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 2nd, when christina ross and her dog ruca was reported on the local station as finding a femur bone. i was on a ski trip. and when i came home, i had seen it on the news, and i told my boyfriend. i said, you know, what if that s michelle? when you heard it, what did you think? hoping again. the old parental parental feeling is hoping that it wasn t.
somebody noticing something. fbi s behavioral sciences agents came in, took a look at our crime scene, took a look at what evidence we had. they came up with their profile of who they thought we were looking for, including that profile was a white male. 35 to 50? your typical profile. lives alone or is away from home for extended periods of time. probably had some brush with law enforcement. probably familiar with the prostitution trade. yes. i m still right down the middle of the fairway on this, right? yes. and that s still a lot of people. it s a lot of people. and do you use that profile and rule somebody out just because they re not on that profile? you can t. no, you can t. no. reporter: the detectives needed a solid tip. and by the summer of 2009 the fbi and the city of albuquerque were offering $100,000 to anyone who could help them catch and convict the man responsible for killing the west mesa women. for the detective who d long
gathered for a vigil reporter: media coverage could be helpful now. and might generate badly needed tips from the public. because not only was there a serial killer to catch, but also, because one set of remains was about to upset everything detectives thought they knew about that killer. coming up when they told us that they had a young black girl, i thought, i didn t have a black girl on my list. who was she? where did she come from? how did she get to albuquerque? not all those questions have been answered as of yet. was it possible ida lopez s list was just the tip of the iceberg? maybe there are women out there who aren t on any list. kayla: our dad was in the hospital. josh: because of smoking. but we still had to have a cigarette. had to. kayla: do you know how hard it is
out, jolene gutierrez krueger, a columnist for the albuquerque journal, had gotten a copy of that list a few years earlier, when she worked the police beat. now that two women from ida s list had been identified, jolene had an idea. i said to one of my editors, you know, maybe we ought to run that list. maybe we ought to, you know, be a little more proactive. and editor didn t say a whole lot. and i thought, well, i ll write it and we ll see what happens. reporter: the resulting column, which for the first time publicly connected the missing women on ida s list with the west mesa bone field, hit the front page one month after the first bone was found. the response was amazing. i think because for the first time we had started to put faces on these women and we had explained to the citizens of albuquerque that there weren t just two women that were missing. there were whole bunches of them. reporter: suddenly families who d once felt isolated in their agony now felt a communal
that s a long ways away from albuquerque, new mexico. coming up is the answer to the mystery blowing in the wind? he s in the area where the prostitutes frequent. he s a photographer. so he s going to have close contact with these people. and now through the investigative leads or other sources, we find something that tells us a little bit more about their lifestyle, as well, which would give us, again, that kind of immediate gut reaction, it s got to be. it s got to be that person. (pirate girl) ahoy!!!!! (excited squeal, giggling/panting) gotcha! (man) ah! (girl) nooooooooooooo! (man) nooooo! (girl) nooooo. (vo) quick, the quicker picker upper! bounty picks up messes quicker, and is two times more absorbent than the leading ordinary brand. (man and pirate girl) ahoy! (laughing) (vo) bounty, the quicker picker upper.