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Veronica Romero was funny and intelligent. Victoria Chavez loved the outdoors. Michelle Valdez could energize a room with her smile.
Along with six other young women and two teenage girls, they were brutally murdered in the early 2000s and buried in the New Mexico desert.
In February 2009, an Albuquerque resident walking her dog in the West Mesa area came upon a human bone, exposing what’s been called the state’s most heinous crime.
Fears of a serial killer rocked the city as police uncovered the skeletal remains of 11 females and an unborn child.
“It was a case everybody wanted to solve,” former Albuquerque Police Chief Michael Geier tells A&E True Crime.
Yet 15 years later, the identity of the killer, dubbed the West Mesa Bone Collector, remains a mystery.
All but one of the victims, 15-year-old Jamie Barela, had ties to sex work and struggled with drug addiction, according to the Albuquerque Police Department.
But that did not define them, family members said.
When Michelle Valdez walked into a room, “it lit up,” recalled her father, Dan. “Her smile was just beautiful, and I want everyone to know she was a beautiful person.”
‘A Huge, Huge Crime Scene’
At least 19 women and teens vanished from the streets of Albuquerque from 2003 through 2006, and eight are still missing.
The 11 West Mesa victims were killed between 2003 and 2005 and buried near an area that was being developed for homes, authorities said.
Given that the first 48 hours of a crime are critical for identifying a suspect, “we were behind the power curve by three years or more,” Geier says.
Police worked with archeologists to painstakingly excavate the bodies. “It was a huge, huge crime scene,” Geier recalls. “As they found them, more and more parents were getting concerned.”
Experts used dental records and DNA samples to identify the victims. One rare piece of physical evidence was a plant tag found near a body that pointed to suspect Joseph Blea, who worked in landscaping, he says.
“We went through thousands of receipts” from nurseries, but weren’t able to connect Blea to the murders, Geier notes.
“There were so many dead-ends,” Geier says. “That is what the biggest frustration was for me. When you deal with families, it’s just heart-wrenching.”
A Solo Stalker?
Many of the victims frequented a seedy Albuquerque neighborhood, Veronica Romero’s boyfriend, Clay Dean, tells A&E True Crime.
“That area of the city where these girls worked is literally like Walmart for vice,” Dean recounts.
“Every single day and night, the people circling around it are either prostitutes, Johns, dealers or cops. And they all know each other,” he says.
“I tend to believe [the killer] is someone who was targeting prostitutes,” says criminologist Stephen Jones, a police detective sergeant and adjunct professor at Rosemont College in Pennsylvania.
“Somebody who they trusted enough to get into the car with or trusted enough to go to a remote location with,” he tells A&E True Crime.
Authorities have speculated the victims were strangled.
In a 2022 Albuquerque Police Department video, cold case investigator Liz Thomson said: “These women weren’t shot, there was no evidence that they were shot and killed or blunt force trauma. This complicates the case and makes it a little harder to solve because we don’t have the clear indicators of what actually caused their deaths.”
‘An Amazing Woman’
The victims include: Jamie Barela, 15, and her cousin Evelyn Salazar, 27; Monica Candelaria, 22; Victoria Chavez, 26; Virginia Cloven, 24; Syllvannia Edwards, 15; Cinnamon Elks, 32; Doreen Marquez, 24; Julie Nieto, 24; Veronica Romero, 28; and Michelle Valdez, 22; and her unborn child.
Marquez had two children. “I believe that she was an amazing woman,” her daughter Destinie said in a 2009 tribute. “I thought she was so beautiful, and I always wanted long gorgeous hair like hers.”
Victim Victoria Chavez was an outgoing, fun person who enjoyed hiking and camping, her mother Mary Gutierrez remembered. “How could one person or anybody do this to 11 girls?” she asked.
Romero was “smart, funny and tough,” Dean recalls.
The last time they were together, “I dropped Veronica off on the street that night. I saw her get into a truck, and I never saw her again,” he says.
A Likely Suspect is Gunned Down
Detectives spent significant time investigating persons of interest: Joseph Blea and Lorenzo Montoya, who both had a history of violence against women, Geier says.
Blea is serving a 90-year prison sentence after convictions in 2015 on multiple counts of rape against four victims, including a 13-year-old girl.
Investigators observed Blea cruising the strip where sex workers worked and picking them up, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
He has not been charged in the case and never admitted to the murders, Geier says. He was never charged with the crimes and has denied committing the murders.
Montoya had frequent run-ins with Albuquerque police for picking up sex workers in the 2000s. In one case, he attempted to choke a woman, Geier says.
In December 2006, Montoya raped and strangled a teenage sex worker, but was fatally shot by her boyfriend. The girl had been tied up with duct tape and cords.
“We lost [Montoya], who I think was probably our best suspect,” Geier says. “He lived a very short distance from the burial zone.”
Police also found tire tracks leading from the burial site to a street near Montoya’s home.
“I think it’s certainly possible that the killer is no longer with us because the crimes stopped,” Jones says.
A Wider Conspiracy?
Dirk Duran-Gibson, a former University of New Mexico associate professor and author of several books about serial killers, thinks the murders could have been perpetrated by individuals involved in organized crime or biker gangs, who hung out on the same strip where the victims worked.
“Their vulnerable lifestyle put them in contact with a lot of nefarious people,” he tells A&E True Crime. “Those women knew something that they shouldn’t have known.”
“I’ve come to the conclusion that there were probably only three people involved in this crime. There was the boss, or bosses, and the intermediary and the hit man.”
Duran-Gibson says the case may never be solved for reasons including: DNA deterioration; witnesses who won’t talk because they’re terrified of the perpetrators and distrust police; and no actual crime scene.
“It was the ultimate cold case,” he explains.
Albuquerque Police Department Investigator Ida Lopez tells A&E True Crime that the case is still active. Anyone with information can email ilopez@cabq.gov, or call the tip line at (505) 768-2450 or (877) 765-8273.
The lack of closure in such a massive tragedy continues to confound families and friends.
“For this to happen in such a small, concentrated area of well-known activity and to be still unresolved at this point is beyond me,” Dean says