there. in february, five months after michelle was last seen, dan went down to the albuquerque police station and formally reported his daughter missing. detective ida lopez, who would later make it her mission to find michelled and the other missing women, was on medical leave at the time. so, in ida s absence, the valdez family was at the mercy of the police department s bureaucracy. what did the police tell you? she didn t want to be found. and i can understand that ap doesn t just deal with missing. they deal with all kinds. for a long time, the news would be full of stories about girls who were missing and everybody was looking for them. and one of the things those girls all had in common was that they were all attractive and blonde and white and didn t have any criminal record and i guess i just kind of wonder whether police and everybody else would have sort of stepped up their game a little bit if that had been the case here. yeah, that did cross my mind numerous time
in late january 2010, nearly a year after the first bones were discovered on albuquerque s west mesa, the last set of remains was matched to another name on ida s list. university of north texas i d fieded jamie barela through dna. though 15 year old jamie barela was not a prostitute. she was last seen with one, her cousin evelyn salazar, whose remains were with also found on the mesa. there were seven missing women who fit the profile on ida lopez s list. and if they weren t on the mesa, where were they? with the investigation now focused on finding a serial
profiles similar to those of the west mesa women have also gone missing, to states as far away as pennsylvania and florida, where the backgrounds and travel patterns of certain types of men seem to warrant close attention. there s probably people that were in albuquerque during the time frame we re looking at and now, through 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, oh, it s got to be, it s got to be that person. it was that kind of gut reaction that led detectives to joplin, missouri, this past august. investigators are extremely tight-laip lipped at this point, but we do know this is in connection to the west mesa murders in albuquerque, new mexico. the target of the search
bones in the desert west of albuquerque, detectives desperately wanted to get on with the work of catching a killer. so far all the remains identified had been names on ida lopez s list of missing women and all had worked as prostitutes on the mean streets of the city s war zone. for police, that seemed like a good place to start for their search for the killer. we re looking for people who have had histories of showing violence against prostitutes. and that s more than just a few guys. it s more than just a few. it had to be someone local, investigators assumed, a
right. but i get to say, this is where she s at. the families of the 18 women now on ida s list prayed for happy endings like that one. but most of the women who worked albuquerque s war zone, fellow travelers who might have helped ida find the missing, were too drug-ed adelled to help with leads. some passed on grisly rumors to ida, that the missing women were dead and had been dump in the desert west of town. like a hidden dark evil city out here. desiree gonzalez says she used to hang out on these streets and says she knew several of the missing women and had also heard those same rumors. i came out here looking for my cousin and i bumped into cinnamon. she had told me that the girls were getting their heads cut off and taken to the mesa. that was the last time i seen cinnamon.