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a search based on just a rumor. and so this case was going nowhere. until late in the afternoon on february 2nd, 2009. sit. reporter: when christine ross decided to take her dog ruca for a walk. okay. reporter: they strolled out of her new subdivision, one of many that had recently sprouted up in the desert west of albuquerque, and then over to an abandon construction site, where christine let ruca off the leash to run. she ran up ahead of me, and she was messing with something on the ground. and then she left it. we came upon it, and it appeared to be a bone. didn t look like the normal animal bone you find out here. so i took a picture of the bone. i sent it to my sister, who s a nurse. she confirmed that that looked like a femur bone and i should call the authorities. reporter: finding a bone, even a human bone, is not unusual out here on albuquerque s west mesa. this is storied territory, where native american tribes, conquistadors, and cowboys once roamed. the bone cou
reporter: ida didn t completely disbelieve what her girls were telling her. but the mesa, a vast expanse of desert west of town where people frequently dump things they no longer have any use for, was simply too big an area to launch a search based on just a rumor. and so this case was going nowhere. until late in the afternoon on february 2nd, 2009. sit. reporter: when christine ross decided to take her dog ruca for a walk. okay. reporter: they strolled out of her new subdivision, one of many that had recently sprouted up in the desert west of albuquerque, and then over to an abandon construction site, where christine let ruca off the leash to run. she ran up ahead of me, and she was messing with something on the ground. and then she left it. we came upon it, and it appeared to be a bone.
and because construction crews had once leveled and filled a dry stream bed where some of the bodies had been buried, the team had to dig deep to find what had once been shallow graves. we re police officers. we are not archaeologists. we have a little bit of background here, but something on this level was overwhelming. the learning curve was steep. early in the excavation, one investigator watched as an earth mover dug deep and dumped a load of dirt, only to see a human skull roll down the hill and stop at his feet. it was an eye-opener that taught everyone from seasoned criminal investigator to backhoe operator to tread lightly. from the time that bone came out of the hole, just about every single remaining victim came out. they were using the best technology the department could bring to bear, lasers and ground-penetrating radar.
didn t look like the normal animal bone you find out here. so i took a picture of the bone. i sent it to my sister, who s a nurse. she confirmed that that looked like a femur bone and i should call the authorities. reporter: finding a bone, even a human bone, is not unusual out here on albuquerque s west mesa. this is storied territory, where native american tribes, conquistadors, and cowboys once roamed. the bone could easily have belonged to one of them. but the police who arrived at the scene shortly after nightfall soon determined that this was no ancient artifact. this bone belonged to someone who had died in the not too distant past. february 2nd is when one of our violent crimes detectives said oh, they found a bone on the mesa, i ll let you know. tonight they say the search is far from over. i saw it on tv on february