to have happened for these victims to be located. the development at first, the housing downturn, the fact that a company leaves, a rainstorm comes, unearths certain things and now the victims. you got lucky? very lucky. by late february 2009, then commander paul feist 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 been identified among the 11 sets of remains. now, between the bulldozers and ida s prayers, the department was moving heaven and earth to find out if there were more women from ida s list out there.
and i m happy and satisfied with that. ida lopez began this case with the mantra that everybody 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. a quote familiar to homicide detectives everywhere. and what information do you have? and 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. soon could be years. but i just have to keep believing that today could be the day. today could be the day. what about those last seven
to a remote location. we approach the vehicle, open the door. the first words out of the girl s mouth who is a known prostitute was that he was trying to kill her. and the man in the car was? lorenzo montoya. a short powerfully built man in his 30s who was known to have an equally short temper and a taste for prostitutes. babcock said he saw marks on the woman s throat and that she told him montoya looked like he was enjoying it. did you believe her story? yes. so lorenzo was arrested for charges beyond patronizing a prostitute. question, he was. that felony assault charge against montoya went nowhere because the victim later refused to testify. but it was what happened next that really focused the detective s attention. in 2006, years after being caught in the act of choking one
one another. it was comfort rg that it didn t just happen to me. six weeks after the digging began on west mesa, even more sets of remains were identified. and 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 feist preferred to keep secret. all of the victims were buried naked, with no clothes on. we had things we wanted to keep very secret. things we didn t want released. we had them in the air, they had the telescoping. there were certain processes that did pose a concern. pressure to keep the pressure
after months of digging for 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 their search for the killer. we re looking for people who had histories of showing violence against prostitutes. that s more than just a few guys? it s more than just a few. it had to be someone local, investigators assumed. a meticulous man whose grim will brought him back to the mesa again and again to bury his victims. everything was in a pretty contained area, all the bones, all the remains. yes. because this guy had complete freedom or he thought nobody is