“Please help us find my mom!” pleads Samuel Hutton, the son of Lilly Lopez, who has been missing nearly two decades now.
In 2009, Lilly was first reported missing by her boyfriend, Michael Quintana. Quintana claimed that he and Lilly had gotten into a drunken argument and Lilly took off on foot while Quintana left to get more beer with his friend. He claims that when he returned, she was gone, without a trace. Well, there was one trace – one of her shoes was on the ditch bank where she had been walking when Quitana last saw her.
Quintana apparently waited four days for Lilly to come back. When her daughter called looking for her, he said he thought she was with her children, and then he called authorities and reported that she had possibly fallen into the ditch and been swept away.
Sheriff’s deputies dutifully drained the irrigation ditches of the area, which has a lot of agriculture, including grapes, hay, and chilies. There was no signs of Lopez despite thorough searches of Socorro County. No sign that she had slipped into the ditch, no sign of her caught in a culvert, no pieces of her hair or clothes or bones, nothing.
Except her other shoe was found in the back of Quintana’s Bronco. Whether this was the Bronco he drove to get beers, or just another vehicle sitting on his property, is unclear. Quintana claimed that he thought Lilly had maybe gone back to her ex or gone to stay with her kids and seemed surprised when her daughter called, asking to speak to her. He also seemed dumbfounded by this shoe in his vehicle. The magical disappearing girlfriend, right?
Lilly Lopez had five children. She was a loving, doting mother. However, she struggled with some intellectual disability and substance abuse, which is why she signed her parental rights for her children over to a foster mom. The children were adopted, but they still heard from their mother often. She always wanted to know if they were doing well and she always let them know that she loved them. Her son claims that she is not capable of living independently and would not have run away, abandoning her children like that.
The sheriff’s office claims that they are doing everything they can to find Lilly. Cadaver dogs were used to search the property without success.
Mysteriously, the case files for the investigation vanished, apparently into thin air. Sheriff William Armijo is trying to track them down. This seems like a strange thing to just disappear. It makes me wonder if perhaps Quintana, or the perpetrator, has kin in the sheriff’s office. Or if the sheriffs are really just that inept, and thus, incapable of solving this case, whatever really happened to Lilly.
Whatever did happen to Lilly, I highly doubt she just slipped into a ditch and disappeared forever. There are several people who miss Lilly and just want to know what happened to her. The person who is responsible for her disappearance does not deserve to just enjoy life without any repercussions for what they did.
If you know anything, please call the Socorro County Sheriff at (575) 835-0941.
Sources
https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/nm-lilly-lopez-33-polvadera-15-april-2009.324407/
https://www.abqjournal.com/17463/effort-to-find-missing-polvadera-woman-begins-anew.html