case, Montoya bound and choked to death a young prostitute, Shericka Hill, after luring her to his trailer a few kilometers from the West Mesa. Hill’s pimp, who had grown suspicious while waiting outside, burst into the trailer, shooting and killing Montoya.
An article in the Albuquerque Journal at the time said Montoya had a record of soliciting prostitutes. He had also been charged with sexually assaulting a prostitute, but the case was dismissed.
The police note that the sharp increase in the number of missing women stopped around the time of Montoya’s death. One former prostitute, who was close with some of the victims, said in an interview that she had been choked and raped by Montoya in 1995.
“He told me: ‘You’re lucky. I was going to kill you,’” recalled the woman.
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