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I cannot find my copy of Who Killed My Daughter and had to request a copy at the library. For some reason, they don't have the second book about the murder, One to the Wolves at all  . I just bought the Kindle version.Droogie, I love your writing.
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Apr 22, 2016 21:52
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LivesInGrey posted:Droogie, I love your writing. Thank you, man. I don't do a lot of it, I don't think I'm particularly good at it because I've always been more of a photographer/videographer and more recently a painter. But I thought I should give this whole saga an attempt here. I'm unfamiliar with those books you're talking about.
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Apr 22, 2016 22:01
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Really good writeup so far Droogie, thanks for the effort. I especially appreciated you going out of your way to find images of the victims that weren't mugshots; it really humanizes them and makes the whole thing more 'real' from the standpoint of someone so far detached from it. Sorry that it all happened at all - what a terrible case - but looking forward to reading more from you.
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Apr 22, 2016 22:47
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Now this:Droogie posted:And here is a view of Albuquerque on April 15, 2016 overlooking the city.
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Apr 23, 2016 00:30
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I am also really finding this interesting. I lived in Albuquerque when this started heating up around 2009-2010 and there was speculation and poo poo going on, cool to hear more about it.
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Apr 23, 2016 02:53
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Duuuude. The tire track thing gave me chills. Thanks for posting this. 
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Apr 23, 2016 04:39
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Droogie, these posts are great. Thank you for writing this up, looking forward to more!
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Apr 23, 2016 16:46
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Yeah seriously, very good job
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Apr 23, 2016 17:19
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That's a superb write up Droogie. Can't wait to catch the end of the story. Also, did anyone else's rear end in a top hat pucker after imagining standing out there in the desert alone near all those graves in the dark? That's some powerful imagery.
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Apr 23, 2016 18:49
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The West Mesa Murders Part 1 Part 2: The Missing Part 3: “The crime scene, which police called one of the largest in American history,” Part 4: Getting Our Bearings Part 5: The hosed Up Mysteries of the Desert We’re getting close to the end of these posts, and as I currently see it, I have about two more after this one. This post is going to be drastically different in tone, because anyone and any article about the West Mesa Murders can tell you about the scene, every written piece and every official photo of the investigation can give you a general sense of the area, but there is absolutely no way to show you just what a bizarre place the west mesa directly past the last houses of the city is actually like. People will write about the dry desert sun, the sense of isolation, but I’m going to attempt to show you the area. The date is April 20, 2016. I have just come from a dental appointment in the far southwest part of the city (because I’ll drive 25 minutes for this dentist office). I have almost exactly 40 minutes until I have a staff meeting on one of my days off, and that is off 114th street and Central. Yeah, it’s the same place I talked about going for walks out in the desert from, but I switched divisions in the same department in late 2014, and while I’m stationed from the same building, I do field work. Armed with a camera and a few minutes to wander about, I head to the corner of 118th Street and Amole Mesa SW. This is that 100 acres. This was where that woman and her dog made a gruesome discovery 7 years and two months ago. All photos were taken in the green highlighted area. And I apologize in advance- the mirrors in my years old DSLR have some dust on them, I’m aware. I’ve attempted to reduce the severity in some of the images, but I definitely didn’t go through all of them.  I’ll spend a few photos here to show you the area of the crime scene and then take a small meandering walk into empty desert. All photos here are photos I personally took, and no photos are staged or in any way misrepresentations of the area as it is found.  118 and Amole Mesa, facing west away from the city. I do not exaggerate when I say it’s the end of the city. There are several industrial businesses and roads that are west of here by several miles, but they are outside of the city. Spring weather in New Mexico is always weird, and after several weeks at the end of march and beginning of April, we had beautiful, warm spring weather. The last couple of weeks have been exceptionally cold and wet, but on this day the sun was beating down as I wandered around the perimeter of the burial site, I was already sweating a little after a few minutes of wandering, the warmth reflected off of dirt and brick. Bright signs declare “Homes from $116,000” and point in different directions for each subdivision of sprawl.  Facing West again, the entirety of the 100 acres is walled off from the rest of the homes. Cinder block is crumbling in places, and just a few short months ago several sections were secured by cheap chain link sections that were in disrepair. I frequently have to drive out to these subdivisions for my job, and I was surprised to find the chain link sections gone on this day, replaced by new brick. No other changes have occurred.  East, overlooking the city. Amole Mesa SW terminates at this corner, with the only choice of direction south along 118. The road is small and not very well maintained this far out, but it’s busy nonetheless. You can see inside the walls the swells of dirt displaced 7 years ago, their hulking forms slowly eroding.  Walking east along the northern edge of the wall, tiny lizards scurry out of my path and up the wall, disappearing into small cracks or entirely scaling the wall and back down the otherside. I kick small, empty bottles of Jagermeister out of my path. Lots of them.  I come to a spot that affords me a look inside the wall, the spot that I snapped the night image of the city when I knew I wanted to write these posts. Inside there are towering slopes of dirt, and I know that these large man made hills were at one point sifted out, by handful and shovelful at a time. The slopes give way to what look like natural arroyos cut into the dirt, but these were also dug out by a massive effort by law enforcement. Nothing about the fenced off landscape is natural in any way.   Walking back to the corner and south along the western wall, I pick my way past piles of trash. There are more plastic bottles that appear to be filled with urine along the sidewalk than I care to count. A small pile of what appears to be rabbit bones greets me along the way. I said it was easy to find bones in the desert. The final image of part three, of the officer standing in front of the memorial altar, was where I was walking to. This is the very same wall pillar today (or three days ago).  The top slab is gone, and several of the facing blocks have fallen out. All the photos and crosses, the flowers and offerings are no longer present. I walk over a small, fallen american flag half-buried in the dirt. Vinyl flowers, a small toy, a candle and an easter basket, most likely just placed a few weeks ago, remain on a small pile of dirt next to the sidewalk. Descansos are a common sight in Albuquerque. You’ve likely seen them on highways- a small collection of flowers, a cross in memorial. They’re so common here that: A) They have a special name; and B) the majority of them are protected by law here. It’s not that no one cares about these women anymore, it’s that at the beginning of December 2009, KB, the development company that owns the property, told the families to remove the items or they would be thrown away. KB likely saw the literal writing on the wall at this point and didn’t want to invite any further tributes that were destructive as someone had just thrown up a tribute on the wall in spray paint. KB publicly announced that three acres in the development would become a memorial park. After 7 years, all KB has done is rebuild the walls to keep people out. I step around the remnants of an old television, an as-seen-on-TV rotisserie thing, and more pee bottles. KB hasn’t bothered to clean up these leavings.   I walk north again and cross Amole Mesa into open desert. The noise of the road dissipates and is replaced by quiet and an eerie hum from high voltage wires that stretch farther than you can possibly see. If you’re in this thread, I can probably guess something about you. You or someone you’re close to has seen a trashbag on the side of the road at one point and has either thought or vocalized: “I wonder if there’s a body in there.” If you have, we could likely be friends. That feeling, that weird sense of ‘what if’ and thoughts of revulsion mixed with curiosity is amplified on the mesa. The image of the shot up road closed sign from the first part? Just in the middle of the mesa. Not connected to a road. I have found the mummified remains of a jackrabbit, impaled on an arrow and pinned to the ground. I have found a dead pit bull, carefully placed upon a spongebob squarepants blanket that was not there on the previous day’s walk. The dog was wearing a harness and looked like it was asleep after a long walk. There are children’s and women’s clothes buried in the dirt, stuffed animals. Trash, but amplified to a level of something sinister.  A single smashed chair.  A piano that appears to have fallen from the air, a story untold.  Construction and landscaping debris is dumped in pile after pile. The west mesa is a massive illegal dump, and landscaping trash would become important to the investigation. More on that later.   Unseasonably early flies buzzed around two carefully placed 5 gallon buckets, each filled with what appeared to be some sort of rotting meat, now liquified. I did not tip one over to more clearly see the contents. I wanted to. I couldn’t bring myself to.  The skin of what appears to be a small cow.  30 feet away, what appears to be most of the mummified inside of a small cow.  Another 30 or so feet away, I can pretty much confirm that a small cow was here at one point. Tires and full trash bags, old mattresses are visible in every direction. I walk back to my car, it’s time to go to my work meeting. Nothing I’ve seen today in the short few minutes I spent meandering surprises me in the least. The west mesa is full of mysteries. Every mystery is loving weird. (NEXT: Investigation, first suspects: Missouri loves company.)  CONTENT WARNINGThe next two parts will contain disturbing content. More disturbing than meat buckets. The next update will include disturbing photographs. The photographs are NOT graphic, and were released by the police to help aid in the investigation. Q: Why are they disturbing then? A: They are very carefully cropped images of women, and I can’t guarantee that all of them are alive in the photos. They’re an additional mystery and they are kind of haunting. The update after that, which will likely be the last, will include facts about other suspects that include murder, rape, strong language and adult themes. Thank you all for your continued interest. We’re almost done, and if anyone has any questions for myself about the write up, the area, or anything else that doesn’t spoil where we end up, I’d be more than happy to start answering questions, and I’m positive the small handful of posters also in ABQ or that were around for some of this would be willing to also lend insight. No pressure to them, though.
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Apr 23, 2016 20:15
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I haven't commented because I'm waiting for you to finish before reading but I just wanted to say thanks for going to all this effort Droogie
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Apr 23, 2016 20:28
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Awesome write-up. Stuff like this is why I keep lurking this thread. My husband and I bought our first house not too far away from the scene in 2010; I could see it in a couple of the satellite images. We looked at a couple of houses right nearby but at the time people were still concerned that further investigation would lead to digging up peoples' yards there.
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Apr 23, 2016 20:34
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Thoroughly creeped out and mesmerized by your posts, Droogie. The images and side musings are great. Very strange to find myself myself so fascinated by a place I never ever want to visit in person. The daytime photos are somehow scarier than the nighttime ones. 
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Apr 23, 2016 20:52
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I grew up in England, so the idea that you can stand on a normal residential street and on the other side is an endless silent moonscape really puts the zap on my head. Walk far enough into the desert and anything you leave there might as well be on Mars.
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Apr 23, 2016 21:05
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NO gently caress YOU DAD posted:I grew up in England, so the idea that you can stand on a normal residential street and on the other side is an endless silent moonscape really puts the zap on my head. Walk far enough into the desert and anything you leave there might as well be on Mars. All human civilization is a scratching at the edge of the darkness, h t h EDIT: That's a new wordfilter.
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Apr 23, 2016 21:26
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It's almost impossible to capture the experience of being in the high desert. When I was an undergrad, I spent a week doing field work in northern Death Valley and when you're out there working by yourself you realize just how hosed you are if you end up having mechanical trouble. Even during the cool winter months, there's nothing but gnarly desert scrub and bare rock. There's no trace of civilization, past or present, horizon to horizon. Coming into Death Valley, you have a wall of mountains to your back, and a wide bowl ahead of you. The air is so clear you can see specks dotting the other side of the bowl and they must be sagebrush or yucca or Joshua trees, but comparing the mountains behind them to the ones at your back, they must be very far away indeed. Walking around you become keenly aware of just how empty it is. Your ear has evolved to pick up the sounds of life to identify food or foe, and in the desert it's trying to find something - anything - to latch onto. And despite trying it's hardest, it hears nothing, save for the crunch of your own footsteps and the wind rustling through sagebrush. Your brain goes haywire trying to make sense of the emptiness. Occasionally you'll hallucinate stuff. An old sagebrush stump becomes a pair of ancient human legs sprawled out behind a bush. Bushes stop rustling in the wind, they rustle absent predators mass in ambush. The murderer was out on the West Mesa, still in sight of civilization, but out of earshot. The city lights were glowing on the horizon, but the silence must have been unbearable. I wonder what they thought they heard between the shovel's crunch. What were they conjuring outside the bubble created by the dim glow of their car's fog lamps and the city lights? Most bones in the desert don't actually come from desert life. The desert is the trash bin of the surrounding oases. The corpses are animals that either wandered out there themselves or were dumped there for the desert to take care of. The West Mesa killer must have understood that at some level. Those poor women, marginalized by poverty and drug addiction, were considered trash. The killer brought them out there, and the APD looked the other way. And that the crime scene is still a dumping ground really speaks to the give-a-shitness of those involved.
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Apr 23, 2016 21:39
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And now I'm terrified of deserts. Thanks guys!
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Apr 23, 2016 22:42
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Leavemywife posted:And now I'm terrified of deserts. Thanks guys! You should be. Google "toybox killer" sometime for another NM gem.
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Apr 23, 2016 22:47
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fyodor posted:You should be. Google "toybox killer" sometime for another NM gem. This is pro advice right here. Do you have an excess of being able to sleep? Edit: start here, investigate as far as you're comfortable. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Parker_Ray Droogie has a new favorite as of 23:02 on Apr 23, 2016 |
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Apr 23, 2016 22:52
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fyodor posted:You should be. Google "toybox killer" sometime for another NM gem. http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/11/06/heroin-cocaine-and-espa-ntilde-ola-new-mexico/ Española is about an hour and fifteen minutes from me by car, I always pass through it going to Santa Fe or Albuquerque. quote:Five addicts fatally overdosed in the Española area in the space of six days during September, reports the Rio Grande Sun, the local weekly newspaper. That doesn't seem horribly high, more like a statistical aberration, till you realize that Española at the time had less than ten thousand people. At that time, Rio Arriba county where the town is located had the highest per capita rate of deaths from overdoses in the US. I think they finally lost that position at some point, but I'm fairly sure it's still pretty high up there. And if you just pass through on the highway it doesn't look like a place that's writhing with abuse and addiction issues; I first lived here in 2004 and it was the same then, when you drove through it, it just looked like any kind of random American highway city of a similar size. Box stores and fast food. New Mexico tends to rank at the top for bad poo poo and the bottom for good poo poo, now including incredibly low rainfall and long-lasting drought.
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Apr 23, 2016 23:02
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Tendai posted:New Mexico tends to rank at the top for bad poo poo and the bottom for good poo poo, now including incredibly low rainfall and long-lasting drought. PYF depressing New Mexifacts! But seriously, thank you to all the locals four chiming in, I've never seen more New Mexican goons in one place. I really appreciate you all commenting.
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Apr 23, 2016 23:10
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Droogie posted:PYF depressing New Mexifacts! But seriously, thank you to all the locals four chiming in, I've never seen more New Mexican goons in one place. I really appreciate you all commenting.
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Apr 23, 2016 23:13
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I left New Mexico when I was 13, so I was always kind of insulated from the bad poo poo while I was there, but looking back on it yeah, that place has problems. The little town I lived in kind of clung to its past in the Old West, but there was apparently a pretty big drug/murder problem in the present that I certainly never heard about as I rode my bike alone all over town (further than the 2-3 blocks I told my parents I was going). Sometimes I think about going back to visit, even though I know I could never live there, because it's true. The scenery is amazing. The weather is nice (I lived in the northeast, so I don't know about the rest of the state, but I liked it.) The sky is beautiful. I loved the feeling of that town, with the historic buildings and small businesses full of benign western charm. That's probably why all my friends from back then that I've kept in contact with followed the same pattern-- they finished high school in that town and moved out-of-state immediately, but eventually about 75% moved back years later. Somehow, even though you know how backwards it is and how none of the things it's notable for are good, it sucks you back in. There's even some of my family that's thinking of moving back, in between going on about how terrible it is. That's why we call it the Land of Entrapment.
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Apr 24, 2016 00:37
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Thank you for these posts.
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Apr 24, 2016 01:32
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fyodor posted:You should be. Google "toybox killer" sometime for another NM gem. You know you read too much serial killer poo poo when halfway through a show about kidnappings on Investigation Fiscovery you realize it's about the Toybox Killer and they haven't mentioned the torture room yet
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Apr 24, 2016 01:54
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Ok if you REALLY want some nightmare fuel you'll google David Parker Ray Tape Transcript. He recorded audio tapes he played to his victims describing what he was about to do to them.
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Apr 24, 2016 02:26
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fyodor posted:Ok if you REALLY want some nightmare fuel you'll google David Parker Ray Tape Transcript. He recorded audio tapes he played to his victims describing what he was about to do to them. He was a real jerk.
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Apr 24, 2016 02:34
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fyodor posted:Ok if you REALLY want some nightmare fuel you'll google David Parker Ray Tape Transcript. This was not oversold. Jesus.
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Apr 24, 2016 03:08
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The Ape of Naples posted:He was a real jerk. Practically a scoundrel if I do say so myself.
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Apr 24, 2016 03:10
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Parasol Prophet posted:(I lived in the northeast, so I don't know about the rest of the state, but I liked it.) fyodor posted:Ok if you REALLY want some nightmare fuel you'll google David Parker Ray Tape Transcript. He recorded audio tapes he played to his victims describing what he was about to do to them.
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Apr 24, 2016 03:14
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I'm assuming he was the guy who recorded the audio of everything. Of everything I've seen on the internet the video of the recording outside the courtroom as they played back the tapes was literally the worst thing I've encountered. Maybe the degrees of separation made it worse but I dunno.
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Apr 24, 2016 03:20
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Another story that has cropped up in this thread before and really cemented the desert's potential to be terrifying for me is that of the Death Valley Germans. If you haven't heard the story or want to read it again, this guy's blog explains the whole sad saga pretty well.
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Apr 24, 2016 03:34
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The Ape of Naples posted:I'm assuming he was the guy who recorded the audio of everything. Of everything I've seen on the internet the video of the recording outside the courtroom as they played back the tapes was literally the worst thing I've encountered. Maybe the degrees of separation made it worse but I dunno. he had a tape of him torturing someone that, in a real fuckin supervillain move, he would play for his next victim
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Apr 24, 2016 03:52
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Thank you for these Droogie. PYF unnerving article or story: Shh, Droogie is telling a story
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Apr 24, 2016 03:52
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Literally The Worst posted:he had a tape of him torturing someone that, in a real fuckin supervillain move, he would play for his next victim Like I said, a real jerk. For some levity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRPmjlqBFXQ
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Apr 24, 2016 04:00
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NO gently caress YOU DAD posted:I grew up in England, so the idea that you can stand on a normal residential street and on the other side is an endless silent moonscape really puts the zap on my head. Walk far enough into the desert and anything you leave there might as well be on Mars. I have friends in the UK and I was trying to explain to them visiting Eastern Oregon and they just couldn't comprehend the idea of being able to drive for two hours and never see another person. I've been through New Mexico a bit while Dutch Hunting and it's a pretty kooky place. A lot of people stuck there because it's remote and hard to leave if you don't have money, and a lot of people moving there because they want somewhere where the government or people will leave them alone. The buckets are from poachers or rustlers. Its the organs of a deer or cow that they had to dispose of somewhere. El Estrago Bonito has a new favorite as of 04:07 on Apr 24, 2016 |
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Apr 24, 2016 04:03
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Leavemywife posted:And now I'm terrified of deserts. Thanks guys! As someone already pointed out, you ought to be. Even without psycho killers qu'est-ce que c'esting their way around the dunes, the desert is loving deadly. I just moved away from Las Vegas. If you've never lived in a place like the American Southwest, you don't realize how fast the environment can become utterly inhospitable. One minute, you're on the edge of Las Vegas, and you can see the hotels and the lights; the next minute, you're on some cracked two-lane road with weeds growing up through it, and you realize scrub brush is the only life within screaming distance. The desert eats super-fit professional athletes without a second thought, so your pudgy dad-bod is right hosed if your car dies on some lovely desert back road with no cell service. It really is stunning how much "nothing" there can be in an area. The nothing starts to have psychological weight. You can feel the nothing pressing down on you, and it's confusing, because how can you feel nothing pressing down on you? In the dark, alone in your car, ten miles to civilization can feel like a million when you start wondering what would happen if you threw a rod, or blew a line. I do (well, did) a lot of cross-country driving by myself, and, despite experience, and my best efforts at preparation, there have been a couple of times when I've found myself in situations where I could definitely feel the weight of that nothing. Edit: El Estrago Bonito posted:I have friends in the UK and I was trying to explain to them visiting Eastern Oregon and they just couldn't comprehend the idea of being able to drive for two hours and never see another person. I've been through New Mexico a bit while Dutch Hunting and it's a pretty kooky place. A lot of people stuck there because it's remote and hard to leave if you don't have money, and a lot of people moving there because they want somewhere where the government or people will leave them alone. Whoa, your post was one sentence long when I hit "quote." What do you have against the Dutch? Two hours without seeing anyone is "introductory-level driving in the United States" outside of the Metropolitan areas. Centripetal Horse has a new favorite as of 04:11 on Apr 24, 2016 |
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Apr 24, 2016 04:07
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Bonapartisan posted:Thank you for these Droogie. Haha, Thanks. I've got a little better than rough outline for the next part that I'll work on at work tonight, and will likely be out tomorrow. That said, I'm literally finding things out that I had no idea about as I go. I'm putting in what I know and researching the other stuff. I know we're right at the most crucial part, but we recently lost a family member and have the funeral tomorrow followed by the interment on Monday. So please don't worry or be upset if I don't crank these out until after. I promise I'm trying to, though.
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Apr 24, 2016 04:10
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Centripetal Horse posted:As someone already pointed out, you ought to be. Even without psycho killers qu'est-ce que c'esting their way around the dunes, the desert is loving deadly. I just moved away from Las Vegas. If you've never lived in a place like the American Southwest, you don't realize how fast the environment can become utterly inhospitable. One minute, you're on the edge of Las Vegas, and you can see the hotels and the lights; the next minute, you're on some cracked two-lane road with weeds growing up through it, and you realize scrub brush is the only life within screaming distance. The desert eats super-fit professional athletes without a second thought, so your pudgy dad-bod is right hosed if your car dies on some lovely desert back road with no cell service. I started Dutch Hunting because I love being in the desert, but what you say is mostly correct. You need a certain type of temperament and skills to survive there. People don't loving joke around when they say the Superstitions are filled with the bodies of a hundred dead men and no gold. But people keep looking, because I mean, what if Adolph Ruth actually found something? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Dutchman's_Gold_Mine#The_death_of_Adolph_Ruth Edit: Dutch Hunters are people who look for (usually fictional) lost mines, it's a fun hobby.
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Apr 24, 2016 04:12
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NO gently caress YOU DAD posted:I grew up in England, so the idea that you can stand on a normal residential street and on the other side is an endless silent moonscape really puts the zap on my head. Walk far enough into the desert and anything you leave there might as well be on Mars. It isn't completely silent--it wasn't until I left New Mexico in 2013 that I ever lived someplace where I wasn't being serenaded to sleep by coyotes every night. I never lived in the middle of any cities or towns, though, always on the edge. I don't know about the lot where the bodies were found, but just north of it where I lived, neighbors would frequently walk out onto the mesa and hunt rabbits or do some target shooting. Contemplating what else people could get up to out there was uncomfortable, to say the least. ETA: Droogie's write-up is making me super loving homesick. That's NM for you. right to bear karma has a new favorite as of 05:02 on Apr 24, 2016 |
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Apr 24, 2016 04:55
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