sometimes reporting details that crime scene commander paul fiest preferred to keep secret. all of the victims buried out in the west mesa were barried naked with no clothing on. it was a problem. there were things we wanted to keep very secret, things we didn t want released. we had them in the air. they had the big telescoping lenses. they were there constantly and there were processes that posed a concern. caught between the pressure to keep the public informed and the need to prevent key details from leaking out to cranks and copycats who routinely clawed tip lines, commander feist found himself scheduling excavation work in the off hours when he knew cameras would not be looking over his shoulder. i needed to know where they were all the time. that way if i was looking at something specific, i needed to know that i didn t have the eyes of america in that hole with me.
and just left the land the way it was. if houses would have been built, it would have been built right on top of the graveyard. correct. and nobody would be the wiser. correct. august 2008 we had a really bad rainstorm. and the rain runoff from the deserted construction site flooded the new neighborhoods that surrounded it. it s when the company returned to the site to fix the runoff problem that they inadvertently brought some bones to the surface. where five months later those bones were discovered by christine ross and her dog ruka. you look at how many things 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 got lucky. yes. very. by late february 2009, commander paul fiest and his small army of crime scene
videographer and de facto spokesman for the families. we all had a common denate nature, our daughters. some of them chummed around. it was comforting it didn t just happen to me. six months after the digging began out on the west mesa, even more sets of remains were with identified. sure enough, they too were names on ida lopez s list of missing women. investigators are looking for connections, any signs that the women knew each other. by now, the street alongside the desert crime scene was a media encampment where reporters were predictably live at 5:00, 6:00, and 10:00. sometimes reporting details that crime scene commander paul fiest preferred to keep secret. all of the victimsor were with buried naked with no
it s when the company returned to the site to fix the runoff problem that they inadvertently brought the bones to the surface where five months later those bones were discovered by christine ross and her dog ruka. you look at how many things had to have happened for these victims to be locateded. 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 got lucky. yes. very. by late february 2009, commander paul fiest 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, a lot of sifting and actually in the dirt. 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
deserted construction flootded the new neighborhoodeds surrounded it. it s when the company returned to the site to fix the runoff problem that they inadvertently brought the bones to the surface where five months later those bones were discovered by christine ross and her dog ruka. you look at how many things had to have happened for these victims to be locateded. 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 got lucky. yes. very. by late february 2009, commander paul fiest 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. t is a l of shovnd pick work, a lot of sifting and actually in the dirt. two women on ida lopez s list had already been identified