Today I bring to you part 2 of the Unnamed, about unidentified decedents in New Mexico. Unidentified bodies keep getting discovered in our state, and law enforcement cannot keep up with them. Scrolling through NamUs for New Mexico is depressing. A lot of families out there are hurting for answers, and a lot of victims are waiting for their names back as they lie in mass graves or the drawers of the medical examiners’ office.
You can read part 1 here.
Let’s dive in with the bizarre New Mexico cold case of Cibola County John Doe…..
1960s Cibola County John Doe
In a case remarkably similar to Septic Tank Sam, a man called the Navajo Tribal Authorities in June 1996 and confessed to killing a man on the Navajo reservation between 1964 and 1967. He said he put the man’s body in his backyard in San Rafael, 4-5 feet deep under some railroad ties. Police dug up the backyard with a backhoe, and sure enough, they found a man. Well, what little was left of the man.
Later reports on NamUs say that the man was actually found inside a septic tank on August 26, 1996. However, original newspaper reports from the time say the man was buried under railroad ties in the man’s backyard on June 14, 1996. I’m not sure which is accurate. Other details are the same between the cases.
Police couldn’t tell much about this man, beyond the fact he was a Native American male, age 25-30, who once stood about 6’4″. There was some coarse woven tan fabric with the body as well as gray fibers thought to have come from a hairnet. He had been dead since around 1967, rotting in his murderer’s backyard.
The most bizarre detail about this case is that the murderer claimed he had no idea who his victim was. He also did not give a reason for killing him. The guilt must have eaten him alive, driving him to finally confess, but the question remains: How could he have done this and then lived with the knowledge of the body in his septic tank for almost 30 years?
The victim still needs his name back. If you know of a tall Navajo male who vanished around 1967, please volunteer that information to the Cibola County Sheriff’s Office at (505) 287-9476. Reference case #1996-3163.
I tried to find missing persons reports of a man matching those characteristics in New Mexico and Arizona with no success.There is a good chance this John Doe was never even reported missing. His loved ones may have thought he simply moved away to start a new life. It is also possible he was reported missing, but the police lost the missing person report, which happens in so many missing indigenous persons cases. Law enforcement has been notoriously terrible about keeping track of and filing missing persons reports for indigenous people.
2006 Valencia County John Doe
This case is a bizarre one. A baffling lack of details are available about it, as well.
On October 10, 2005, an older F-150 truck was found abandoned on the side of Hwy 116 and Main St., just outside of Belen. The truck was towed to a nearby salvage yard for storage. It sat in the yard unclaimed for months and nobody thought too much of it.
Then, on January 11, 2006, a couple came to look at the truck and the woman declared, “It’s still there!” The couple then paid for the truck’s storage fees and said they would return soon for it. They never did.
An employee who overheard this decided to look inside the truck and see what was still there. He found a mandible from someone’s skull on the floor of the cab. The mandible was believed to have come from a decedent who had not been dead for more than year.
The truck was registered to a woman in Belen who had used a fake address. The woman has never been tracked down. The person the mandible belonged to has never been identified, either.
If you know anything, please call the Valencia County Sheriff’s Office at 505-866-2400.
1988 Valencia County John Doe
This man was found dead from a shotgun blast to the head. His white wife beater tank top was soaked in blood and brain matter. His head was missing, presumably due to the shotgun blast, but his jawbone was eventually found a distance away from him. His feet were also missing but this is believed to be due to wildlife. He has never been identified.
He was believed to be Hispanic and in his late teens or early 20s. He has a lateral scar on the anterior of his wrist. He stood at about 5’11”. When he was found, he had been dead about 2 weeks to a month. He was clad in tan and gray Levi trousers (size 32-inch waist and 31-inch inseam), gray plaid Townsend short-sleeved shirt, socks, and underwear.
If you know anything, please call the Valencia County Sheriff’s Office at 505-866-2400.
1988 Child Skull in Valencia county
The skull of a child believed to be 13-14 years old was located off of Manzano Expressway in a desolate region of desert. The child is thought to either be a female or a very petite male. The facial structure is most similar to someone of Hispanic ancestry. The victim had been shot with .22 on both sides of the head. Some undescribed evidence was found near the skull that police felt could be used in identifying it.
Some people were hunting cow skulls when they made the macabre find. They reported the top of the skull was sticking out of the sand while the lower portion was still buried. The skull still had the mandible attached to it, which had flesh clinging to it – viable DNA!
Since the skull was located in 1988, it was promptly compared to Debra Lansdell and Tara Calico, who had both gone missing from the Belen area in recent years. Both missing women were ruled out via dental records. In the years since, there have been absolutely zero updates.
Was the skull ever compared to dental records or DNA for Patricia Joan Chester, Bucky Kephart, or one of the Sena children?
1994 Bernalillo County Jane Doe
UPDATE: As of 2024, this Jane Doe has been identified as Carmela Vivian Duran.
On January 21, 1994, highway cleanup crews located the skeleton of a Hispanic woman almost 3000 feet west of Mile Marker 152 on I40. The woman was estimated to be about 20-45 years old, yet she had a full set of upper acrylic dentures. That really stood out to me as an identifying factor. She once stood about 4’8″ to 5’2″ and she had brown hair. Due to decomposition, her eye color and skin color could not be determined. She had been dead about 1-2 years, meaning that she was really just bones and clothes.
Clothes found with her include white pedal pusher Trendsetter pants and a Puritan wool sweater with a dog sled and dogs on the front. She was also wearing a size 32 or 34 bra with lace on the tops of the cups and size 7 All Star athletic shoes. Just one ribbed calf-length sock was recovered with her bones.
She had a healing nasal fracture at the time of her death. This makes me think that she may have been a victim of domestic violence. The dentures may also have been a result of violence knocking her upper teeth out. This may point to a partner or husband killing her.
Sometime in the past year or so, this woman was finally identified! That is very exciting. But the police have not released her identity, perhaps at the request of her family. Even fewer details are available about her killer. So for now, she remains a Jane Doe on the web.
If you know anything, you can contact Wendy Honeyfield at 505-272-3053 or 505-925-0537 and reference Case #94-039470.
2015 Torrance County John Doe
On January 2, 2015, first responders responded to a trailer fire in Edgewood, NM. They discovered a propane tank in the kitchen that had caused the fire. Then they found a charred body in the bed. A revolver lay next to the body with one round spent. It is not known if this revolver was used to kill the victim or if he killed himself. The body was too far gone to determine cause or manner of death.
The weirdest thing is that this man is still unidentified. He was estimated to be about 74 and white. In the past, he had undergone some sort of trauma or surgery to his back. It seems bizarre that he could not be identified based on who owned or rented the trailer. Was he squatting in the trailer, or staying there temporarily? Surely the owner was investigated? Neighbors had no idea who he was, either, at least not that they would admit.
There is DNA on file so he may be identified eventually.
If you have any information, you can contact the Torrance County Sheriff’s Office at 505-544-4900.
Sandoval County John Doe:
https://www.namus.gov/UnidentifiedPersons/Case#/9796
https://unidentified-awareness.fandom.com/wiki/Cibola_County_John_Doe_(1996)
Mandible in the truck cab:
https://www.namus.gov/UnidentifiedPersons/Case#/8364
2015 Torrance County John Doe:
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[…] Welcome to Part 3 of my series on New Mexico unidentified bodies. Here are a few more cases that I think could be solved. Read my other posts on this topic: Part 1 and Part 2. […]