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On the subject of native peoples, this popped up on my facebook feed from a local podcast that's started digging into ancient paper archives: Printed in the Albuquerque Journal, this day (April 18) in 1882: “It is all very nice, esthetic and “too too,” to talk about protecting the rights of Indians to the soil, but in our opinion one American settler is worth a whole reservation of Indians and his rights are paramount to those of all the Indians existing.” pookel posted:Cops tend to shrug off missing persons reports when the person is, or is thought to be, homeless or a drug addict or a prostitute, because they live such transient and dangerous lives anyway, and who knows or cares where they go or what happens to them? Add racial stereotyping to this, and you see why they manage to miss so many serial killers when the victims aren't pretty white girls from nice neighborhoods. Also I started writing up a multi-part post that deals with this sort of thing in a way, that I will likely start posting tomorrow. I hope that it's interesting enough, otherwise people can tell me to gently caress off. But I've been slowly catching up with this thread over the last 6 months or so, and I don't remember my topic coming up or if it was it was sort of mentioned in passing or with a link quite some time ago.
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Apr 19, 2016 09:11
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The West Mesa Murders Albuquerque, New Mexico sits in the middle of the state, a city built around a river valley a mile above sea level in the high desert. Founded in 1706, the city continues to grow as much as possible constrained to the north and south boundaries by indian reservations and the east side of the city is ended by the jutting Sandia Mountain. To the west is a long stretch of open desert and mesa, long-dormant volcanoes serving to punctuate the horizon. To the locals, you’ll hear directions associated with their landmarks, specifically the east mountains and the west mesa.  East Mountains from the West Mesa, April 15 2016 The west mesa is an eerie place to begin with. Equally inviting and ominous, the west mesa rises up from the valley below, and on the mesa you can see the entirety of Albuquerque spread below you, framed by the picturesque mountains. The mesa is still, dusty, and arid in the desert sun. I worked for a time (2011 - 2014) at a building just on the outskirts of town, and a two minute walk to the west was all it took to find yourself surrounded by dirt, tumbleweeds, and an unearthly quiet. You may as well be on the moon, if the moon had tumbleweeds, I guess.  West Mesa, September 29 2014 I took to wandering around the desert on my lunch breaks for exercise and as a way of centering myself from a highly stressful job. Once you’ve wandered away for awhile, you start to become sensitive to objects and sounds. Every noise or object in the distance becomes fascinating and foreboding, and you realize that you’ve left everything and you are very much so in the wild west. Walking in a different direction each day, I frequently thought about the quote from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, “This same lonely desert was the last known home of the Manson family. Will he make that grim connection?” The truth was actually much more frightening. This same lonely desert just 100 miles to the south was the home to a name familiar to this very thread, David Parker Ray; AKA The Toy Box Killer. Ray died in custody in 2002, but during Ray’s last years, this same stretch of desert would be the home of an entirely different killer, and that home was less than a mile and a half from where I was walking. I had known about this case for years, but the concept rather than the location of the crime scene always seemed further away. When I learned that I was wandering the same area of desert, I couldn’t put it out of my mind. On February 2nd 2009, a woman was taking her dog for a walk near a plot of land on the west mesa that was slated for construction of a new subdivision. The area had been cleared of desert flora and heavy machinery had started leveling the ground for the project. On a stretch of desert off of 118th street, almost literally the most southwestern corner of the city, Construction crews had been busy since 2005 creating large cookie-cutter communities in the area. Immediately to the north and south of this woman’s walk, houses had started sprouting up. This area had been leveled off and staked out by the development company for 4 years now, but it was this day that her dog discovered something unusual on their walk. Jutting out of the ground was a human femur. (Next, unless this is boring: The Missing)
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Apr 19, 2016 18:03
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wyntyr posted:Droogie, a while back I wrote a series of posts about some lesser known serial killings that I think a lot of people... I hate to use the word "enjoyed", but "were entertained and informed by". While I'm familiar with your subject I'm looking forward to your posts! I think it was your posts that inspired wanting to write this up. Thank you. I have about 4 parts so far. There are a lot of elements, some of which I found on my own. I'll have a big gently caress off list of links at the end of it, as well. I have some photos of the scene, and I'm going to take my dslr out to the scene tomorrow morning as well to help visualize the area. Edit: whoever recommended the documentary The Wolf Pack a few pages back, thank you. I'm watching it right now as I paint. When they go out into the world and describe things as "looks like it's 3D" I started tearing up. Holy poo poo. Droogie has a new favorite as of 22:08 on Apr 19, 2016 |
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Apr 19, 2016 22:05
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LivesInGrey posted:In Albuquerque's defense, we're actually prosecuting the cops who shot a mentally ill homeless man in the back. And the old DA is resigning. And the price of living is cheap. Defense nothing. I loving love this city. But... No kidding, I just had to attend a two-day "training" for law enforcement that was a complete waste for me as the second day was entirely about use of lethal force (I'm not armed). I was in a room with 500 cops. They talked about how "loving stupid" the media was about the James Boyd case because HE HAD KNIVES! HE THREATENED THE 4 DOZEN COPS THERE! THEY DID WHAT WAS NECESSARY! Nevermind that a mentally ill and surrendering man was straight up murdered. Also the second day was mostly videos of people being shot by the police met with scattered applause and laughter. I don't buy into all this thin blue line stuff. Sorry everyone that saw my name as the last post. I will likely post part two tonight. Lots of photos to upload for that one.
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Apr 20, 2016 03:05
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The West Mesa Murders Part 1 “The Missing”  In 2001, women started disappearing from the streets of Albuquerque. The Albuquerque Police Department (APD) would later point out that nearly all the women were involved in “high risk behavior” and were known to have connections to drug use and prostitution. APD would go on to mention this fact at basically every opportunity until present day. It was August of 2005 when APD would release a list of women it knew to be missing or had been reported missing by their families. The list would continue to grow after the release.  *Darlene Trujillo, age 20, went missing July 4th or 5th of 2001. Last seen with a man named Jorge, she was on her way to Arizona for a couple of days. It is likely that Darlene had little or nothing to do with the case as it would unfold, but her disappearance was reported to APD and it is included here as a beginning to the list of missing women in Albuquerque. It was later reported that she was likely in Mexico and still alive. For numbering purposes going forward, she will be '0.'  Monica Candelaria, age 21, was last seen near the intersection of Atrisco and Central SW on May 11, 2003. As far as the case being discussed, Candelaria is missing number 1.  Doreen Marquez, 27, was last seen in October of 2003 either near the intersection of Lead and University SE, or in the Barelas Neighborhood of Southwest Albuquerque not far from that intersection, only about 2.2 miles. It’s of note that The Barelas Neighborhood is approximately 2.5 miles from the intersection of Atrico and Central.  Victoria Chavez, 26, was last seen in “early 2004” and was reported missing to APD by her mother in March of 2005, as she felt that not having seen or heard from her daughter in approximately a year was troubling.  Veronica Romero, 27, was reported missing by her family on February 14th, 2004.   Jamie Barela, 15, and her cousin Evelyn Salazar, 27, are both last seen together leaving a family gathering with a stated destination of a park near the intersection of San Mateo and Gibson SE. They were both reported missing within a week of their departure. APD also reports that Jamie Barela is the only woman on the list with no known involvement in drugs or prostitution, but Salazar, whom she was with, was known to APD.  Syllannia Edwards, 15, was not on the list of missing women released in 2005. The reason being is that Edwards was reported missing in Lawton, Oklahoma and classified by local police as an “endangered runaway.” Edwards was last seen in May of 2004 off of East Colfax in Aurora Colorado. It is unknown if she went missing from Colorado or had moved down to Albuquerque.  Virgina Cloven, 22, was last heard from in June of 2004. The last communication with her family had consisted of her telling her father that she was moving in with a new boyfriend (named Robert, but I cannot confirm this). She was reported missing in October of 2004 when no one had heard from her since June.  Cinnamon Elks, 31, was last seen after being booked into MDC, the metropolitan detention center. Upon release in July of 2004, she was never seen again. Interestingly, no records are returned for Elks for metropolitan court and New Mexico Court case lookup.  Julie Nieto, 23, was last seen departing her grandfather’s house in August of 2004.  Michelle Valdez, 22, was last seen by her family in September of 2004. She is reported missing in February of 2005, several days after her mother’s birthday when Valdez failed to contact her. It was later found that Valdez was pregnant during the time of her disappearance.  *Anna Vigil, 20, was last seen on January 20th or 21st, 2005. No other pertinent information available.  *Felipa Gonzales, 22, was last seen on April 27, 2005, not long after being released from jail.  *Nina Herron, 21, was last seen at 5:00PM May 14, 2005 at her home, adjacent to the 8000 block of Central Ave NE  *Shawntell Waites, 29, was last seen on March 15, 2006. No other pertinent information available.  *Leah Peebles, 23, was last seen on May 22, 2006. Peebles left her home on the 2100 block of Erbbe NE (which google helpfully tells me is a 15 minute walk from my house) to go on a date with an unnamed man she had met. The now defunct newspaper the Albuquerque Tribune would be the first to run a story on the Albuquerque women in an article titled “The Missing.” This article would not published until September 19, 2007. [On a personal note:] I had to dig into a lot of older timelines and articles of this case to find most of these images. Every effort was made to find images of these women that were not mugshots. The more time that passes from their disappearance, the more often I've found that it seems most publications have gone out of their way to highlight that these were marginalized women. The one that is specifically a mugshot I could only find black and white mugshots of as alternatives. At the risk of editorializing, it seems obvious to me that the colder the case gets, the less the news feels we should think about this as an injustice. (NEXT: “The crime scene, which police called one of the largest in American history,”)
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Apr 20, 2016 15:16
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pookel posted:Goddamn, Droogie. Your writeup is so good I'm forcing myself not to google the case and spoil anything for myself. I'm pretty sure I've never heard of this one before, and I don't know how (or if) it ends. Thank you. I know that by making it episodic it's a little frustrating, but believe me, I'll provide all the links you need at the end. I'm typing this literally at the discovery site. I came out to the end of the city to snap some photos.
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Apr 20, 2016 17:23
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The West Mesa Murders Part 1 Part 2: The Missing Apologies in advance- the next three starting with this one have very little writing that is my own. The odd sense of tension during the active investigation is difficult to capture, and the news of it does a much better job at creating a crushing sense of scope. To that end, This update focuses on the news of the discovery. Any emphasis mine. The following two (or maybe it will be combined) parts are image-heavy to help you get a sense of the area and how bizarre the area is. We'll get to the investigation and suspects after, and what this crime looks like 7 years from the discovery. Part 3: “The crime scene, which police called one of the largest in American history,” The desert is not unlike cartoons depicting the desert. There are literally piles of bones and animal skulls all over. You can walk for a few minutes in unincorporated desert and find bones.  West Mesa, September 14, 2014 Back to February 2 2009: The woman had an uneasy feeling about this bone that her dog had found. She didn’t know it was a human femur, but she had a hunch. She snapped a photo of it and sent it to her sister, asking for help identifying the bone. The sister, a registered nurse said that it was her opinion that it looked an awful lot like a god drat human femur (or at least I imagine). The woman immediately called the police. Just 5 days after the initial discovery, The Albuquerque Journal ran a piece about the discovery of bones on the west mesa. The article, so casual in tone, I’ll just copy the bulk of the text here, as it’s a very short piece. Albuquerque Journal posted:“Albuquerque police are investigating a cache of human remains discovered on the West Mesa this week, said police spokesman John Walsh.  APD, OMI, BCSO, and a cavalcade of other officials and official volunteers descended upon the scene, 100 acres of desert at the very end of the city. Departments worked 24 hours a day combing the area with everything from heavy excavating equipment to teams of people with fine mesh screens. From the Albuquerque Journal again, now 8 days after initial discovery: Albuquerque Journal posted:REMAINS OF 3 FOUND ON WEST MESA From there, the stories continued to roll in, often being able to be boiled down by a line or two, or even just a headline. ABQ Journal, February 15, 2009, 13 days from discovery: Albuquerque Journal posted:“MORE BONES FOUND ON WEST MESA” Actually, here’s a partial list of Journal headlines: 02/18/09: Skeleton Find Puts Count at 6 Albuquerque Journal posted:Remains for four of the six victims are incomplete, the chief said, which makes it more difficult to identify them or how they were killed. Moreover, the remains found in the past few days had no clothing or other artifacts nearby. 02/19/09: Skeleton Completed Albuquerque Journal posted:Police believe they may have found the final pieces of Victoria Chavez's skeleton on Wednesday as they continued to excavate a large swath of the far Southwest Mesa where the remains of six people have been uncovered in the past two weeks. 02/24/09: Recent discovery on West Mesa is woman who was pregnant Albuquerque Journal posted:The victim total includes the remains of a 4-month-old fetus whose bones were found with its mother's. 02/26/09: Second Southwest Mesa Body ID’d Albuquerque Journal posted:Late Tuesday, investigators unearthed another nearly complete set of remains less than 20 feet from where the 10th victim's body was found Monday morning. 02/28/09: Body Count: 13 (NOTE -This was later determined to be 12, 11 women and the fetus. The confusion came from finding bones away from the others that ended up being part of an existing skeleton) Albuquerque Journal posted:An observant crime scene investigator noticed some human hair as authorities continued to excavate a patch of the far Southwest Mesa on Friday morning, leading to the discovery of yet another skeleton. 03/02/09: Lost Women: Don’t These Cases Deserve a Deeper Look? (Editorial) Albuquerque Journal posted:like every other reporter, tried to lock down the requisite interview with the woman's grieving family. 03/12/09: Slaying Victims Linked Albuquerque Journal posted:The four women shared a common bond: A lifestyle that included a fringe existence of transient living, struggles with drug addiction and arrests for prostitution. 04/04/09: Police ID 2 More Women Albuquerque Journal posted:At the news conference, Albuquerque Police Chief Ray Schultz for the first time referred to the women as "victims." 06/04/09: West Mesa Victim May Not Be Local Albuquerque Journal posted:In late April, police released a photograph of detailed artwork on an acrylic fingernail investigators found attached to the woman's skeleton near 118th and Dennis Chavez SW in February. 06/12/09: OMI Confirms Homicide in Mesa Deaths Albuquerque Journal posted:The lack of flesh makes determining cause of death difficult, police say. None of the mesa victims' remains had any obvious signs of trauma such as a gunshot wound. 01/27/10: Final Mesa Victim Is ID’d Albuquerque Journal posted:She was 15 when she was reported missing in April 2004. In less than 20 days, the remains of 11 women and one fetus were discovered. The local news was frightening, as with that time frame, almost every day there was a new report of the discovery of another set of remains unearthed. APD’s list of missing women from 2001 was 24 people long at the discovery of the first bone, 17 of which were listed in the previous post. APD would release 7 more images in 2010 that were of a disturbing nature, and those will be provided in another update with plenty of warning. The missing women in the last update with an asterisk next to their name are missing to this very day. APD determined that the majority of the women had been murdered and buried on the west mesa during 2003 and 2004 based on decomposition and disappearance. Initial construction and development of the land was started between July of 2004 and June of 2005 by satellite records, and the last woman that went missing that was discovered at the site was last seen by family in September of 2004. If any of the women that went missing after Michelle Valdez were victims of the same killer, it’s very that he had to change his disposal method or location due to construction crews expanding the city westward.  (NEXT: Getting our bearings) Droogie has a new favorite as of 00:19 on Apr 21, 2016 |
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Apr 21, 2016 00:16
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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,” Sorry everyone, got separated from my notebook full of insane ramblings and photography notes, and I didn't want to risk deviating from what I had laid out already. So over the next two posts, I want to show you the area to orient people unfamiliar with the area. In the next part, I just want to take an aside and show everyone rather than explain just how weird this patch of the desert is. These are very image heavy. Getting Our Bearings I want to take some time in this update to show you the area and some chilling evidence of activities, provided by Google Earth. I found these when I got interested in the whole story. To be perfectly clear, I found out AFTER I found these images that this was already a thing that people knew, so it’s not like I had special knowledge of the timeline. Let’s return to our map of Albuquerque.  From here we’re going to focus on the southwest quadrant.  Next we’re going to zoom even farther into this odd patch of barren desert, which is where everything takes place. This is what it looks like as of November 2015. Highlighted squares are where the primary dig areas were.  Let’s take a step back in time now and zoom back out to look at the same area in 2002, just after APD’s list of missing starts. You’ll find it to be a much more desolate place.The red square is the same plot of land from the present day image.  Let’s go back to focusing on the main discovery zone within the 100 acres.  This is nothing special, a control image of a special piece of the west mesa. 5/11/2003: Monica Candelaria goes missing. The next pass of an imaging satellite occurs January 1st of 2004. The image is not a high resolution one, and the passes jump in position slightly, but I’ve attempted to keep them framed in roughly the same manner with the help of the landscape. When I found out how close the burial site was, I started looking into the area with more than a passing curiosity. Absent from the untouched 2002 image is a fresh set of tire tracks jutting off from a makeshift off-road trail.  The next satellite pass occurs in March of 2004, after the fifth woman, Veronica Romero, is reported missing. This pass is much clearer and the tire tracks are more clearly defined. Of note along the path of the tire tracks are several patches of ground that appear to be disturbed. The imagery is still not great, and it’s likely that these patches are image noise, but given that this patch of land is the exact area that the police excavations are in, it’s equally likely that they are what we think they are- makeshift graves. I’ve pointed to just a couple, but if you look at the image, you quickly start to see several along the length.  We’re now going to jump from 2004 to the very month of discovery, February 2009. I’ve skipped over several satellite passes, but between the first image of 2005 and this image it all looks the same- bulldozed desert.  Popping back out to a larger image of the 100 acres, this is the overall area from a 2007 pass after the area had been cleared for construction, but before the discovery.  And now to an image from 7 months after the discovery, showing how much digging occurred in the area. The area in the top right that looks like it’s been cratered out? That’s the same spot where the tire tracks lead to in the satellite photos.  And here is a view of Albuquerque on April 15, 2016 overlooking the city.  Sometime between 2002 and 2006, a man stood just 50 feet from where I took this photo and hastily dug grave after grave, disposing of the bodies of multiple women. He would stand up and look out over the same city, and he would have the same view. (NEXT: The hosed up Mysteries of the desert)
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Apr 22, 2016 19:17
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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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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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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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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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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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Beautiful, guys. I have some bad news, the last two parts will most certainly be slightly delayed at this point. I just had a 30 minute wrestling match with a mastiff that is at least 4/7 my body weight on my job and I did not escape injury. I'll type what I can. Lazlo Nibble posted:Wasn't the working assumption that Ray dumped the bodies of his victims in Elephant Butte Lake? Given how far levels of the lake have dropped in recent years, have there been any renewed attempts to locate/recover remains there?
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Apr 24, 2016 06:57
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Rondette posted:Get well soon dude! Thanks for revitalising this awesome, creepy thread. Hey, thanks! So between my wrestling match which has left me feeling like I was hit by a car and the pre-funeral stress, I took the night off from dealing with mass murder. I have everything I need for the next part, so as I have the time I'll type and my intent is to have the next part up late tonight or early tomorrow. Don't want to leave you all hanging. I've enjoyed this thread so much I just wanted to give back to it.  Literally the reason there's not a post this morning. Droogie has a new favorite as of 13:58 on Apr 24, 2016 |
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Apr 24, 2016 13:55
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Gargamel Gibson posted:That Death Valley Germans thing was a really good read. It really is. I think I revisit it about once a year. It's just so well written, and the sense of panic and hopelessness is just crushing. I think we all believe ourselves to be wiser than that, but it really does that it just takes a few simple mistakes to gently caress yourself over if you're out of your element.
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Apr 24, 2016 16:46
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Just checking in, I have the next post basically done, I just need to edit and fact check some stuff. I'll likely post by mid-day tomorrow. The last couple of days have been long and emotionally taxing with funeral stuff, and I'm still sore as hell and tired. As an aside i keep finding new pieces of information that are interesting and surprising, and as a reminder, this upcoming update will have some oddly disturbing images. Also I'm loving the desert and regional creepiness chat.
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Apr 26, 2016 07:03
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InequalityGodzilla posted:Well, some minors.  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 Part 6: Investigation, First Suspects: Missouri Loves Company In less than one month’s time, a small army of people with the help of unlikely businesses and organizations had unearthed a massive grave on Albuquerque’s west mesa. Albuquerque police have yet to refer to all these women as victims, and they had also not yet brought themselves to use the term “serial killer,” instead saying that it was most likely that the killings had stopped, even though they did not know that for sure, and therefore the term didn’t apply, even though that logic makes no sense.  For a city that was a little over half a million people in 2009, a small army of primary investigators was being amassed. At least 40 people were assigned to the 118th Street Taskforce, and an unknown quantity of people working for these 40. Investigators needed information as quickly as possible, and as many as 8 years had already elapsed from the beginning of the murders. The case was cold upon discovery. Every body discovered was decomposed, there was little to no tissue to offer vital clues. The Office of the Medical Examiner would not ever conclusively be able to explain causes of death. I had read and heard a few random times that it was determined to be strangulation, but I can’t find any concrete sources for that. Many women were matched with known dental records. Others were matched through a combination of forensic reconstruction and luck.  What investigators did have, however, was the families of these women. Every news source and most every police statement would like to remind you that nearly all of these women were involved in drugs and prostitution, but the part that is quickly forgotten is that every woman that disappeared had a family that noticed their absence and all eventually reported their disappearance. Were it not for the families that loved and cared for these women, investigators would have nothing. The transgressions of these women do not outweigh the loss of their lives, no matter how many times someone will remind you that prostitution and drugs were words assigned to their names.  I’ve made a quick map of last known locations of several of the women. Most of them did not have this information attached, and several have simply hypothesized last known location to be the “East Central Corridor.” Any locals or one-time locals know exactly what I mean by that. I’ve highlighted that section in green here, and if any locals have any disputes with the location, please feel free to correct or discuss. The east Central corridor, as I understand it having lived here for 30 years, is a stretch of Central Avenue, also part of Historic Route 66 (although it wasn’t until the 50’s or 60’s, but that’s a different story). I would say that when someone says East Central Corridor, it starts just east of Nob Hill, at approximately San Mateo and it continues east to nearly Tramway. This section of road is a frequent area of drug use, violence, and prostitution. Anyone passing through the area has witnessed this, and a large portion of the corridor passes through the northern section of what locals call “The War Zone.” That should give you an impression of what it’s like. The 118th Street Taskforce descended across the city and beyond, interviewing everyone that they could that might have any information at all. Families came first, and from these initial interviews, a rough timeline of events was created. The next gigantic hurdle in the case was obtaining more information from the people that these women had associated with. Whether they were friends or even known associates, information was hard to come by as squads of police investigators attempted to approach and interview people along the east central corridor. Their primary mission was to find and interview people with a “similar lifestyle” to these women with a focus on 2001 to about 2006. In just a few years, Police had conducted well over 200 interviews. Every scrap of information, every rumor had weight and importance to the investigation. Theories started to be formed, profiles were created. One theory that gained momentum was that the killer frequented the area at the time of the annual state fair, as the fairgrounds is right in the east central corridor and fair time sees a major increase in both prostitution and gang violence. This would lead to an unlikely suspect, but the problem with the theory is that the state fair is always in late August to Early September, and almost no disappearances line up with this timeline. Persons of interest started to multiply and several were eliminated based on their timeline. Not long after the investigation started, APD had a list of at least 10 plausible suspects. Things were coming together in quick order. Just four months after all the bodies were found, APD had announced that they had narrowed the list to 5 suspects. SUSPECTS Fred Reynolds Fred Reynolds was a known pimp. He had been arrested for promotion of prostitution in 1998 and 2001, and he had ties to several of the victims. Of particular interest to the police was that Reynolds had photographs of several of the missing women. The problems arise when you take into consideration that Reynolds was known to run an illegal escort service, and that he may, very possibly, have some photos of women that worked for him. APD had let it be known that he had photos of 3 of the victims in his possession. Detectives raided his home and seized the photos, computers, records, everything. One of the photos of a known victim allegedly had the word “MISSING” written on it, which doesn’t add up. Before the bodies were discovered, two women were in contact with Reynolds. One, Amy Reid, was a friend of a missing woman (I do not know who), and the other was Lori Gallegos, sister of victim/missing number 2; Doreen Marquez. Both women had stated that Reynolds was a good man and friend, and that he was known for helping women, especially with drug addiction. Neither woman felt it strange that Reynolds had the photos, and both reported that Reynolds carried them with him to use when he would ask people about their whereabouts, because he was concerned. There was one other issue. On January 2, 2009, one month before the first bone was discovered, Fred Reynolds died at age 60, of natural causes. Obituary Scott Lee Kimball  Scott Lee Kimball is from Boulder, Colorado, and has a rather substantial strike against him. Scott Lee Kimball is a serial killer. During a stretch of time between 2003 and 2005, Kimball murdered at least four people for various reasons and disposed of their corpses in remote locations in Colorado and Utah. To this day, only three bodies were recovered. I won’t go into a lot of detail about Kimball because I don’t know a lot, but his case is pretty interesting (and I’m learning about it currently), and he happened to be working as an FBI informant during the time his murders occurred. Not only that, but Kimball is boastful, claiming to have killed “dozens more.” His travels also brought him through New Mexico during the time, but his timeline is so full of his own murders, business dealings and prison and court time that it seems unlikely. The FBI also likes him for several other murders in Colorado. In 2010, Kimball sent a correspondence to a cousin in which he says that he found out that he was being investigated as part of the West Mesa murders. Kimball, a man that has openly bragged about having killed “dozens” of people, flatly denies any involvement in the west mesa murders. Kimball is currently serving a 70 year sentence in Colorado. Ron Erwin  Oddly disturbing images aheadNo, his photo doesn’t count. Joplin Globe posted:“Photography is very important to me,” said Erwin, who has a studio on Main Street, though he said he doesn’t do much work there anymore. “I photograph a lot of people who’ve never been photographed before.” Joplin Missouri, August 3, 2010; Missouri police, Albuquerque police, and federal investigators descend upon the home and businesses of Ron Erwin, warrants in hand. In an orchestrated event, Erwin’s home was searched, Erwin’s business was searched, and Erwin’s photography studio was searched. Albuquerque police returned to New mexico, a massive U-Haul trailer in tow full of documents and photographs belonging to Erwin. The official reason why Erwin came under suspicion is literally not known to the public. What is known is that Erwin travelled to New Mexico starting in the mid 90’s as a new photographer. Spurred on by friends who told him about the culture and beauty of New Mexico in addition the the quality of the light (that sounds nuts, but ask a local, it’s true), Erwin started making trips; by his own recollection as many as three or four times a year. We also know that Erwin was in New Mexico when Veronica Romero (missing #4) and Jamie Barela (5) and Evelyn Salazar(6) went missing. These are probably good enough reasons for the warrants. If we go back to APD’s odd theory of women disappearing during the state fair, it also lines up with Erwin’s own admission that he travelled to be in Albuquerque at fair time in the early 2000’s. Erwin stated that he was especially interested in the street life of Albuquerque for a time, and people he would meet in unsavory parts of town would be photographic subjects. Shortly after Erwin’s properties were searched, APD released a series of 6 photographs with 7 women subjects. APD would not comment on where the photographs came from, but they stated that they needed help identifying and locating the women in the photos as part of the west mesa murders. None of the women pictured are women that were found at the crime scene. All photos are presented as they were cropped and released to the public.      You’ll notice a photo missing, but one family quickly reached out and identified their daughter, and also told police that she had died of natural causes somewhat recently. Every local article I could find also stated that of all the women, only two had been identified and were thought to be alive, and police were trying to find them for more information. That’s literally what I knew about these photos as a local. I found a statement this week about the photos in an article from Joplin, MO made by an APD spokesperson that stated ALL BUT TWO women had been identified and/or found, and that they don’t believe the other two are actually missing or in danger. This statement was made in 2011. I thought only three of the seven had been identified, and that was when I started writing these. So good news- the photos are slightly, ever so slightly, less creepy. APD never stated where the photos were obtained, but Erwin had no problem stating that they were his. At least he thought so. He said that he didn’t recognize a few of them, but that he had likely taken them. He also stated that he had nothing to do with their state, and he was documenting street life as he found it. Joplin Globe posted:“Erwin said that in photographing street life, some of his subjects were sleeping on park benches and elsewhere.” ...Which does not seem to be the case at all to people with functioning eyes. Joplin Globe posted:“Erwin said the photos the police released were “upsetting” to him because he was not a particularly good photographer in the 1990s, and he does not see those sleeping women as representative of his work since then…” Suspicions had also been raised after a tornado destroyed a couple of Erwin’s properties and objects were found that made APD take another look, but nothing other than “bones” were divulged, and Erwin had also owned a bookstore/collectible/oddity shop at one point. This line of investigation I have never found much more on, and it’s usually glossed over. Erwin was never actually questioned during the investigation, and about a year after the warrants were executed, Ron Erwin was officially removed from the suspect list by APD. (Next: Suspects: Real Life Monsters and an End) Droogie has a new favorite as of 10:32 on Apr 29, 2016 |
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Apr 26, 2016 19:40
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The Endbringer posted:I know I get really pissed off and horny when I ride a ferris wheel, so that's a pretty solid theory. It's good to know that I'm not the only one.
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Apr 27, 2016 05:00
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The Amen Break posted:Hey Droogie, just another thanks for writing about the West Mesa case. Eagerly awaiting the final chapter. Dude! this is amazing, and I'm listening to it instead of writing! You captured the essence of standing on that spot really drat well. I feel incredibly honored. In other news, I'm somewhere near the halfway point of this last one. I'm having to take frequent breaks because the last couple of players in this case are loving reprehensible monsters, and I've been digging into court records as well. The Amen Break, I was going to PM you to say thank you personally, but you have that feature turned off, so now everyone can see, but seriously, that's a huge compliment, and I really appreciate it. Droogie has a new favorite as of 07:29 on Apr 29, 2016 |
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Apr 29, 2016 06:15
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Hope you're ready for this. It's long and scary and there was a weird noise in the distance when I finished it, and now I'm all weirded out because it's 3am and I'm alone. 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 Part 6: Investigation, First Suspects: Missouri Loves Company Part 7: Real Life Monsters and an End WARNING Disturbing content. Murder and extreme sexual violence ahead.The date is December 17 2006, and it is approximately 3 in the morning in a trailer home off of Blake SW. The trailer is home to Lorenzo Montoya, and some time in the last hour, Montoya has bound a woman in duct tape, raped her, and strangled her to death. Her name was Shericka Hill, and she was 19 years old. Lorenzo Montoya  Lorenzo Montoya was 39 years old in 2006, and police would refer to the murder of Shericka Hill as brutal, orchestrated, and very violent. This would not come as a surprise to Albuquerque Police, though. Lorenzo Montoya already had a known history with mixing prostitutes and violence, and in the middle of December, APD and BCSO were already piecing together a theory that Montoya was connected to the disappearances of several known prostitutes since 2001. Lorenzo Montoya was already a suspect in the deaths of 11 women before police knew they were dead and buried, at most a little over a mile from where they were processing a violent crime scene. Perhaps Police didn’t suspect the 11 found specifically, but they knew that they had Montoya on their radar for several missing women since 2001, and there was a drat good handful of reasons for this, as well. There are several pieces written about Lorenzo Montoya that go over one, maybe two events in varying degrees of detail, but Montoya was unmistakably an extremely violent individual. I looked back at court records, but I could only come away with three records that I could reasonably believe were the same Lorenzo Montoya- same middle initial and or same birth year. There are several Lorenzo Montoyas in the system, and I didn’t want to go wildly guessing at old half-complete court records. What I did find was an entry for aggravated battery on January 31 1986. The outcome was entered as nolle prosequi, a formal abandonment of charges by the plaintiff. I found an entry for domestic violence against a household member with a child involved from May 4, 1994. Montoya pleaded guilty to a deferred sentence and saw no jail time. One article mentions domestic violence, but didn’t add details about the date or circumstance. What it does add is that the victim, his then girlfriend, reported that Montoya repeatedly beat her, threatened to kill her and bury her in lime, and that Montoya had “Done gross things” to her, but no further details were publically available. In 1998, Montoya was arrested as a John in a prostitution sting. Montoya picked up a prostitute and was directed to a run down motel near Washington and Central, right at the imagined western boundary of the East Central Corridor. Montoya offered $40 to the prostitute. Unfortunately the prostitute was an undercover police officer. Undeterred, Montoya picked up a prostitute on November 3, 1999. Montoya did not know that APD’s vice squad was watching known prostitutes at the time. Montoya drove the woman to an area southwest of Albuquerque’s airport, a maze of dead-end roads and industrial buildings. I recently went out to the area before I started thinking about researching the murders. I was responding to a call of a pair of loose dogs off of Transport Road, the same road Montoya took the prostitute to, and it was almost one in the morning when I arrived. Streetlights are few and far between, and roads meander into abrupt endings, some just dissolve into sloping dirt hills. There were no other cars, and the only signs of life were the outer lights of monolithic buildings, maybe a stray car in their fenced off parking lots. It’s eerie. I didn’t see the dogs. I left as fast as I could. That night in 1999, Montoya parked his truck, forcefully made the woman perform oral sex, and threatened her with violence if she did not comply. She did not have a choice in the matter, regardless. Montoya then forcefully removed her underwear, forced himself upon the woman and began choking her. The woman would later state that it appeared that Montoya was enjoying himself during the process. Police found the vehicle at this time, and Montoya was arrested for sexual penetration, criminal sexual penetration, and kidnapping. Unfortunately for prosecutors, the woman would later become uncooperative, likely due to her lifestyle. At the time of Montoya’s arrest, it was clear that he had never intended to pay the woman if, in fact, he intended to let her live. In his possession was only $2 in cash. All charges were later dropped. Han shot first Back to the night, or rather the early morning of December 17 2006. There are a lot of conflicting and fuzzy details about this, and we’ll look at the major changes in story, but articles will refer to the victim, Shericka Hill as either a dancer or a prostitute, and they will either refer to the man that took her to Montoya’s, Fredrick Williams, age 18, as her boyfriend or pimp. In the interest of fairness, we will say dancer and boyfriend. Lorenzo Montoya met Shericka Hill online and arranged for a private performance at his trailer home in the south valley. Hill picked up her boyfriend on the way, and the two of them parked down the street from Montoya’s home. Hill continued by herself on foot while Williams waited. After approximately an hour, Williams approached Montoya’s home after growing concerned over the length of time he had spent waiting. This is the last detail that every report, even ones published by the same entity, have in common. What happened next is anyone’s guess, but they are all here for you to judge. Initially it was reported that Williams entered Montoya’s residence and found Hill, bound, gagged, and deceased. Williams then produced a firearm, fired a single round, and killed Lorenzo Montoya. Another report says that Upon approach, Williams found Montoya outside “brandishing a gun.” Williams shot Montoya as he felt threatened, then went inside to find Hill, deceased. It was later written that Williams approached the residence and found Montoya dragging the deceased and bound corpse of Hill to his truck. Williams believed he saw Montoya produce a weapon, and fearing for his life, Williams shot and killed Montoya. Montoya was holding a flashlight. A fourth version has Williams approaching the residence and seeing Montoya In the act of trying to load the corpse of Hill into his truck. Upon seeing Williams approach, Lorenzo Montoya produced a firearm, and Williams did so faster, shooting and killing Montoya in self defense, with police later investigating if Montoya fired a round first. So what the hell happened? Only investigators know for sure. And what investigators also know is that when they came to the scene, Lorenzo Montoya was dead of a gunshot wound, and the body of Shericka Hill was “Bound by the ankles, knees and wrists, with duct tape and cord,” according to one investigator. Police believed that the details of this crime indicate that it was not Montoya’s first kill. Did APD pull a George Lucas Greedo/Han edit on this case? It almost seems too likely that they did, as Montoya had been a thorn in APD’s side for years, always seeming to escape any true consequences for his actions. It’s not difficult to believe that Williams, who escaped prosecution, had been coached into telling a more easily defended story about the night’s events. The last victim to disappear that has been discovered went missing around September of 2004. The last in the series of women from this time to disappear was in May of 2006. Lorenzo Montoya, a main suspect in the west mesa murders, died on December 17, 2006. How soon was Montoya suspected of the murders? No later than February 12, 2009, after the third set of remains was found. How radically did the story of Lorenzo Montoya’s death shift since 2006? I’ll let The Albuquerque Journal, where most of the accounts above came from, explain it to you. On February 12, 2009, they published this as part of the west mesa coverage: ”Albuquerque Journal” posted:Walsh said it's too early to identify any suspects — mainly because no manner of death has been determined yet. He did say that detectives are looking at more than 20 cases that are already on APD's radar screen for leads.  A map showing the burial site and the general addresses of the two main suspects. Joseph Blea  On february 9, 2009, April Gillen picked up her telephone and contacted Albuquerque police. She said that she was the ex-wife of a man named Joseph Blea, and she thought that police needed to investigate Blea in connection with the at that point two, possibly three sets of remains unearthed from 118th Street. This man was once only known to some as the Mckinley Middle School Rapist. Joseph Blea was more well known to APD than even the likes of Lorenzo Montoya. Blea’s criminal history began at age 19 in the late 1970’s. Blea was arrested and charged with 3 counts of domestic burglary in which he had stolen women’s clothing. Blea was sentenced to 5 years probation and ordered to have a mental diagnostic checkup. Just months later Blea was arrested for indecent exposure and ordered to a behavioral health institute where doctors determined that Blea was an intelligent man, but that he was “disturbed” and required immediate psychological treatment. Blea likely never received treatment, and just a couple months later was picked up for a second indecent exposure charge. For probation violations, Blea spent two years in prison. Showing escalation, Blea was charged with third degree criminal sexual penetration in 1981, but was able to plead guilty to aggravated assault and spent another two and a half years in prison. The past of a living monster  Jennifer Lynn Shirm, 22, was found on the morning of May 29, 1985. She had been brutally beaten to death and left by the side of the road underneath a bush. Shirm was found off of the street Monte Largo on the far east end of the east Central corridor. The case was investigated, police had several suspects, and an arrest was made. In 2006 the charges were dropped from the man arrested because DNA evidence did not link the man to Shirm’s body. The DNA collected from Shirm was a match to Joseph Blea. Shirm was once convicted of prostitution and no formal charges have been made against Blea in her death to my knowledge. Beginning shortly after the murder of Jennifer Lynn Shirm, Joseph Blea stalked women and girls. A string of violent rapes shocked citizens, the worst part being that a man was stalking middle school-aged girls around McKinley Middle School in the northeast heights of Albuquerque. On one occasion, Blea broke into the home of an 8th grade girl clad in a balaclava and armed with a knife. He knew the home was empty, and he knew the girl would be returning home from school. Hiding behind a bookcase he took the girl by surprise, held her at knifepoint, and raped her in her own living room. He then threw the traumatized girl into her own bathroom, securing the door closed with a telephone line to prevent her from escaping. She would be found by her mother upon return from work. This was not the only girl he would rape, the youngest among them was only 13 years old. A college student would later attest that she was also raped by Blea, also at knifepoint. Details are mercifully in short supply about one instance in which he raped a 14 year old and also allegedly used a screwdriver to penetrate the girl as well. It is likely one of the charges I found that follows. According to the metropolitan court records, Blea was charged with battery on January 29 1997, to which he pleaded guilty for a deferred sentence. On August 31 2008, Blea was charged with Aggravated assault and Inflicting great bodily harm on a household member with a deadly weapon. The case was converted to nolle prosequi. On February 13, 2009 Blea was charged with first degree kidnapping, aggravated battery on a household member with a deadly weapon with intent to cause great bodily harm, and possession of paraphernalia. These charges were dismissed. On August 24 2010, Blea was charged with criminal sexual penetration with intent to cause great bodily harm/great mental anguish and kidnapping with intent to cause great bodily harm. These, as I understand it, were dismissed to be rolled into the next case. In fact between 1990 and 2009, APD would come across Blea in person or in name well in excess of 100 times. On one such occasion Blea had exposed himself to a prostitute and been picked up by police, a roll of electrical tape and a length of rope on the passenger seat of his vehicle. April Gillen had a great number of disturbing details to divulge to investigators of the newly discovered human remains. Gillen stated that Blea, who had for a time been working as a landscaper, would frequently take late night trips out to the west mesa to illegally dump landscaping materials and trash rather than pay the roughly 3 or 4 dollars to take it to a dump. I had said that landscaping trash would become important. It becomes more so in a little bit. In the weeks following the opening of the 118th Street investigation, a repeat offender unit of the police started covertly observing Blea’s movements. On more than one occasion Blea would cruise the east Central corridor, slowly circling blocks, carefully observing prostitutes, stalking them. When the 118th Street Taskforce started conducting interviews, a prostitute that knew who Blea was had relayed that Blea had wanted to tie her up during a sexual encounter, but she put a stop to that immediately. Around October of 2009, Police raided Blea’s home and confiscated jewelry that did not belong to his current wife or daughter, along with women’s underwear. His wife at the time of the raid, Cheryl Blea, relayed that she had found stashed mysterious jewelry, and that she and her daughter had found women’s underwear in various places including the shed. His wife did say that Blea wanted to wear women’s underwear during sex. Investigators have not commented on DNA testing done on both the jewelry and garments. The father of the 8th missing Victim, Virginia Cloven had stated in an interview that several families noticed that jewelry was missing, but I have not found elaboration on that. I take it that several of the women wore distinctive pieces of jewelry that were not found with the remains, but that’s my interpretation. Blea’s Pleas On June 8 2015 Joseph Blea was convicted of two rapes he committed; one in 1988 and the other in 1990. Reports of the trial noted it as unusual, and that both prosecution and defense had agreed upon ahead of time the details of the conviction, and that both sides knew that a conviction was likely. No witnesses were called and a jury reached a verdict within 15 minutes of being sequestered. The judge handed down 18 years for each charge, to be served consecutively. Blea would be behind bars for 36 years. On July 30 2015, Blea suddenly came forward and pleaded no contest to six additional counts- 5 counts of first degree rape and one count of kidnapping. While each count could have carried 18 years each, the sentence was capped at 54 years, also consecutive to his two previous convictions. Blea, then 58, would now be behind bars for 90 years. Blea will likely die in jail. Blea’s connections So what of the dead women of the west mesa? During the sifting of ton after ton of dirt, a small piece of plastic was found with the remains of a woman, discarded at the same time. The plastic was the SKU/identification tag for a tree. The tag was tracked to a wholesaler of landscaping plants in California, traced back to a local shop that Blea frequented, and Blea’s own seized business records indicate that he regularly made purchases from the nursery that the plant came from. While in custody, Blea has shown a particular interest in the west mesa case. Speaking to a former cellmate, Blea has stated that he knew several of the victims. Blea has called the victims trashy, and Blea stated that he had paid several of the deceased women for sex acts, and had even struck one of them. When Blea has been questioned, he and his lawyer have repeatedly denied any involvement with the murder of the 11 known women. Blea adamantly maintains his innocence in connection the west mesa murders to this day. New Mexico abolished the death penalty in 2009, six years before Blea would receive effectively a life sentence. Why would a boastful man, a person that has taken such pride in his depravity worry then, about admitting involvement in the west mesa case? The answer is that part of Blea’s compliance with sentencing in his cases is due to the ability to appeal, a condition his lawyers fought for as part of the arrangement. At the edge of the city, the end of the road So where do we stand now? Months after the investigation started, the suspect list was reported by APD to by 5 people long. At the end of 2015 and going into the 7th anniversary of the discovery of the mass grave, the suspect list is now reported to be at least 20 people long. The 118th Street Taskforce, once a small army of investigators, is now a single person, Detective Mark Manary. Detective Manary works full-time on the case, which grows colder by each passing day. APD reports that in 2015, over 40 calls came in to the tipline about the case, and each call gets investigated. We went over 5 suspects, one of which was cleared. Who are the other 15 or so right now? The answer is we don’t know. Those details have not been released to the public because the case of the west mesa murders is still an active investigation to this very day, to this minute I type this, to the minute you read this sentence. The way it stands at this very moment, the person or persons responsible for the deaths of 11 women, one of whom was pregnant, could either be dead, imprisoned; or the person that some have come to know as The West Mesa Bone Collector could have another stash of women in shallow graves on the vast expanse of the west mesa. The West Mesa Bone Collector could be standing outside at night, looking over this very city, the moon rising above the Sandia Mountains to illuminate the lonely desert below. Droogie has a new favorite as of 15:20 on Apr 29, 2016 |
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Apr 29, 2016 09:53
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Thus concludes, for now, the case of the West Mesa Murders. Apologies in advance of the double-post, but I wanted to quickly follow up in a separate section a couple of bizarre and possibly true facts that didn’t fit into the narrative and also I promised some references. The phone calls There are a couple similar events that take place in the story that are bizarre and unsettling, and were mentioned once or twice in news reports, but never with enough facts to back up their appearance. I could never find anything to substantiate how true they are, and at the end of it, they could just be hosed up pranks. If they’re not, it’s even worse than that. In 2010, a private investigator named George Walker got involved in the case and took out ads also asking for information related to the case and/or victims. During the same year he received at least three phone calls from someone either claiming to have information about the case or claiming to be the person that perpetrated the killings. There are also reports that there were similar emails sent to Walker. Nothing ever came of the communications, and they stopped as abruptly as they started. Before the bodies were discovered and during the time it was just seperate missing persons cases, at least two families reportedly received abrupt telephone calls. One family was simply told that the woman was dead and buried, the other family receiving a call that told them that their daughter had been stabbed to death. There were no other similar communications that I’m aware of. References, etc. For those interested in seeing the big picture, here is a partial list of references, several of them branch off into further reading. The narrative I’ve been reading is presented as factually as I can, and it’s been pieced together from timelines, articles, and knowledge of a local to the city. Every effort has been taken to use reputable sources, or at least sources that are well-sourced themselves (for instance the Vice article is full of great details, but several details of the city’s geography is way wrong. Vice, am I right?  ) I really tried to stay away from details gathered from places like websleuths et al. unless it was something corroborated elsewhere, but I just made an effort to stay away from that altogether. http://www.abqjournal.com/community-data/west-mesa-murders http://krqe.com/2014/01/31/does-apd-have-a-suspect-in-the-west-mesa-murders/ http://www.joplinglobe.com/news/loc...72afe36127.html http://www.vice.com/read/who-is-the-west-mesa-bone-collector-0000439-v21n9 https://www.cabq.gov/police/contact-the-police/west-mesa-homicide-investigation http://www.abqjournal.com/715705/news/west-mesa-murders-seven-years-later.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Mesa_murders http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/us/24prostitute.html http://www.abqjournal.com/news/metro/522336metro12-19-06.htm http://www.abqjournal.com/596139/news/headline-348.html http://www.kob.com/article/stories/s3866295.shtml#.VyL5XNUrLnD https://caselookup.nmcourts.gov/caselookup/app http://www.nmsoh.org/shirm_jennifer_lynn_us.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_New_Mexico Who am I to go through all this effort? At the risk of exposing myself to goons, I’m a 30 year old Albuquerque native and Native American. I consider myself an artist, and I work with animals as I’ve laid out in a few posts. Like many of you I share a morbid fascination in mysteries and true crime. Both me and my wife suffer from the “I know who this show is referring to before they reveal who the killer is” syndrome that someone mentioned a few pages back. I am willing to answer any questions about the case that may arise either here or in PM to the best of my ability. This thread has been one of my favorites on the forums, and I just wanted to honor all of the posters that have kept me captivated over hundreds of pages with something I could contribute that I hadn’t seen here, and I’ve been working the graveyard (ha) shift for the last six months, so I’ve had lots of time to think about this particular narrative and how to present it, along with unique opportunities to add some original content in the form of photographs. If any locals or anyone passing through the Duke City ever wants to grab a beer and talk weird weird desert stuff, PM me and we’ll see. Thank you all for coming on this hosed up, unsolved journey with me. If any updates become available to any aspect of this case, I will post about it in the future here or in whatever the next incarnation of the thread may be. And on a final note, please read Dead Mountain before any of you decide to post about the Dyatlov Pass incident again. It’s got fantastic theories grounded in reality.
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Apr 29, 2016 10:27
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Truly thank you to everyone for the compliments and for following along. To be honest, this is the most I've every posted in like 12 years of reading the forums outside of SASS every year. I tend to consider myself an unsuccessful artist more than a writer, but I may find something to write about in the future. I've just had a lot of time to myself to write and research, but I'll be mercifully spending my last night on graveyard shift tonight.
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Apr 29, 2016 19:54
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Filox posted:Ditto. This is a good write up, Droogie, very compelling reading, lots of great local detail you don't get reading newspaper articles or Wikipedia, just great and well written. This times a million. This longform was a thank you to everyone that has put in effort and made me so interested in all these pieces. Too weird to bring back things from a hundred pages back or more, but this is my thanks. There are some very talented storytellers here and I truly admire the writing here, and I wrote this out because I've been so inspired by you all. I'll be back to lurking in no time. I hope I come across something else I can do justice at some point.
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Apr 29, 2016 21:28
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Josef K. Sourdust posted:On Dyatlov Pass, I couldn't find a link (if there was one) hyperlinked to the book title. There are three currently available factual books in English, so please let us know which one you mean. I started a DP thread because I didn't want to bore people in this thread but the thread died. Sorry, here's a link. http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Mountain-Untold-Dyatlov-Incident/dp/1452112746 My wife got it for me a couple years ago. It's an excellent read, and the takeaway from the narrative is that they literally picked the worst possible place to set up camp, and a perfect storm of placement and well, storm, ensued. RNG posted:Droogie, you mentioned being Native- I'm curious, was there a media disconnect similar to the Canadian Highway of Tears murders? Where local/Native news sources might have been like, "holy poo poo, we've got a serial killer," but because the victims were nonwhite the mainstream media didn't really give a poo poo? There really was a sense of panic in the air and media. Look at the Colorado suspect, Kimball. He's considered a serial killer with 4 deaths, three recovered bodies. As soon as the third or fourth body was recovered here, the media and locals started saying, "Hey, this is some serious serial killer poo poo of there are multiple bodies." The police stayed quiet for months and when pressed about it, they would frequently shrug and release a statement that would say something like "It's just too early to say the serial killer words, guys!" Later as more and more bodies were recovered, the police were saying poo poo like "He look here, fellas, these bodies have been here for a while now, so we're not concerned that there's a serial killer on the loose, look how long it took us to find this!" To this day APD doesn't like to ever mention serial killer, instead opting for "open murder investigation(s)" and the ilk. Droogie has a new favorite as of 00:06 on Apr 30, 2016 |
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Apr 30, 2016 00:01
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I guess it is somewhere in the archives.
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Edit: accidental double post.
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Apr 30, 2016 00:05
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TheFallenEvincar posted:Wait what value does Blea's ability to appeal even have? I mean he's obviously never ever going to successfully appeal, right? Is it just that sliver of hope no matter how crazy unlikely that he possibly wouldn't want to let go of? I put in there with the thought that most killers are pretty proud of their work. Kimball, who will likely die in Colorado prison says he has no connection, and I sort of believe him. Blea has the possibility of losing everything by admitting anything to do with the case. Imagine that you had the slim chance of parole for being a god drat monster, I doubt you'd want to boast that you had committed a busload of murders not pinned on anyone yet. LivesinGrey posted:Droogie, your job and my volunteer life slightly overlap. If we ever meet we can talk about dealings with feral cats as well as creepy poo poo. You work in the TNR circles? that's crazy!
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Apr 30, 2016 06:40
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I'd like to, if I could, take a minute here to veer off that horrible miscarriage of justice in favor of athletes and take you all on a tangentially related story to the subject of the thread. I'd like to talk about survivors, misfortune, tragedy, and this thread's love-to-hate favorite in another (shorter) local story that just happened, that has a sort of "Where Are They Now" quality to it. The Worst Week  In the early morning hours of May 24th, 2016, an explosion woke up the residents of the Desert Sands Motel along Albuquerque’s east Central corridor. Minutes later, all the residents stood outside and watched as the motel was engulfed in flames.  The Desert Sands was built in 1957, an opulent roadside inn built along Route 66. A massive and extravagant sign marking itself along the busy, dusty road. The Desert Sands was one of dozens of historic “motor hotels” along Albuquerque’s stretch of route 66, and once more, it’s something many of you are familiar with through media- The Desert Sands is the motel at the end of No Country For Old Men. They used the location practically, so the courtyard, the doors, the room, those were all on set; the only difference being that they added “El Paso” to the sign for the movie.  Over the years the Desert Sands has gradually fallen into disrepair, although fault isn’t entirely with the motel, it’s located at one of the busiest and seediest corners of the city at present day. The motel has been a welcoming location to drug use and prostitution, as well as being an inviting location for extended stays, a cheap place for the homeless and others going through exceptionally rough times. In just under 60 years the Desert Sands went from a top of the line motel filled with gleaming, finned vehicles to a last resort home for many. It still operated as a motel for brave travellers, and this is what one reviewer on Trip Advisor had to say: Trip Advisor posted:“If you are a Jew don't stay here or any one else for that matter” ...Unfortunately you have to sign up with an account to see the rest of the review past the preview, and I was simply unwilling to do so. Back to the early morning hours of May 24th, Albuquerque Fire Department were dispatched at 1:45 AM to the Desert Sands. Most residents escaped without injury, but as a testament to the area of the city, and in fact I would venture most areas of the city, one of the residents at the motel woke just before AFD was called when He heard an explosion. By his own account, He startled awake, didn’t see anything out of place and went back to bed. This is a normal reaction for most Albuquerque residents. The resident was staying with his wife and two daughters, and only realized something was immediately wrong when he started to hear one of his daughters cough and went to check on her. It was then that he realized his room was filling with smoke.  All told, the Desert Sands had 63 rooms and at the time of the fire, there were 57 residents. By 3 AM, over two-thirds of the building was effected by the blaze, even with 22 fire units on scene combatting the fire. Because of the quick response, only two people were taken to the hospital for injuries related to smoke inhalation. The rest were evacuated and could only watch as their home burned down.  On May 31st, Jennifer Maestas was arrested and charged with one count of arson after surveillance footage captured her hanging around the motel earlier in the day and then running from the scene just as the fire was starting. When APD interviewed her, she said that “someone” had started the fire with a lighter, in a specific room that at the time was only known to arson investigators. Her motives are not known at this time, but this story is not about her. Bad to Worse On May 23rd, Cynthia Jaramillo was living in the Desert Sands Motel. She Cynthia had been attempting to have a normal life, but was in and out of cheap apartments and motels with her three sons, and she is yet expecting another child in about a month. I don’t want to get all preachy, but in yet another lesson of “never read the news story comments,” there are so many people demonizing this woman for being poor and having “too many” kids, as well as being a “bad parent” and those are just the tame comments. Here’s the thing. Lots of people, most, in fact deserve some sort of empathy, and Cynthia has never had an easy life.  Cynthia is trying to do her best. Less than two hours into May 24th, Cynthia, pregnant mother of three, has lost her home. She stood with the rest of the evacuees and her children and wondered what possessions of hers would be left, if any. Her week, however, was just getting started. The family found temporary housing at a trailer and RV park on the extreme east side of town and started thinking about how to piece things back together. The very next morning on May 25th, the second oldest son Matthew Jaramillo, 14, ran into their new home. He was out of breath, he was panicked, and he was covered in blood. Cynthia’s oldest son, Ruben Ruelas, 15, was attempting to do what he could with his chaotic life. At 15, Ruelas was working part-time minimum-wage jobs and selling scrap metal to support his family and his girlfriend, as he had just three months prior become a father. At 10:15am on May 25th 2016, Ruelas was pronounced dead of a gunshot wound to the head. Ruelas’ death, at the time of writing, appears to still be a mystery, at least to everyone not directly involved with the investigation. All that is known so far is that Ruelas was in the parking lot of a Costco in the far southeastern part of town, and he suffered a gunshot wound to the head. It is unclear if his brother Jaramillo was with him at the time of the incident, or whether or not Ruelas was shot intentionally, accidentally, or if it was self-inflicted. Investigators have been incredibly tight-lipped about this case. All that was known was that Cynthia had lost her home and now her eldest son. Skipping backwards a little, it was the early afternoon of May 20th when a stolen vehicle carrying a prostitute was used to repeatedly run over a man by the name of Richard Sisneros and drag him down a road. Sisneros was taken to a hospital in critical condition, but he sustained mortal injuries and would die on May 21st. APD was in the middle of the investigation when they got a tip that solved the case; a complete itinerary of events as recounted from the perpetrator. Earlier in the morning, the suspect stole a mid-size SUV, picked up a prostitute off of east central, and took her to the parking lot of an apartment complex just two blocks north of central. It was at this time that Sisneros noticed what was happening, and being fed up with prostitution and drug use by his apartment, he confronted the suspect and told him to leave. The suspect then ran Sisneros over with the vehicle, reversed, ran over him again, and dragged Sisneros. Witnesses would say that they could hear a woman screaming inside the vehicle, and a neighbor came out to see a trail of blood and flesh on the road. The vehicle was later abandoned several blocks east of the incident site.  After identification, the driver was described as having “significant developmental disabilities, including a frontal lobe defect from a traumatic brain injury, an impulse-control disorder and a pervasive developmental disorder.” The driver was 14-year old Matthew Jaramillo. The morning of Ruelas’ death, two women in the trailer park had heard Jaramillo talking about having hit a man with a stolen vehicle, as is a normal topic of conversation. They connected Jaramillo’s statements to a news story of Sisneros’ death and contacted APD, who was already en route to the trailer park to question family and anyone that may have information about the death of Ruelas. When they arrived, Jaramillo was taken into custody and hauled away, charged with an open count of murder, unlawful taking of a motor vehicle, and tampering with evidence. Cynthia Jaramillo would later see her son in front of a judge. In two days, Cynthia Jaramillo had lost her home, her eldest son was dead under mysterious circumstances, and her second-oldest was just arrested for the brutal murder of a man on the streets of Albuquerque. The Other Worst Week The day is March 22, 1999, and as if out of a horror movie, Cindy Vigil is running for her life. She is screaming for help as vehicles pass her, purposefully ignoring the sight before them. Cindy runs to the first home she sees with an open door, enters the home and slams and locks the door behind her. Cindy is sobbing and the homeowner is shocked. Cindy was naked and covered in blood, wearing only an iron collar and chains. Only moments before this occurred, Cindy had been locked inside a trailer just outside of Elephant Butte, New Mexico (It’s pronounced byoot, jerks). Cindy was not locked in any random trailer, though. She was locked inside The Toy Box. Cindy had spent the last three days in captivity, after being approached by David Parker Ray on the streets of Albuquerque. Cindy Vigil was a prostitute, and after being propositioned by Ray, he slapped a pair of handcuffs on her and told her she was under arrest. She knew something was very wrong when Ray started driving south out of Albuquerque. Vigil would spend three days in the Toy Box, enduring repeated torture and rape at the hands of David Parker Ray and his accomplice, Cindy Hendy. David Parker Ray had gone to work on March 22nd, and Hendy had become distracted while on a telephone call, leaving a set of padlock keys on a surface nearby Vigil. Vigil took the opportunity to reach for the keys and start unlocking herself. Hendy, hearing her escape attempt, rushed into the room and a fight ensued, both women thrashing around the trailer. Hendy grabbed a lamp in the brawl and smashed it over Vigil’s head. Vigil, summoning all the strength she could, fought Hendy off. As a testament to not only Vigil’s strength and desperation, but also to what was readily available and used on Vigil, she grabbed a nearby icepick and drove it into Hendy’s neck. Vigil burst out the door of the Toy Box and ran, blood dripping and chains dragging behind her. Cindy Vigil’s escape brought down David Parker Ray, all of his accomplices, and without doubt saved the lives of an unknowable amount of women. Every single time David Parker Ray comes up in this thread, every horrific, disgusting detail we know about the case and discuss here so frequently, we know because of Cindy Vigil. Cindy Vigil was a victim, but is also a hero.  Culturally, we have a perception about survivors. Survivors are strong, and survivors capture our hearts. They have their time in the spotlight, and then they don’t have to worry about the day to day problems of everyone else. Survivors will have needs, whether they be need medical or psychological, but whether it’s fiction or reality, we want to know that they’re cared for and they’ve gone through the worst they’ll ever have to. We don’t like to know that the truth is that people get forgotten, and they bare permanent scars that make living a normal life impossible. Cindy Vigil would later become Cynthia Jaramillo. Cynthia Jaramillo is still trying to piece her life back together. 
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Jun 7, 2016 06:49
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cat_herder posted:holy gently caress. I shop at that Costco all the time, it's right by my apartment. I can make an educated guess as to which mobile home park that is, too. I do to. I was looking around the parking lot on Sunday when I went as if it were a different place. I don't know of a specific reputable way to donate directly to her or her family, but I would recommend contacting The Red Cross, as they were helping everyone displaced by the fire find places to stay. Kaizoku posted:
Kaizoku posted:But here's the REAL scary and unnerving Many people believe the Desert Sands to be haunted. It's possible, but most places the motel is listed on are ghost and ghost hunting sites that are really groan-worthy, so I didn't include the haunted (yet unexplained for not even being 60 years old) aspect of it. Droogie has a new favorite as of 14:12 on Jun 7, 2016 |
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Jun 7, 2016 14:02
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So, here's another thing. I know this has come up on the forums, it may have been the previous thread or maybe early here, or maybe I just saw it somewhere else on the forums, but if you want unnerving, I bring you more local lore. Luckily (?) for you, I was once again injured on the job, and I've been on "light duty" for a few days now. There is not a lot to do on light duty. So I've started typing this up. I hope you enjoy reading this. If not, tell me to gently caress off. It's another longer one with multiple parts. The New Mexico State Penitentiary Riot Inside the New Mexico State Penitentiary, tensions had been rising for some time. “The Main,” as it was called, was a large prison facility sitting just a few miles south of New Mexico’s capitol of Santa Fe. Rehabilitative and educational programs had been cut due to budget shortfalls, prisoners were complaining about rodent and insect infestations and the exceptionally poor quality of food, and recently started renovations had forced an entire section of high-security inmates into medium-security bunk rooms. Conditions were cramped, and the prison was designed to hold 1,058 inmates. Federal opinion was that the prison was adequate for 900 inmates. At the beginning of February 1980, the prison was home to 1157 inmates, and the situation was about to break. On February 2, 1980, several inmates that had been moved from maximum-security cellblock 5 to dormitory E-2 due to renovations were drinking a crude alcohol they had brewed in the dorm, and they were getting riled up. These prisoners were upset about the conditions, the overcrowding, and about the staffing, which was both short and largely inexperienced; which in turn had created an environment in which prison officials were relying heavily on and rewarding other inmates to provide valuable information about subterfuge and contraband. The Snitch Game that had been purposefully created had itself caused a sharp spike in prison violence in the recent years, and had made more of these snitches be placed into the protective custody wing of the prison, cellblock 4. It was not a good time to be housed in cellblock 4. The Main had been for years suffering a crisis of staffing. Just two years prior to the events of this story, NMSP had a turnover rate of 80%. In February of 1980, NMSP had a single employee that fell into the bracket of having worked there for more than 3 years but less than 20. Some employees had been at the facility for less than 4 months at this time. Due to the staffing issues, training was highly inconsistent and only thirty percent of the staff had any formal training. Officers would report that the week-long orientation in the facility was rarely more than a tour. It was because of this and the chaos of renovations that several protocols were not being followed on a regular basis. One such infraction came from the captain and the lieutenant on shift at approximately 1:10 am on February 2. They went to the south wing of the facility to assist in shutting down and securing the communal areas of the dorms. They passed through a riot control gate that separated the south wing of the prison from the central administrative area. The gate was unlocked and open, but neither was apparently concerned as they walked through the open gate and continued on their way, not bothering to lock it behind them, as was protocol. The gate had been rarely locked for weeks. The prisoners knew this. Storm Clouds Gather On January 11, 1980, a prisoner psychologist had brought up concerns that he believed a riot was imminent, and that a hostage situation was likely. He was concerned specifically with dormitory E-2. Prison officials initially took this seriously and ordered a shakedown of E-2, which returned no contraband. The concern was basically outright dismissed. 12 days later, a deputy warden passed along a concern to the warden that inmates in cellblock 3 were planning on a riot and specifically taking hostages. He said that plans were specifically to instigate the action immediately after an evening headcount, and that cellblock 2 was manufacturing and distributing shivs. This information was cause enough for a shakedown of cellblock 3, but almost ominously not a single thing was found. No increase of security was ordered after these two reports. While this was occurring, prison staff was confused by or oblivious to a noticeable increase in requests from prisoners in dorm E-2 to transfer. One such prisoner in his request stated that “E-2 is getting hot.” The intelligence officer decided that he wanted to call an information-sharing meeting due to the amount of rumors recurring. The meeting was called on January 31, 1980 and discussed riot control, hostage seizures, and rising racial tension inside the prison. The intelligence officer noted at this meeting that the general demeanor of the inmates was currently “Quite ugly,” and the interactions between prisoners and staff and even groups of prisoners had shifted radically in the last couple of weeks. The warden had at the same time ordered a review of riot protocols, and that review was to be made available to all staff, and all staff was to read through it. It specifically had a section in it that outlined signs to look for that showed what type of unrest was a portent of an imminent riot. These signs included: - Increased amount of transfer requests from a specific section - Undue tension among inmate population - Changes in in contact between inmates and staff Only two employees had read the protocols by February 2. On February 1, 1980, an inmate dropped out of an education program because he was concerned with the possibility of a hostage situation. A female employee had during the week been told by an inmate: "When I come and tell you not to come to work the next day, don't come to work." This was not reported to management. The afternoon of February 1, a day shift guard noted that there was an unusually large gathering of inmates in a corridor before presumably shrugging it off. The intelligence officer’s secretary called in sick on February 1 out of a general fear of disturbance, though she had no specific information or knowledge beyond a great sense of intuition. No caseworkers in E-2 were informed about unrest in E-2. The shift captain on duty was not made aware of unrest in E-2. No one on duty was aware of the hell on earth to be released on February 2.  [Next: Without Warning ]
Droogie has a new favorite as of 02:35 on Jun 24, 2016 |
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Jun 24, 2016 02:27
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LivesInGrey posted:I've read a book about this, but reading your style and seeing how those unfamiliar will react is going to be great Was it The Devil's Butcher Shop or The Hate Factory? I've read the former. It's good. I'm not going to go into all the politics and I'm not going to go into minute play by play details, but I'm going to do a pretty decent primer and overview. At least that's what the 3,500 words on it I've written so far looks like.
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Jun 24, 2016 03:28
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House Louse posted:
I guarantee you that is not a typo. That information is directly from the official report. There was a LOT of incompetence leading up to this.
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Jun 24, 2016 05:40
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House Louse posted:Thanks. That's an eye-popping amount of incompetence (they let the prisoners know they don't lock the gates?) but this one looked especially weird. Speaking of eye-popping, wait until part 3 or 4! 13Pandora13 posted:Cross-posted from the marine disaster A/T thread... Thank you for posting this. I didn't want this overlooked. Blue Hole in NM is a beautiful, terrifying place, in keeping along the goon party line of water being ominous.
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Jun 24, 2016 18:07
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PREVIOUSLY: The New Mexico State Penitentiary was a breeding ground for tension through mismanagement, extremely poor and crowded conditions, and a created culture of snitches and informants. Multiple, serious warning signs were handled poorly or ignored outright. The air inside the prison is thick with tension. Without Warning Dorm E-2 was being shut down for the night. Following protocol, one guard unlocked the room, two guards, one of which was the captain, entered the dorm. The lieutenant on duty joined these two shortly after, being allowed in by the guard at the door. The door was likely not locked at this time, as the protocol called for. In the dark, multiple inmates were waiting at key points. The overhead nightlights in the dorm were nearly all broken, and nothing had been done about them in spite of requests to have them fixed that had been submitted more than a month prior. The guards and captain were complacent, outnumbered, and in almost complete dark. Two inmates who had positioned themselves in beds only 5 feet from the door leapt out of bed and ripped the door open from the guard posted, beating the man into submission. Simultaneously multiple inmates jumped out of bed and with nothing more than surprise and numbers, quickly overwhelmed all prison staff inside the room. All four men were taken to the day room of E-2 where they were stripped, blindfolded, and bound. More importantly, the inmates now had the keys to the south wing of the facility. One prisoner took a guard’s uniform and put in on to lead a group of inmates down the main corridor to Dorm F, stepping through another open control gate, where a group of 4 more officers were about to lock down the dorm. They were taken down immediately, with only a single officer putting up a fight that required him to be stabbed and beaten. Three officers were also taken to Dorm E’s day room, stripped and blindfolded. A fifth officer that had been out of sight barricaded himself in Dorm F’s day room where he was surrounded by mercifully sympathetic inmates. One of the newly captured inmates was stripped, had a belt placed around his neck, and was paraded down the main corridor on all fours, being kicked and dragged the entire way. Within minutes, more than 500 inmates were released, and they were headed to the control room. An officer near dorm D locked himself in the educational wing and contacted the control tower to say that inmates were loose. At the same time the officer in the control room received communication via a guard radio. It was from an inmate, and he said that the captain had been taken hostage. Two guards on a meal break heard the disturbance and ran out into the hall to see hundreds of inmates walking their direction, beating a naked man. They saw this through the main security grill, which stood open, and realized that there was more distance between themselves and the grill than there was between the inmates and the grill. They ran north, screaming at the control room to unlock the north control grill. The grill was unlocked and they ran past, slamming it locked behind them. A guard on outside patrol ran into the building, having heard the commotion over his radio. He wanted to assist the officer in the control room because the room was also under renovation, and the electronic locking system for the room was not yet finished. The only lock, in fact, was on the outside of the control room. To open it, one would have to stick their hand through the bars and feel around blindly to insert and turn the key.  Upon entering the control room, the officers watched as 100 inmates gathered in front of the room. The window to the control room had just been replaced- a large piece of bullet-resistant safety glass was installed, replacing metal bars and small panes of steel-grid reinforced glass. The prisoners demanded that the riot control doors and grills that were sealed be opened, and they started beating the naked guard with steel pipes that they had found. The guard was knocked unconscious with a pipe blow to the head and was dragged away. The officers in the control room staunchly refused cooperation. The two officers stood inside the control room and watched as the inmates started beating the safety glass with the pipes. An inmate brought forward a large canister fire extinguisher and threw it against the glass. The officers watched as it bounced off the glass harmlessly. The inmates attempted it again, with similar results. The inmates threw the canister a third time. The officers inside watched as slivers of glass fell into the control room and the window started to crack. The officers fled the room and escaped the facility. In their haste, they were not able to secure any of the keys in the control room, nor were they able to secure any of the riot gear. It’s now 2 am.   The control room NEXT: Don't Feed the Animals
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Jun 24, 2016 23:30
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Shoggoth bgosh posted:This man, Alex Joseph, The Endbringer posted:PYF unnerving article or story: Come and let Droogie teach you about New Mexico I’ll teach the hell outta you. Warning This part and the next part start to get exceptionally violent. I mean, like, really, really violent. Imagine something gruesomely violent. It's worse than that.PREVIOUSLY: Inmates seize control of multiple officers in the south wing, one of whom was carrying more keys than he should have. Inmates gain entrance to administration through an unlocked control grate. Inmates smash into the control room and seize all available keys and riot gear. Less than 20 minutes has elapsed.  Don’t Feed the Animals With the keys from the control tower in hand, the rioting inmates had the keys to the candy store. Between 2am and 7am, the State penitentiary saw a rapid succession of events unfold. An infirmary technician locked himself into an upstairs section of the hospital with a small number of inmates. Officers in the north wing of the facility locked themselves behind a grate in the basement of maximum-security cellblock 3. 15 minutes after 2am Santa Fe police start arriving at the facility, and the psychological ward of the prison was set on fire. By this time the inmates were exploring their freedom and their access to the building. Their plan was to allow themselves into cellblock 3 to free other maximum-security inmates, and they had the keys. The only problem with their plan is that they had a ridiculous amount of keys, and no one had thought to remember which keys went where, even though the keys were carefully labelled on the keyboard in the control room. Frustrated inmates were aware of the officers in the basement and demanded of them the opening of the cellblock. The officers refused, and the captain was brought up to the main corridor. The inmates threatened his life if the hiding officers didn’t open the cellblock. They again refused, and the inmates manually opened the cellblock three through good old fashioned trial and error. All the maximum-security inmates were now released. The inmates then started working on entering the basement grate to get to the barricaded officers, who ran to a second grate and locked that. The inmates entered the first grate, and within minutes the officers had surrendered to the inmates. At the same time, keys to the hospital and the various workshops in the basement were located, and the inmates suddenly had access to a plethora of barbiturates and sedatives. Multiple inmates over the course of the next 20 hours would surrender or be carried out by other inmates for surrender, suffering from drug overdoses. The state had a purchasing policy in place that required drug purchases to be made in bulk rather than a small necessary amount to have on hand, leading to a huge stockpile of drugs on the site. Other inmates made their way into the basement workshops where they got their hands on industrial solvents and spray paint, which they immediately started abusing, with violent results. While in the basement workshops, the inmates found a tool that is synonymous with the riot and made everything far worse, a heavy duty acetylene cutting torch. The inmates no longer needed any keys they may have been missing. The inmates with the cutting torch headed for the south wing, as they had more hostages to take and more inmates to release to the party. During this time, Cellblock 6 was breached, and some of the inmates started to realize they had created a political standing, and they had demands they could make. They wanted to speak to the governor and the media. They had leverage in the form of captured guards. They made this known. The National Guard was alerted to the situation and dispatched at this time. By 3 am, dorm D-1 had been released and the inmates had used the acetylene torch to cut into the education wing and they took the barricaded officer hostage. Meanwhile pockets of inmates were formulating plans for prison reform. Others were formulating plans for when they could get their hands on inmates in cellblock 4. Most others were exploring, doing drugs, or breaking things. By 4:30 am, both the Warden’s office and the records room were on fire.  3 am also marked the first known death in what could only be described as a massacre. Deep in cellblock 3, a small group of inmates gathered in front of cell 67. One inmate stood in front of the man inside the cell and yelled to the gathered inmates, “We gotta kill this son of a bitch, man! He’s a snitch!” The group then unlocked his cell from the control board, and entered with pipes in hand. Throughout the cellblock and into the corridors inmates could hear screaming and the man in cell 67 screaming: “¡No era yo! ¡No lo hice!” (It wasn’t me! I didn’t do it!) Outside, one of the towers was focusing a beam of light on the source of the commotion, as they could hear the man’s pleas from outside. Several inmates grew concerned that the tower guard would start firing rifles into the brawl. After a few moments the leaders of the assault decided that the guards would not fire and they continued the beating. Several inmates not involved with the violence were appealed to for help from the inmate in 67, and all bystanders turned their backs and walked away, fearful of retribution if assistance was offered. One of the people assaulting the man asked for a shiv to finish the inmate, and was met with silence. Another inmate held out a pair of scissors. Shortly after, they targeted another inmate and armed with metal pipes and steel bed frame pieces, bludgeoned a second victim to death in their cell. The group moved on to cellblock 12, joined by an inmate that had helped himself to a teargas canister launcher from the control room. Once inside the cell, the target was held down, and the inmate fired the launcher point-blank into the victim’s face. The marauding group quickly exited the cell amidst a haze of tear gas. Inside the cell, the victim’s body lay slumped on the ground, one of his eyes and his forehead had been obliterated. At 5 am, the inmates had realized that cellblock 5, which was closed and under renovation, was a valuable place for them to be. Not having that key, they brought out the cutting torch and entered the block. After an escape 6 weeks earlier, several correctional officers suggested, in memo form, that the independent contractors should be removing all of their tools at the end of each day due to the security risk. This memo was given to the superintendent of correctional security. The superintendent would later say that he never saw the memo. The inmates entered cellblock 5, where they found two more acetylene torches, hacksaws, axes, and all manner of tools. Violence was erupting amongst the rioting inmates along gang lines, racial lines, and perceived and real slights. Just before 5:30 am, the first inmate to be released to authorities for reason of medical treatment was released- an inmate from dormitory A-1, whose arms and head had suffered multiple injuries caused by a meat cleaver. The maximum-security inmates, torches and tools in hand, approached the security gate to cellblock 4. They turned on the cutting torches and started working on the bars. It was only a matter of time now. [NEXT: ...Any Cut You Want]
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Jun 25, 2016 03:37
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PREVIOUSLY: The inmates of the Santa Fe Penitentiary have taken multiple hostages, have basically all the keys to the facility, riot gear, a cutting torch, and literal piles of drugs and chemicals. The most dangerous inmates have all been released, the facility is on fire, and inmates have started slaughtering each other.Graphic violence ahead. Worse than the last update. REPORTER: What was it like in there? INMATE: Man, what can I tell you? It was like the devil had his own butcher shop, and you could get any cut you wanted. Cellblock 4 was anxious. For hours, they could hear the jail erupting into chaos all around them. The south half of block 4 could see inmates in cellblock 3 being released, and they could hear the inmates causing havoc and getting closer. Initially, most of cellblock 4 felt that any riot would be quickly crushed by authorities. They could see local and state police securing the perimeter of the jail outside. The inmates were not aware that part of the demands of the rioting inmates was that the officers not rush the facility, or they would start killing hostages. Cellblock 4 was also a maximum security block, but it was specifically built for protective segregation for inmates that were not safe to be with the prison’s general population. These were inmates you would typically associate with protective segregation- Weak inmates that had been attacked physically or sexually in the past, suspected or known child molesters and child killers, mentally ill inmates, and an increasingly large population of inmates that the administration had been leaning on to be prison informants. The biggest issue is that most of the known snitches had all been in situations where other inmates could easily deduce who had leaked information. Cellblock 4 was also used to house inmates in transit to other facilities, and more recently as general overflow. Cellblock 4 was designed to hold 90 inmates. On February 2, there were 96 inmates housed there. At 7 am, minutes before sunrise, a group of inmates that were referred to as an “execution squad” cut through the last bar they needed to gain entry to cellblock 4. At the same time on the south wing of the facility, a man had stolen away from the violent and drugged mob to check on an inmate he had a fondness for in Dormitory E-1, which was still locked. E-1 was a semi-protective custody area, with weaker inmates held inside. The inmate that had come down to E-1 had mutually beneficial lover in the dorm, and he brought with him a three-foot long wrench from the plumbing repair shop in the basement for the inmates to use to aid in a possible escape. The generous inmate was found outside the dormitory by a group of inmates, and this man was also considered a snitch. Inmates in E-1 watched as the man was hauled away, screaming: “I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it!” His now eyeless body was found outside the control center, his body had sustained at least 50 stab wounds from a Phillips-head screwdriver. The inmates in E-1 wasted no time and used the sizable wrench to break a window out of their living space and escape into the freezing grey light just before the sun rose. 84 inmates in E-1 would be the first to surrender and escape into the prison yard. Meanwhile, inmates inside cellblock 4 started attempting to jam the locks on their cells or tie them closed. Others attempted to disguise their identities by tying cloth over their faces. Inmates started using their lights to signal SOS to authorities. The execution squad entered cellblock 4 and started screaming out the names of their intended targets. Others chanted “Kill the snitches.” The inmates in block 4 looked on in horror as the last of the bars protecting them from a bloodthirsty mass of drugged killers was cut through. Many inmates cowered in their cells. Inside the block, all that could be heard were screams for help and the sound of an inmate reading loudly from a bible as the armed horde advanced; and the police sat idly by within view of the victims. Cellblock 4 had a back door; authorities were at this time well aware of the intended harm to come to the inmates in 4, as the rioters had been broadcasting their intentions via the seized radios. A plan had been formulated to free the inmates via the back door, as Tower 1, the main guard tower, was required to have a master key set to the entire facility. When the keys were reached, officers learned that the keyring was incomplete. They had a key to the back door of cellblock 4, but almost laughably they did not have a key to the inside grate of the back door. Inside the cellblock, members of the execution squad paced up and down the corridors, marking out the cells they needed “the cutting crew” to open with their torches. Some of the squad was impatient to get revenge and having access to solvents and flammable liquids, would go cell to cell throwing cups of flammables into the cells of their victims and igniting them. Several victims would have “carbon monoxide poisoning” as the cause of death. Others were not so lucky as to have that be the cause of death. Targeted inmates had their cells torched open, inmates were dragged from their cells and were stabbed and bludgeoned to death, their bodies unceremoniously thrown from the railings into the basement of cellblock 4, where most of the bodies were recovered.  The first victim in cellblock 4 was beaten to death and thrown over the railings of a catwalk into the basement. A blood-thirsty inmate followed the body down to the basement and found a shovel. He used it to mutilate the body and drive it into the man’s genitals. Above, another man, still alive, was thrown over the railings, but he had a rope looped around his neck. He fell for two stories before reaching the end of the rope, and the force of the impact nearly ripped his head off his body. He was dragged back up and his body repeatedly slashed. Outside the facility, a tower guard could hear an odd whistling noise from inside cellblock 4. Using a pair of binoculars he came across the source of the noise- a group of inmates holding down a victim, another inmate with a cutting torch using the flame on the man’s face. When the torch was applied to his eyes, his head exploded. The inmates then used the torch on the man’s genitals, slashed and mutilated his body, and finally set his corpse on fire. When his body was recovered, the remains weighed less than 50 pounds. One inmate, while awaiting what could only seem an inevitable execution, managed to rip a metal ventilation duct cover from his cell. When the mob came for him, he swung the grate at his attackers, injuring several before he was struck in the head with a hammer and fell. He is only conscious enough to scream before he has the torch used on him. A nearby inmate would later recount to police, “I could smell it, man. They were burning him!”  Other inmates were dragged from their cells and brutally dismembered. One inmate was taken into a hallway and decapitated with an axe. The tool strike marks were later filled in, but are still visible to this day.  Yet others were removed and killed, their bodies heaped into the facility’s gymnasium and their remains torched in a makeshift pyre.  Other victims didn’t leave permanent marks on the facility, but were killed in ludicrously brutal ways. One man was found hanged from the railings of a cell block, his neck had been slit, his genitals removed and stuffed into his own throat. Victims were nearly all dismembered in some way, most of whom were cut apart after being slaughtered. Bodies were found with the word “RATA” carved into their chests or foreheads, gruesome slashes cut into their faces in a mocking facsimile of whiskers. The slaughter and violence came in waves, and after the initial targets were eliminated, the killings became more random over the duration of the riot. Officially, 33 inmates were killed, with more than 200 suffering severe injuries and/or drug overdoses. Unofficially, inmates have reported several more deaths that were not made public, including lists of locations where bodies were stuffed that never made it into the official report. [Next: The Dead]
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Jun 26, 2016 06:14
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Chichevache posted:Has Mythbusters ever tested whether or not a torch could make a human skull pop? That stood out to me and I wasn't sure if a traumatised witness imagined it, or if the right conditions could, what? Boil the brain and increase pressure until the skull burst like Scanners? Pharnakes posted:Surely the eye sockets and temples would act as pressure relief valves before that happened. Maybe he saw an eyeball bursting? One would think. I paused before adding this one, but did so after the considerations that: 1. It was a tower guard that witnessed it; 2. It appears in multiple sources, some more dramatic than others. Belive me, my description is more tame in tone; 3. I think the "whistling sound" may have been from pressure relief. You have to take into account this torch wasn't a gentle flame or the wide destructive flame of a flamethrower, but a concentrated, powerful flame used to cut through metal. I don't have a hard time imagining that it would flash boil a section of brain and fluid fast enough to cause a pressure release in the form of a quickly cracked skull.
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Jun 26, 2016 14:41
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Droogie posted:One would think. I paused before adding this one, but did so after the considerations that:
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Jun 26, 2016 14:42
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Business of Ferrets posted:I always assumed the cutting jet would have penetrated straight through, providing the effect. We may never really know! PREVIOUSLY: Cellblock 4 has been broken into, and the prison is thick with both smoke and the screams of inmates being hunted down and brutally murdered. Several inmates use this time to escape and surrender to authorities. The Dead What follows is just some quick, light reading for a Sunday morning. this is a list of those officially declared dead, and it comes straight from the state's official report. I've paired it down to: Name - age - Location of body - cause of death. Anything in quotation marks is my own doing, just to highlight some of the official report. Given the array of tools and weapons available, you can probably fill in the rest.  Briones, Michael – 22 –Found in basement of cellblock 4 – “Foreign object through head” Cardon, Lawrence C. – 24 – Cellblock 3, Cell 32 – Multiple stab wounds, neck & chest Coca, Nick – 30 – Hispanic – Officer’s Mess Hall – Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Fierro, Richard J. – 26 – Carried to tower 1 – Multiple stab wounds Foley, James C. – 19 – Carried to tower 1 – Cranocerebral injuries Gossens, Donald J. – 23 – Cellblock 4, Cell 35 – Cranocerebral injuries Hernandez, Phillip C. – 30 – Cellblock 4 basement – Blunt trauma to head, stab wounds Jaramillo, Valentino E. – 35 – Cellblock 4, mid-tier, cell 23 – Hanged Johnson, Kelly E. – 26 – Gymnasium – Burned Lucero, Steven – 25 – School Corridor – Blunt Trauma to head, stab wounds Madrid, Joe A. – 38 – Near control center – Blunt trauma to head, incision in neck Madrid, Ramon – 40 – Cellblock 4, Cell 25 – Burned Martinez, Archie M. – 25 – Carried to tower 1 – Trauma to the head Mirabal, Joseph A. – 24 – Cellblock 4 basement – Blunt trauma to the head Moreno, Ben G. – 20 – Carried to tower 1 – Blunt trauma to the head Moreno, Gilbert O. – 25 – Near control center – Stab wound in chest, trauma to head O’Meara, Thomas – 25 – Gymnasium – Burned Ortega, Filiberto M. – 25 – Gymnasium – Burned Ortega, Frank J. – 20 – Carried to tower 1 – “Incised wound to head and neck” Paul, Paulina – 36 – Brought to front gate – “Multiple stab wounds, decapitated” Perrin, James – 34 – Cellblock 4 basement – “Trauma, burned, stabbed” Quintela, Robert L. – 29 – Near control center – Blunt trauma to head, stab wounds Rivera, Robert L. – 28 – Corridor Dorms A-F – “Stabbed in the heart” Romero, Vincent E. – 34 – Cellblock 4 basement, cell 41 – Cranocerebral injuries, wounds in neck Russell, Herman D. – 26 – Dorm A1, bottom floor – burned carbon monoxide poisoning Sanchez, Juan M. – 22 – Cellblock 3, lower tier, cell 12 – “Shot by tear gas gun, head trauma” Sedillo, Frankie J. – 31 – Carried to tower 1, - Carbon Monoxide poisoning Smith, Larry W. – 31 – Cellblock 4, front entry – Cranocerebral injuries Tenorio, Leo J. – 25 – Cellblock 4, front of cell 76 – “Stab wounds to heart” Urioste, Mario – 28 – Cellblock 4, main entry – Blunt trauma to head, rope around neck Waller, Danny D. – 26 – Carried to tower 1 – Multiple stab wounds, cranocerebral injuries Werner, Russel M. – 22 – Catholic Chapel – Carbon monoxide poisoning, burned, blunt trauma to head  Skull of one of the inmates killed with teargas launcher NEXT: Winding down
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Jun 26, 2016 16:34
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ToastFaceKillah posted:So extreme heat from a torch could have maybe been hot enough to pop a skull. I think this is closer to what happened. What the guy witnessed was probably an explosion to him, but I think "explosion" is probably closer to "sudden split"
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Jun 26, 2016 17:16
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