When a hiker found a skeleton and a sun-bleached plastic purse in the desert in 1994, he had no idea he had just cracked open a seven-year-old missing persons case. The body of Helen Torres Chavez had been baked by the sun and gnawed by animals for years in the desolation of the Alamo Reservation. Her family had been looking for her all this time, not realizing she lay so near.
Chavez vanished on July 12, 1987. Her last moments seemed to set up for a very violent death. She had attended the Old Timer’s Reunion dance in Magdalena, wearing a pair of heels she had borrowed from her sister. At the dance, she met up with Gilbert Espinosa, though their relationship is not quite clear. In a tiny town like Magdalena, everyone knows everyone. The two went to the West Bar for some fun after the dance, but their fun was short-lived as they soon got into an argument. They left the bar together and Chavez was never seen again.
Fast forward to 1994. Juan Gutierrez was exploring near Mile Marker 2 of Highway 169. This is a little highway that starts in Magdalena, leads out to the Alamo Navajo reservation, and ends on I40. Gutierrez stumbled upon some women’s high heels and a gray plastic purse among the desert grasses and brush. He searched around for the owner and found some sun-whitened bones and part of a human skull. Freaked out, he called the police.
The State Police took over the investigation and were frustrated by the lack of identifying documents in the purse. The coroner who did the autopsy on the remains concluded they had been out there for two years, which oddly doesn’t fit with Chavez’s 1987 disappearance. Was the coroner wrong or was Chavez held alive somewhere for a few years before dying? The cause of death was undetermined but it was thought to be homicide.
Chavez’s sister quickly recognized the shoes as the pair she had lent her sister. She also identified the gray plastic purse as her sister’s. But due to other questions in the case, such as the length of time the body had been out in the desert, the bones were not officially declared to be that of Helen Torres Chavez. She would not be officially identified until 2012, when mitochondrial DNA indicated a high probability of relation to her sister.
This case has never really solved. Gilbert Espinosa passed away from a gangrene infection before justice could be served. He was the sole suspect in the case, so the case was closed in August of 2012.
While it seems pretty obvious he did it, there is room for that question, “What if something else happened?” I think at least some investigation should have been done to determine if there were any other suspects. Espinosa seems like a strong suspect. But what if Chavez got away from him that night and then someone else hurt her? What if Espinosa was the culprit but he had accomplices who are still alive and who could still face justice? Some answers about what happened to Chavez and why her body had only been in the desert for two years when she had been missing for seven years would be nice for her family.
https://www.abqjournal.com/121539/magdalena-cold-case-from-1994-closed.html