Bones of 11 victims 2-9-09, (11 ID'd) Albuquerque, NM

[annalyzer]

http://kob.com/article/stories/S788780.shtml?cat=500

Posted at: 02/13/2009 4:43 PM
Updated at: 02/13/2009 5:47 PM

Search continues for two bodies on West Mesa

Searchers continue looking for remains Friday on the West MesaAlbuquerque police said their search for human remains on the West Mesa is now focused on five small areas where they are hoping to find the rest of the bodies of two women.

Their partial remains were found earlier this month along with the remains of Victoria Chavez, who went missing in 2004.

APD Chief Ray Schultz said searchers worked Friday with shovels and rakes to comb through the desert.

Detectives and investigators from the office of the medical examiner are searching the lot near Dennis Chavez and 118th with five new areas of focus.

"We've identified five sites that looks like the ground was disturbed where someone had actually been doing some digging back at that point in time," Schultz said.

Using satellite pictures, police said the ground at those five sites was disturbed in 2004 and 2005.

Victoria Chavez, whose body was found on the mesa earlier this month, went missing in 2004.

Police have found the partial remains of two more women who haven't been identified. They are hoping to find the rest of their bodies in the five target sites--which are 20 yards apart and measure four feet squared.

"Through the photographs we can see just a couple of ruts ,so it looks like somebody had driven off on that area several time," Schultz said.

Using large ground scrapers and tractors, police are hoping to uncover the rest of the remains, but they said they are looking for more bodies.

"Through the photographs we can see just a couple of ruts so it looks like somebody had driven off on that area several time," Schultz said.

Police said they have 24 missing persons cases that fit the profile of the remains of the two women on the West Mesa. There are dental records for 17 of those cases that could help police identify the two women.

[annalyzer]

http://kob.com/article/stories/S790075.shtml?cat=516

Posted at: 02/15/2009 9:18 AM
Updated at: 02/15/2009 9:55 AM

Police expect to find more bodies on West Mesa

The search for human remains on the West Mesa entered its second week Sunday with three sets already found and body parts from even more people expected to be uncovered.

Searchers spent eight hours at the Albuquerque site Saturday. Up until this weekend, police were only able to scrape the surface. But Saturday, heavy machinery was employed--and it paid off.

Front-end loaders did heavy lifting, dumping hundreds of pounds of sand through sifters. The machines helped searchers uncover more human remains--some nine feet below the surface.

APD spokeswoman Nadine Hamby said the department is in a new phase in the search with the addition of the heavy machinery.

"We were using shovels and rakes and we weren't able to go down very far," she said. "But now we have have heavy machinery so we're able to go down several feet to see what we find down there."

Police said the remains were inadvertently buried by crews working on nearby housing developments.

Crews have also been helped out by satellite imagery, which pinpointed areas where there have been major shifts in the sand.

Saturday was the second day in a row searchers found skeletal remains. Hamby said the bones will go to the office of the medical investigator to determine whom they belong to. It is possible the remains are of an as-yet identified person.

Police have three known sets of body parts. One person who has been identified is Victoria Chavez. It was her body's discovery that led to the find of two other bodies.

Police say those two un-identified bodies could be any one of 24 missing persons. About 17 of those cases have dental records that could help police with identification.

Police now hope they won't find any new bodies--but know they probably will.

[AmyE]

Cops find more bones, 5 possible graves

Updated: Friday, 13 Feb 2009, 6:03 PM MST
Published : Friday, 13 Feb 2009, 5:52 PM MST

Reporter: Michael Paluska
Web Producer: Devon Armijo
ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Investigators digging through an area on Albuquerque's West Mesa, where police found the remains of three women last week, made a new discovery Friday.

The latest remains were uncovered in the area where satellite images showed there might be more graves.

Police said satellite photos show that five sports appear to be shallow graves, and while digging in that area Friday—they found more human remains.

Albuquerque Police have a lot of ground to cover. Last week, the bodies of three women were found on the West Mesa.

One woman, former prostitute Victoria Chavez, was identified through dental records.

Partial skeletons of two other women were also found, but the rest of their remains are still hidden in the large mesa.

Police Chief Ray Schultz said that police have gone high tech in their quest to find them.

"The main thing first of all is that we use GPS technology to line up the maps so we know we are in the right spot," Schultz said.

Schultz said identifying the women is crucial to find out if the women's deaths are connected.

The five possible grave sites are only 20 yards away from each other; they are also only a few feet across.

The process to unearth more bones or bodies, even with heavy machinery, is tedious.

"The heavy equipment comes in breaks up the ground because it has been compacted and then we have detectives go in by hand with racks and shovels," Schultz said.

Searchers found a number of bones from animals. Forensic experts were on site Friday to help.

"Having the office of the medical investigator on site is good for us because if we find bones they can tell us very quickly it could possibly be human or rule those out," Schultz said.

The bones found Friday were taken to the Office of the Medical Investigator. Pathologists will determine if they belong to the previously discovered remains, or if they belong to another body.

The police will continue their search Saturday.

Police will have patrols on the ground and in the air to protect the area from being disturbed.



http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/crime/c...s_200902131751

[AmyE]

Police expect to find more bodies on West Mesa

Posted at: 02/15/2009 9:18 AM
Updated at: 02/16/2009 7:31 AM

The search for human remains on the West Mesa entered its second week Sunday with three sets already found and body parts from even more people expected to be uncovered.

Searchers spent eight hours at the Albuquerque site Saturday. Up until this weekend, police were only able to scrape the surface. But Saturday, heavy machinery was employed--and it paid off.

Front-end loaders did heavy lifting, dumping hundreds of pounds of sand through sifters. The machines helped searchers uncover more human remains--some nine feet below the surface.

APD spokeswoman Nadine Hamby said the department is in a new phase in the search with the addition of the heavy machinery.

"We were using shovels and rakes and we weren't able to go down very far," she said. "But now we have have heavy machinery so we're able to go down several feet to see what we find down there."

Police said the remains were inadvertently buried by crews working on nearby housing developments.

Crews have also been helped out by satellite imagery, which pinpointed areas where there have been major shifts in the sand.

Saturday was the second day in a row searchers found skeletal remains. Hamby said the bones will go to the office of the medical investigator to determine whom they belong to. It is possible the remains are of an as-yet identified person.

Police have three known sets of body parts. One person who has been identified is Victoria Chavez. It was her body's discovery that led to the find of two other bodies.

Police say those two un-identified bodies could be any one of 24 missing persons. About 17 of those cases have dental records that could help police with identification.

Police now hope they won't find any new bodies--but know they probably will.



http://kob.com/article/stories/S790075.shtml?cat=516

[Nut44x4]

Scientists tackle mystery of the bones
Only one set of remains ID'ed
Updated: Monday, 16 Feb 2009, 11:46 PM MST

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Medical investigators continue to examine the skeletal remains discovered over the last two weeks on Albuquerque's West Mesa hoping to answer key questions for Albuquerque police.

The mystery deepened over the weekend with the discovery of more human bones at a subdivision site in southwest Albuquerque.

Investigators last week revealed some of the remains belong to Victoria Chavez, 23, a known prostitute who was last seen in 2003. But they have not yet been able to identify the remains of at least two more women.

That is now the job of the Office of the Medical Investigator.

"You can really learn an awful lot from human remains," Heather Edgar, a University of New Mexico biological anthropologist, told News 13.

Forensic pathologists can determine a person's age, sex and cause of death if the appropriate parts of a skeleton are collected, Edgar said.

"If you had a complete pelvis, and you had the appropriate training, you should be able to estimate the sex of the individual correctly about 90 percent of the time," she said pointing to casts of hip bones inside her lab at UNM's Maxwell Museum of Anthropology.

But things can get complicated when it comes to determining a person's cause of death.

"Sometimes you can, and sometimes you can't," Edgar said. "It really depends on how they died."

Bullet holes, stab marks and dents on the bones can identify how a person died, but that's not always the case, according to Edgar.

Albuquerque police still don't know how Chavez died. Medical investigators used dental records to identify her.

OMI's chief medical investigator told News 13 forensic pathologists continue to examine the remains and work closely with police, who will continue digging at the West Mesa site on Tuesday.

http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/crime/c...s_200902162335

[packy]

Now that one has been ID'd, I hope they can get a lead.

[annalyzer]

http://www.kvia.com/Global/story.asp?S=9860759&nav=AbC0

Police find more bodies in the desert

Associated Press - February 17, 2009 6:15 PM ET

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Albuquerque police have confirmed that bones from three more bodies have been uncovered in the desert west of the city, bringing the total to six bodies found in the last two weeks.

The remains were uncovered in a 100-square-foot area of an under-construction housing development after police were called by hikers who found some bones.

One set of bones has been identified as belonging to Victoria Chavez, a known prostitute and drug user. Chavez was last seen in 2003 and was reported missing in 2004.

Police say the other five sets of remains were sent to the Office of the Medical Investigator for identification.

Police believe one person may be responsible for burying the bodies at the site.

[annalyzer]

http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/crime/c...s_200902171640

West Mesa yields three more skeletons

Investigators still digging

Updated: Tuesday, 17 Feb 2009, 4:45 PM MST
Published : Tuesday, 17 Feb 2009, 4:44 PM MST

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - The number of skeletal remains found on Albuquerque's West Mesa doubled Tuesday with the revelation investigators have found enough bones for six people.

And they say this may not be the end. Investigators said they fear there could be more remains buried on the site recently scraped clear for subdivision development.

The Office of the Medical Investigator reported recovering the bones of two people over the weekend. Then on Tuesday Albuquerque police said they found enough bones for one more person.

That brings the total to six people found on the site since a woman walking her dog near Sen. Dennis Chavez and 118th Street SW found a single human bone two weeks ago.

The initial three sets of remains are female, according to investigators. There was no immediate word on the gender of the recent discoveries.

OMI used dental records to identify one set of remains as Victoria Chavez, a known prostitute last seen in 2003. However medical investigators, unable to identify the two other people found last week, have asked families of missing women to submit medical and dental records to OMI.

Using satellite images police last week identified five possible graves, but that number has now grown, Albuquerque Chief of Police Ray Shultz said Tuesday.

"Going through some additional mapping that we found, we've now found seven spots that look like the ground's been disturbed," Schultz said. "So obviously we still have some additional digging that we need to do out there over the next couple days.

"We do have six bodies thus far."

Police said the skeleton of the sixth body is complete and that they hope to use teeth to identify the person.

Medical investigators have yet to determine the cause of death for any of the remains.

Investigators believe the bodies were buried in 2004 or 2005.

[Micky_Spill]

http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=6890503&page=1

There are three pages at link, best story yet.

[Nut44x4]

Bones of 6 bodies found in New Mexico desert
List of possible victims includes 16 missing Albuquerque prostitutes

updated 3:57 a.m. ET, Wed., Feb. 18, 2009
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Bones from six bodies have been uncovered in the desert west of Albuquerque during the past two weeks, and police said Tuesday they were likely put there by one person.

As detectives shore up their list of suspects, the list of possible victims is growing to include a group of 16 prostitutes who went missing from Albuquerque between 2001 and 2006 and others reported missing to other area law enforcement agencies.

Of the six sets of remains, only one has been identified through dental records provided by the family of Victoria Chavez when they reported her missing in 2004. Police said her remains were found intact in a grave 18 inches (46 centimeters) deep without clothing or any other items.

Bones from the other five bodies, the most recent of them recovered Tuesday, were scattered across a 100-square-foot (9.3-square-meter) area recently leveled by bulldozers building a housing community. Police were alerted to the site by hikers who spotted some bones two weeks ago.

Albuquerque homicide Sgt. Carlos Argueta said some of the victims were likely transient drug addicts and prostitutes — women who often don't have family members who report them missing.

Argueta said his detectives are looking at a few suspects in connection with Chavez's case. Two suspects — Fred Reynolds and Lorenzo Montoya — are dead.

Reynolds, 60, was an Albuquerque area pimp who was found dead of natural causes in January. Police say he had pictures of some of the missing prostitutes in his home.

Montoya, 39, was shot and killed in 2006 after he killed a 19-year-old prostitute, Sherika Hill, and tried to stuff her nude body in the trunk of his car. Her pimp, parked outside his trailer waiting for Hill, shot Montoya.

Even if the victims are identified, Argueta said, determining the cause of death from skeletal remains can be difficult.

"But we have to investigate these cases for these women and for their families. This was someone's daughter," he said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29247408/