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for five years dan valdez prayed at the end of each day that the next sun rise would bring news of his daughter, michelle. police have set up a tip line. then in february, 2009, came unsettling news. a thigh bone had been found out on albuquerque s west mesa. within days evidence of one body had become evidence of two and then three, then four, then five, then six. six sets of remains were found within 20 yards of each other. dan valdez who had been wondering for years where his daughter saw his most cherished hopes and dreaded fears placed on a collision course. when they found the second, third, and fourth sets, i said to myself i have to look at this that michelle i m sure is probably out there.
had to have happened for these victims to be located. the development at first, the housing downturn, after that the fact the company leaves, a big rainstorm comes, unearths certain things, and now we locate these victims. so you get lucky. yes. very lucky. very lucky. reporter: by late february 2009 commander paul feist and his small army of crime scene investigators and volunteers weren t feeling very lucky at all. they had literally spent weeks in the trenches looking for bones at that abandoned construction site. it is a lot of shovel and pick work. it s a lot of sifting and actually in the dirt. reporter: two women on ida lopez s list had already been identified among the 11 sets of remains. now between the bulldozers and ida s prayers the department was moving heaven and earth to find out if there were more women from ida s list out there. commander feist knew every scrap
professional gambler and i carry a lot of money. i thought, you know, no. i m not going to do that. and investigators discovered ernie also asked david s performance partner to buy him a gun and offered another friend $50,000 to point the finger of suspicion away from ernie and towards someone else. and even if none of it was definitive, it all added up and it looked bad for ernie. and so finally nearly a year after the murders, the alameda county d.a. made the decision to roll the dice. it was february 2009. kimberly olson was at home with ernie in their las vegas apartment. there was a knock on the door and ernie answered the door and i came out and there was fbi agents with guns drawn. ernie scherer was charged
once again. before february 2009, cha and michelle valdez had been virtually invisible to everyone. except their families. their customers. and detective lopez. who had their names on her list of missing women. but for the most part the public didn t know there was a list. the news had shown little interest in the story. when desperate family members had come to them asking for help. they wouldn t even put a picture on the news or nothing. that s all we wanted. just to flash her picture. of course, all that changed once bones started turning up. a few years before the first body was found, a colleague of mine and i had heard about a list of women that were missing. as it turns out. a columnist for the journal had