The West Mesa Murders site

This is the West Mesa Murders burial site.

It is located at 10808 Amole Mesa Avenue SW in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

An unidentified serial killer known as the "West Mesa Bone Collector" buried 11 women at this site between 2003 and 2005. The remains were discovered in February 2009 after rainfall eroded the ground.

Victims

The victims disappeared between 2003 and 2004, though some may have been murdered in 2005.

The killer targeted women between the ages of 15 and 32. Most had histories involving sex work and substance abuse, with the exception of Jamie Barela.

The first known victim, Monica Candelaria (22), disappeared on May 15, 2003.

The last person killed was 22-year-old Michelle Valdez, who was last seen on September 22, 2004. She was four months pregnant at the time of her murder. The skeletal remains of her unborn baby were also discovered at the site.

Jamie Barela, a 15-year-old with no prior arrests, disappeared alongside her older cousin, Evelyn Salazar, in April 2004 after leaving a family gathering and walking to a nearby park. Salazar had a history in the sex trade. Barela was the last victim to be identified.

Syllannia Edwards was a runaway from Ohio who had been in foster care. Authorities believe the 15-year-old had become involved in the sex trade and was working along Interstate 40, which runs through Albuquerque.

The site

The killer's burial ground was initially situated on the bank of an arroyo, a dry stream bed that forms in desert climates.

By 2006, the site had been platted for residential development. However, construction was halted after the housing bubble burst in 2007.

Because the arroyo had been covered, the area began to flood during heavy storms.

After neighbors complained about the issue, the developers built a wall that channelled stormwater into a retention basin located near the burial site.

In the months that followed, rainwater steadily eroded the ground until the victims' skeletal remains resurfaced.

Discovery

On February 2, 2009, a local woman named Christine Ross was walking in the area when her dog found a large bone protruding from the ground. Suspecting the bone was unusual, Ross sent a photograph of it to her sister, a registered nurse.

After her sister said it looked like a human femur, Ross immediately called 911.

Following the discovery, police thoroughly examined the site.

Over the next month, forensic investigators excavated the area and uncovered the remains of 11 women and an unborn child.

Despite hundreds of interviews, no arrests have been made. As time passed and leads diminished, the 40-member task force dwindled to just one detective.

Missing women

Eight women who had similar lifestyles to the West Mesa victims are still missing from the Albuquerque area. They disappeared between 2005 and 2006, just after the killer abandoned his original burial site.

As development advanced on the site, the killer may have decided to relocate.

Lorenzo Montoya

Law enforcement has identified two main suspects in the case, though one is now deceased.

The first suspect, Lorenzo Montoya, was fatally shot in December 2006. He was killed by the boyfriend of a sex worker whom Montoya had strangled in his trailer.

In December 2006, Montoya contacted an escort named Shericka Hill, whose ad he had seen listed in a local magazine. The pair met during the early hours of December 17 and agreed to go to Montoya's trailer on Blake Road.

Hill showed up at the mobile home shortly afterward. Without Montoya's knowledge, her boyfriend, Frederick Williams, drove her to the trailer park.

During the meeting, Williams remained parked out of sight and waited for Hill. One hour later, he called to check on her. After receiving no answer, he decided to drive around the trailer park.

While searching the area, he encountered Montoya, who was reportedly carrying Hill's body. After a brief confrontation, the pair traded gunfire, and Montoya was fatally injured.

When the police arrived, they saw that Hill had been restrained with duct tape and strangled. A plastic bag containing her clothes and personal belongings was found in the trunk of Montoya's vehicle. Investigators believe Williams encountered Montoya while he was disposing of Hill's remains.

Although the disappearances of sex workers stopped following Montoya's death, authorities have become less convinced of his involvement. During a search of the trailer, they found homemade videotapes featuring different sex workers, but none of them were identified as the West Mesa victims.

A forensic examination of the living room carpet found no trace of the West Mesa victims' DNA, and investigators were unable to find any financial transactions linking him to the disappearances.

Joseph Blea

Joseph Blea, a gardener, is the second suspect. He was sentenced to 36 years in prison in 2015 for a rape that occurred during the 1980s and has denied any involvement in the killings.

During the examination of the West Mesa burial site, the forensic team uncovered a plastic identification tag for a Spearmint Juniper tree. After tracking down its origin, investigators learned that it came from a plant nursery where Blea often did business.

He was well known to local law enforcement, as they had encountered him more than 100 times over a 20-year period. Most of these encounters occurred in areas that had a reputation for sex work.

When he first became a suspect in the case, a surveillance team followed him and noted that he appeared to be circling the streets and stalking sex workers.

Following a domestic dispute at his house, Blea was arrested for aggravated assault, and his DNA was subsequently entered into the CODIS database.

A few months later, the system connected him with two violent crimes from the 1980s: the 1985 murder of a sex worker and the 1989 rape of a 13-year-old girl.

Authorities chose not to pursue the 1985 homicide case due to prosecutorial challenges.

Although investigators had enough evidence to immediately to charge him with rape, they decided to postpone the arrest. By the time the DNA match was made, Blea had already become a suspect in the West Mesa murders, so investigators chose to delay the execution of the warrant and continue monitoring him.

When police finally executed the warrant and searched his house, they discovered underwear and jewelry that did not belong to his wife.

The West Mesa case remains unsolved, but the Albuquerque Police Department has stated it is confident that the killer is no longer at large.

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