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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
The US government has banned US government personnel in China, as well as family members and contractors with security clearances, from any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens, The Associated Press (AP) has learned. Four people with direct knowledge of the matter told the AP about the policy, which was put into effect by departing US ambassador Nicholas Burns in January shortly before he left China. The people would speak only on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a confidential directive. Although some US agencies already had strict rules on such relationships, a blanket “nonfraternization” policy, as it is known, has
OPTIONS: Asked if one potential avenue to a third term was having J.D. Vance run for the top job and then pass the baton to him, Trump said: ‘That’s one,’ among others US President Donald Trump on Sunday that “I’m not joking” about trying to serve a third term, the clearest indication he is considering ways to breach a constitutional barrier against continuing to lead the country after his second term ends at the beginning of 2029. “There are methods which you could do it,” Trump said in a telephone interview with NBC News from Mar-a-Lago, his private club. He elaborated later to reporters on Air Force One from Florida to Washington that “I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term