dateline west mesa murders; 3 Jun, 2022 dateline west mesa murders Julie Gonzales, the sister of Daniel Wozniak, the California theater actor accused of beheading his neighbor, Army vet Sam Herr, and his friend Juri "Julie" Kibuish, in Costa Mesa six years ago, is the focus of Dateline NBC tonight. Fred Reynolds was a pimp who knew one of the missing women and reportedly had photos of missing sex workers; he died of natural causes in January 2009. do you think you'll ever find them? >> reporter: this michelle according to her sister camille was an all-american girl with a future as bright as the new mexico sun. for all-day, all-night protection. and what we hope to happen is that someone that's had an encounter with this killer will. >> reporter: but that unfortunately will never happen. West Mesa Serial Killer Photos. >> reporter: dan continued to cruise the war zone, willing himself to believe that his daughter was still out there. davy. michelle had just turned 20. a milestone that was not lost on mother or child. glad i could help. do not use if you are allergic to dupixent. it was a time when a sinister force seemed to be snatching women off the streets of new mexico's largest city. so you have to recreate and you have to kind of go back in the time machine, so to speak, to that era or that time in these people's lives. The investigation led the detective to discover at least 17 more similar cases of missing women, whom she referred to as "her girls.". >> reporter: the total body count stayed at 11 sets of adult remains and one fetus. >> oh, yeah. >> and whatever you tell us, it's no judgment at all. Between 2001 and 2005, 11 women were buried by an unknown assailant in an arroyo bank on Albuquerque's West Mesa, in an undeveloped area within city limits. FULL EPISODE: Somebody's Daughter - NBC News All went missing between 2003 and 2005. However, the West Mesa murders might have changed that in Albuquerque. -what a sign, huh? bill's back needed a afvacation from his vacation. "You have to know people, their names and what they look like to know people are missing," she said. protection. Call the 118th Street Task Force at 1-877-765-8273 or (505) 768-2450. >> reporter: an impromptu. University of Idaho murders on 'Dateline' 2-hour special im i remember that. >> reporter: over the years ida's list of the lost had grown to include close to two dozen women who fit the same basic profile -- young drug-addicted hispanic women who were known to wander the gritty streets of albuquerque's war zone. Syllania Edwards, also 15, was the only one not from New Mexico. >> 35 to 50? Albuquerque murder mystery: Who is the West Mesa killer? >> did you notice when the girls were going missing? and all but one, a juvenile, had lengthy arrest records for drugs or prostitution. >> on the way back from arizona to here she promised, i'm not going to hang out with the same people, i'm going to do things different and you're going to be proud of me again, and then she bails two hours after she's home. >> a lot of people said they were drug addicts and prostitutes. >> yeah. >> it was a problem. if you don't have faith in your law enforcement to treat everybody equal, then what do you have? >> reporter: it was in denver, another city on the circuit, that detective todd babcock hit paydirt. -oh, what am i into? a camera might figure it out. and i'm happy and satisfied with that. and detective ida lopez, who'd had their names on her list of missing women. a.p. but the detectives knew simply finding the bones in the first place had been an incredibly lucky break. The case reportedly began in 2005 when Lopez was handed files of a few missing women, one of whom was a 25-year-old prostitute named Michelle Valdez from New Mexico's largest city, Alberquerque. but one name stood out. Police had also received a report of domestic violence from Montoya's girlfriend, who claimed he beat her and did "gross things" to her that she didn't want to elaborate on in the report. for the detective who'd long maintained that everybody counts, the existence of that kind of reward was a sign of progress. >> on the surface seems like a pretty good suspect. i mean $9000! >> this is michelle. definitely. advil pm. now, more than five years after the discovery of bones on the west mesa, albuquerque police are certain of only one thing. aleve pm. "Dateline NBC" Plot Twist (TV Episode 2016) - IMDb Discovery near mass gravesite leads to fears of more victims in what's going on out here? Ive been looking for a cast on yhis case. the killer, whoever he was, and police naturally assumed the killer was male, had a five-year head start. >> so this guy takes photographs of the part of town that you're sort of looking at. Darlene Trujillo, who was last seen July 5, 2001, and included Sonia Lente, who disappeared on Oct. 3, 2002. click, call, or visit a store today. >> reporter: for the detectives who were trying to catch a serial killer those remains represented a wild card with staggering implications. A&E reported how the group burial had all the hallmarks of a serial killer's actions.According to the Associated Press, February 2, 2022, marked the 13th . it was my gateway to making contact with her and seeing her in person. that they're actually doing okay. >> reporter: they strolled out of her new subdivision, one of many that had recently sprouted up in the desert west of albuquerque, and then over to an abandon construction site, where christine let ruca off the leash to run. >> he was going to let her stay with us. Since 2009, families of some victims have stressed publicly that the women and girls were loved. found her and she's not alive. >> reporter: one of those women, safira mora, was found alive and well a few weeks after this story first aired in december 2010. right now the killer, if he's still alive, has plenty of it. >> reporter: those were long nights, filled with bittersweet memories of michelle the way she used to be, before the drugs took over. -what teach here isn't telling you is that snapshot rewards safe drivers with discounts on car insurance. and so this case was going nowhere. they use stamps.com all the services of the post office only cheaper get a 4-week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again. so i would tell her, you know, mean things. >> then in february 2009 came unsettling news. Despite the jewelry, underwear, and other evidence that appeared to connect him to the case including the testimony of a former cellmate who said that Blea claimed to have known and hired the West Mesa victims and called them "trashy" police have still been unable to conclusively tie him to the murders. Police have offered a $100,000 reward for anyone offering evidence leading to the discovery of the person the media came to call the West Mesa Bone Collector. sad but common, especially for these dark streets where drug addiction and prostitution literally go hand in hand. The 11th, meanwhile, was 15-year-old Jamie Barela. Dateline NBC - Police on Long Island, New York, have | Facebook she said, michelle. >> i just always felt that they were going to be together. every chance that i had i had the videotape there. The process repeated itself in more or less the same way about five years later. >> so you were being a father all over again. 12-year-old daughter, angelica. At first, it was like any other Monday night, but Feb. 2, 2009, would stick with Christine Ross forever. eventually, ida and the cold case detective were able to persuade the department to let them form an unofficial task force, where once a month they met with other agencies, including the fbi. >> we approached the vehicle, opened the door. Promising leads became dead ends with every cleared suspect. mostly progressive's name your price tool. >> what we see very often is the women involved in prostitution work in what's called the circuit. Daniel Wozniak (murderer) 1 language Talk Read Edit View history Daniel Patrick Wozniak (born March 23, 1984) is a former American community theatre actor who was convicted of two counts of murder in September 2016. In 2005, she was handed two missing persons files including missing 25-year-old Michelle Valdez,. Still, authorities have not given up. oh, i've had 17. i've been choked. Joseph Blea (left) and Lorenzo Montoya (right). we have to look into it. the odds were good that syllania edwards, like the others, had simply strolled out into the war zone and climbed into the wrong car. michelle's little girl angelica was now the center of attention. Lopezs alma mater) who has written several books on serial killings, said: You cant have a colder cold case, Gibson said. >> the response was amazing. served. >> it was real hard because you know, i'd be circling the block. i used to live actually behind there when i was in college. >> yeah. after months of digging for bones in the desert west of albuquerque, detectives desperately wanted to get on with the work of catching a killer. and it's almost frustrating because you look at this picture, and you see the disturbed earth which later we learned are grave sites, and you see the tire tracks. (NBC) "Dateline NBC" will air a two-hour special Friday on the latest in the investigation into the murders of the University of Idaho students Ethan . bring in your own phone, switch to xfinity mobile and save hundreds of dollars a year. >> missing persons is kind of a backwater in a lot of departments. and the baby. >> we all had a common denominator. >> was the man whose house you served a search warrant on, is he a suspect? Fifteen-year-old Syllania Edwards was identified as the only Black victim at the site, as well as the only one from out of state. Valdez was pregnant at the time of her death and her . with uncontrolled moderate-to-severe eczema, or atopic dermatitis, you feel like you're itching all the time. All they ever found, however, were the bones and DNA of 11 people. The West Mesa Serial Killer Satellite Photos - Transborder Media Paige Birgfeld, 34, was a well-liked . The police are asking for the public's help to identify the women. and every time the phone rang his heart stopped. >> i really thought he could be her killer. >> do you think we're dealing with one guy here? Her husband, Orlando Mesa, and 18-month-old son were shot just moments after the pair were captured on haunting surveillance camera enjoying the spring evening. Only one signficant discovery was made along the way, which is that they were all murdered. >> mommy's not a grownup anymore -- i mean, a teenager anymore. career. Then, Ruca found a bone resembling a femur. >> i start going out there and talking to the girls. tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems, including eye pain or changes in vision. - Investigation Discovery", "Sam Herr, Juri 'Julie' Kibuishi: 'The Perfect Murder' On Investigation Discovery Afghanistan War Vet, California Tutor Killed By Actor In Plot To Have Lavish Wedding", "48 Hours-Killer Performance - Video Dailymotion", "Unusual Suspects: Deadly Intent | Watch Full Episodes & More! that's why we're staying with homicidal violence. well, if they were, so be it. He said. this bone belonged to someone who had died in the not too distant past. >> lorenzo montoya. >> reporter: desiree gonzalez says she used to hang out on these streets and says she knew several of the missing women and had also heard those same rumors. and i kind of was wobbling a little bit, and ida consoled me a little bit and said it's okay, you know, it's okay. Ross wasnt sure the bone was human, but knew it could be. so, let's make this the summer of loving your gut. (danny) after a long day of hard work you have to do more work? bones started to get names. The serial murders of 11 women in the West Mesa area of Albuquerque will be featured in a two-hour edition of NBC's Dateline tonight. make that phone call to us and we can link that individual to these crimes that have occurred here in albuquerque. i'm supposed to be in ceramics. i didn't choose their lifestyle. By (61264) First Published: 1:46 PM PST, February 4, 2022 you know, my husband's got young kids to take care of. Dateline: Secrets Uncovered Snapped Murdered by Morning An Unexpected Killer Snapped: Killer Couples Final Moments Living with a Serial Killer Buried in the Backyard Killer Relationship with. Edwards was from Oklahoma, but was known to have been in Texas and Colorado before ending up in Albuquerque. He choked to death a prostitute at his home, then was shot by the . According to the El Paso Times, the presence of Syllannia Edwards among the victims has led authorities to believe that sex trafficking gangs could have been involved. >> no. i think he's been preying on his victims, has a particular victim in mind. Dateline : MSNBCW : July 20, 2019 12:00am-2:00am PDT - Internet Archive >> we went back starting in 2002, and we got the records from our local jail. if you are taking asthma medicines, do not change or stop your asthma medicine without talking to your doctor. the fall of 2005 was one of those times. By 2016, only one detective remained full-time on the case: Mark Marany. However, two names have been widely. pe reporter: the michelle valdez that appears in these home videos with her little sisters is a far cry from the thin, drug-wasted young woman police would later come to know and fingerprint. For homicide investigators, the case posed challenges from the start, said Dirk Gibson, a communications and journalism professor at the University of New Mexico who has authored numerous books on serial killings. and the newly organized families, which included everyone with a daughter on ida's list, began holding monthly vigils to keep public attention focused on finding all of the missing women. yeah. but guess what? Lorenzo Montoya was killed in 2006 at his South Valley home less than two miles from the West Mesa burial site. 2023 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. it's not the pretty woman. There has been little pressure on the police to investigate.. >> and if he is, it may only be a matter of time. Murder. >> what did doctors tell you? In the preceding decades he had tortured and killed around 40 other women, and Jaramillo knows her fate would have been the same had she not escaped. advantage ii, fight the misery of biting fleas. >> i know 100% that my daughter is not alive. after years of having only her rap sheet and her father's bittersweet memories to go on, ida lopez was now sure she knew where michelle valdez was. how can i help? In May 2010, Wozniak killed his neighbor and friend, Private First Class Samuel Eliezer "Sam" Herr, and Herr's friend, Juri "Julie" Kibuishi, as part of a plan to frame Herr for Kibuishi's murder and steal his combat pay. He was sentenced to death in September 2016 before California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a moratorium on capital punishment in the state. her aunt ran the streets, knew michelle, knew certain people, and they had heard it from her aunt. >> i didn't even -- i didn't even want to be around it anymore. 'Dateline' To Air Story on West Mesa Deaths - Albuquerque Journal - Investigation Discovery", "93 - Live At The Grove In Anaheim My Favorite Murder With Karen Kilgariff And Georgia Hardstark podcast", "20/20: 'The Final Act' Watch Full Episode", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Daniel_Wozniak_(murderer)&oldid=1142204623, Prisoners sentenced to death by California, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2018, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 02:21. didn't look like the normal animal bone you find out here. In 2005, Ida Lopez, an Albuquerque police detective, also noticed sex workers vanishing. >> she came over to the house one day, and i'd given her a few dollars, and she stood up. i said, "detective lopez just told us that your mother has been positively i.d. every time he saw her he marked the date down. Case 27: The West Mesa Bone Collector. there weren't just two women that were missing. They were between 15 and 32 years of age, most were Hispanic, and most were involved with drugs and sex work. so, let's make this the summer of loving your gut. Police also saw him stalking sex workers after the West Mesa murders. >> the hardest part of this whole thing is having to go to somebody's house and say we found her and she's not alive. >> reporter: ida says the stories she heard back then were heartbreaking tales of abuse and neglect that almost always had drugs at their core. Where do those women congregate. Many had gone into sex work or had run away from home years before they died. because deep within your skin an overly sensitive immune system could be the cause. >> did you see her then? >> no. The upcoming episode, titled Somebody's Daughter, will air on Oxygen on Tuesday, July 12, at 8:00 PM ET. All Rights Reserved. and she's alive. >> we had gotten a call from a family friend of ours that i grew up with, and you know, i pick up the phone and she's like, oh, my gosh, i'm sorry about your sister. i mean, that's not exactly, you know, the premier detective job. love for your gut. how did she get to albuquerque? and for them. a restless night's sleep. i noticed when she started seeing one of her boyfriends, you know. yes, i pray that they're okay. The police launched a manhunt for the prime accused, 45 yo Hemraj , a live-in domestic help employed by her family. >> you know, i just didn't know. The West Mesa Murders are the killings of eleven women whose remains were found buried in 2009 in the desert on the West Mesa of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States.Several suspects have been named, but none were arrested or charged. >> and under a desert sky the lost waited to be found. because, they suppose, all those earlier rumors about the women being abducted, killed, and dumped in the desert had to have started somewhere. but michelle eventually dropped out of school.mi for a while she tried to support herself and angelica with a series of minimum wage jobs but couldn't make ends meet. clustered within 20 yards of each other. >> i came out here looking for my cousin, and i bumped into cinnamon, and she had told me that -- that the girls were getting their heads cut off and tooken to the mesa. >> and just depending on where they're at, you wouldn't even see them up there. they had the big telescoping lenses. and ida says, "dan." >> i'm freeding. But most of the other victims vanished with even fewer details. >> not for you. so she did what every good detective does. also, again, it goes back to the lifestyle. so help heal your skin from within, with dupixent. proven better on pain. Watch Dateline Extra Online | Season 3 (2018) | TV Guide Download Dateline The Collector MP3 - Gaanamusic.live don't lie to me." >> possibly the killer? >> thin, wired out, strung out maybe. love for your gut. These are the eleven victims identified in as being found in the dumping ground in the West Mesa. >> you're asked to call 1-877- -- >> though the police tip line with hundreds of calls from a trail mix of nuts, kooks and the merely misguided -- >> detective babcock. cinnamon was a name on ida's list. >> we don't know if it's somebody that lives here or somebody that would just come back and frequent albuquerque on a regular basis. we came upon it, and it appeared to be a bone. >> the tv show "america's most wanted" was also at the crime scene today filming for next weekend's episode on the west mesa mystery. Dateline - NBC.com Compelling mysteries, powerful documentaries, in-depth investigations. but years later his death would be just as tough a break for detectives investigating the bodies found on the west mesa. Street Safe was founded in 2009, aiming to ensure volunteers kept a steady presence in an area along Historic Route 66 while handing out clothing and other products each Friday. The fact that all but one of the victims had links to sex work initially helped guide the police investigation for the serial killer they dubbed the West Mesa Bone Collector. But not even FBI profilers were able to find the killer. It plans to tie them to fencing near the crime scene Saturday ahead of a gathering to mark the anniversary. i know in my heart i didn't do the right thing, but i knew that the common sense of my brain said that i had to. Where to Watch Episode 2