i just said, the information you gave me was plenty. of course, there was more dan needed to do that evening. he would have to tell michelle s 12 year old daughter angelica. and i said, angelica, detective lopez just told us that your mother has been positively i.d. d as one of the west mesa women. and that s when angelica looked at me and started crying. she said, no, don t tell me that, you re lying to me. don t lie to me. i said, honey, i m not. i m telling you the truth. it was a scene that no doubt had played out earlier at the family home of victoria chavez. but for the families of the other women on ida s list, the waiting and wondering would go on for months. for ida lopez, there was the fear that her nightmare prediction was coming true. i just always felt that if you find one you re going to find them all. and for albuquerque s homicide detectives, there was
no. never heard of her before. did you ask her where she heard that? yeah. her aunt ran the streets, knew michelle, knew certain people, and they had heard it from her aunt. reporter: dan immediately called detective ida lopez with the tip. but she was unable to find the aunt or to pin down the source of the rumor. it was all just unverifiable street talk, the kind ida lopez had heard before. except for one tantalizing tidbit. cinnamon was a name on ida s list. cinnamon elks, missing since august of 2004. but even if those rumors were true and human remains were cooling in the desert night on albuquerque s west mesa, the detective knew, it would take a miracle to find them. coming up.
but you know, you have to have faith in your law enforcement. if you don t have faith in your law enforcement to treat everybody equal, then what do you have? reporter: what you have in dan valdez s case is a search you do yourself. as spring turned to summer that year, dan, his ex-wife, and his daughters plastered flyers with michelle s picture all over central avenue asking anyone who d seen her to call the albuquerque police department. at night dan drove through the war zone. sometimes into the wee hours of the morning. looking for michelle. it was real hard because you know, i d be circling the block 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. it had to be brutally
and looked bad. did you see her then? honestly, i don t remember the last time i seen her. i don t remember the last words we spoke. you don t remember the last thing you said to her? no. but it might not have been a nice thing? no. reporter: but as erratic as michelle had become in recent years, she d somehow always managed to show up. for the moments that mattered most to her daughter, angelica. that changed when michelle failed to show up for angelica s seventh birthday party. that day it fell to 15-year-old camille to fill in for michelle and act as mom. that christmas angelica opened her presents alone, with no sign of her mother michelle. i thought maybe she d turn up a few days later, a few weeks, or we d you know, she d call us. it was breaking angelica s heart that day when she wasn t there. reporter: in february, five months after michelle was last
every chance i had i had the video tape there. the michelle valdez that appears in home videos with her little sisters is a far cry from the thin, drug wasted young woman police would later come to know and fingerprint. this michelle. along with her sister. and half sister kendra. was a cut up and a clown. reporter: whether in costume for a school play, dressed up for her first communion, or showing a budding interest in boys. oh, yeah. davy. reporter: this michelle according to her sister camille was an all-american girl with a future as bright as the new mexico sun. i looked up to her for many things. you know, i was always the tag-along with her and her friends. and she didn t mind? no. not at all. not at all.