this story first aired in 2010. remember, she had been the one woman who had gone missing after prime suspect montoya, had been shot and killed. these are the women still on ida s list. anna, shawn tell, filippa gonzalez, nina, vanessa reed and leah peebles. we re looking and we ll keep looking. i pray i don t have to tell another mom or dad, but the same background, same area. they re somewhere out there. maybe ida lopez will find those answers here in the same sun-baked desert sand that once hid this mystery and later revealed it. but the problem, then as now, is time, and this desert doesn t give up its secrets easily.
counts. it took years, but in the end, ida was able to make everybody care. to this day, above her desk hang faded photos of the women on her list, alongside a line of scripture that reads nothing is hidden except to be revealed. it s a quote familiar to homicide detectives everywhere. what information do you have? it s not just there for inspiration. for ida lopez, that s a mission statement. i have to keep believing that we ll find an answer soon. soon could be months or soon could be years. i have to keep believing that today could be the day. today could be the day. what about the last seven girls, do you think you will ever find them? i think we will. one of those women, sefura, was found alive and well after
though they both believe michelle s killer is still alive, dan prefrps these days to dwell on the things he knows for sure. i love you, michelle, is miss you, hon. that he once had a daughter named michelle, who was the light of his life. that once she was lost and that now she s found. we will see justice served. i love you, hon. i know 100% that my daughter is not alive, i know and i m comfortable with the fact that they identified her as my daughter. i am comfortable with the fact that we gave her a proper buehrle, as a human being should be buried. and i m happy and satisfied with that. ida lopez began this case with the mantra that everybody
nothing to connect lorenzo montoya to the 11 bodies. not directly. just that he committed that kind of crime. beside getting shot with a dead prostitute in his arms, it is. but as tempting as it might be to pin the west mesa murders on a dead man, the detectives say there are a few disquieting facts, starting with this one. one woman on ida lopez s list had vanished after lorenzo montoya died. if you close this case, and you say we ve decided it was lorenzo montoya and then later you find out it was somebody else, a lot harder to prosecute that person. absolutely. absolutely. as 2009 drew to a close, two more women from ida s list were positively identified, virginia cloven and evelyn salazar. there was only one set of nameless remains left to
one fetus. for ida lopez, the discovery and identification of seven women from her list meant that years of careful detective work were finally paying off. she was very passionate about her job. she realized that these women all had families. they ve got parents and grandparents and some had children of their own. she wanted to be able to provide them with some answers. in addition to victoria chavez and michelle valdez, the others from ida s list were cinnamon elks, julie veronica romero, and doreen marquez. a lot of people said they were drug addicts and prostitutes. well, if they were, then so be it. i didn t choose their lifestyle. but you know what the first thing is, they were human beings to begin with. commander feist who tried to keep the local press at arm s length during the excavation finally allowed them to cross