Have you ever been to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, better know as the Taos Gorge Bridge? The gorge is about twelve miles long and 650 feet deep, carved into the surrounding high desert by the Rio Grande. It lies about ten miles south of Taos.
Running across the Gorge is the famous Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, the fifth highest bridge in the US. Made of steel, this bridge stands 650 feet over the boulders and swirling water below and spans 1280 feet across the chasm. When the bridge was constructed in 1965, there was no funding to continue the state road on the other side, so now people called it the “Bridge to Nowhere.” Now you can drive across and park on either side to walk across sidewalks on either side of the Bridge. When bigger vehicles drive past, the whole Bridge trembles and it can be pretty nerve-wracking if you’re afraid of heights.
Nevertheless, it is really cool destination – a must-visit if you’re going to Northern NM.
The Rio Grande Bridge is beautiful, and a popular tourist destination for people who don’t mind heights. Tourists come here to hike, raft, tube, and take pictures from the Bridge and the chasm below. Vendors set up at the mouth of the bridge to sell jewelry, homemade soap, and other wares. They make good money because the Bridge sees thousands of tourists a year.
The best thing about the Bridge is that it is free to visit and it offers a wealth of activities and exploration. Plus, it is a bit of an adrenalin shock to look at the rushing river so far below your feet!
Copying the lover’s locks tradition of the River Seine in France, tourists like to put padlocks on the bridge’s mesh rails and then throw the key into the water below. There are hundreds of locks adorning the sides of the Bridge. If you visit, be sure to bring a lock, and feel free to put your initials on it!
The Bridge has been featured in many movies. It is actually the site of the wedding in Natural Born Killers, where Mallory (Juliette Lewis) throws her scarf down to float on the wind into the river. It was also featured in Easy Rider, Wild Hogs, Paul, and the tense chase scene in Terminator: Salvation.
The Dark Side of the Taos Gorge Bridge
But as cool as the Rio Grande Bridge is, there’s a dark side to it. With its low mesh guardrails, it is rather easy to jump off the bridge – or throw someone off it. A lot of people have committed suicide here. At least one person has been murdered that way, too. It is not possible to survive the six-story fall onto the dramatic rocks below.
Plus, the Rio Grande is a temperamental river, with water levels and currents that revolve around the seasons. It is possible to be mangled and mauled by the rushing current and carried far away, especially during its high level times.
When you visit the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, you will see phone banks, placed strategically along the mesh walls. These phones connect to the mental health crisis line for people who are contemplating a jump. This is the state’s feeble response to the fact that 50 suicides that have been documented at the Bridge since 1991. (The real number is believed to be much higher due to the fact not all jumpers are seen or found.)
Recently, a bill passed allocating $150,000 of state funds for safety and anti-jump measures on the Bridge. Those funds have not yet been appropriated. I’m not sure why making the Bridge safer is such a low priority, given the litany of tragedies that have occurred here. Now that the money is available, you would think that Taos County would start working on it immediately.
When I visited the Rio Grande Bridge, I felt my throat tighten as if someone had tied a noose around it. I thought it was because of the heights, though I’m not terribly afraid of heights. After all, I’ve jumped out of an airplane, leaned against the glass windows of the Washington Monument, tiptoed along the rim of the Grand Canyon, and ridden in both the tram and a hot air balloon over Albuquerque!
But then I realized the real reason my throat was tightening: the grief and horror and despair experienced by so many people that had once stood right where I stood. I got so distressed that I had to leave.
Let’s talk about the Rio Grande Bridge’s problematic lack of safety and the many lives it has claimed. Let this be a wake-up call that something needs to be done. The NM government has the funding, so they should use it already!
Juan Munoz – 2021
Juan Munoz’s body was found in May 2021 in the Rio Grande. The months between his February disappearance and his eventual discovery lends hope to the Crabtree and White investigations. His death is thought to be suicide, but there are a few weird circumstances that raise questions.
Juan Munoz was 20 and training for the National Guard. When his commanding officer noticed he didn’t show up for drill on February 21, a search began for the young man. Munoz’s car was eventually located at the Gorge with his wallet, keys, and ID inside. But his body was not found.
Munoz’s family members and the State Police searched the Gorge relentlessly on foot, with drones, and with rafts. But it would not be found until May 11, 2021, when a kayaker spotted his remains. Once his body was positively identified, it was sent off for autopsy results. But the cause of death already seemed obvious: he had died from the fall from the 600-foot Bridge.
Just a year before, Munoz’s girlfriend, sixteen-year-old Maria Cruz, had been killed by a drunk driver. The driver was Kylie Rae Harris, a country singer heading to a performance at the Big Barn Dance Music Festival. She had been hitting the sauce when she struck another vehicle and veered into oncoming traffic. Thus, she hit Cruz head-on and killed her. Harris also died herself that night, leaving behind a six-year-old daughter.
Then Munoz’s uncle and father figure, Javier Munoz, was killed in Taos. He was shot once in the stomach on October 20, 2020. He died later that night in the hospital. Martin Rivera (23) was charged with his murder. Rivera was a felon who had just gotten out of drug treatment and the murder was believed to be drug-related.
On top of these two tragedies, Munoz had also recently contracted Covid and appeared to have long Covid symptoms. Given the stress of early pandemic times, the awful symptoms of Long Covid, and the recent loss of his two loved ones, it is understandable that he fell into a deep depression. That’s why most people think he killed himself.
But his family does not believe that. His aunt, Miriam Munoz, says he was too responsible to do that. The family was alarmed to hear a security guard at the Bridge report Munoz pulled into the Bridge parking lot around 8:00 pm on February 20. Another car soon pulled up alongside him. Then that vehicle suddenly sped away really fast over the Bridge, toward Taos. For this reason, some think that Munoz was murdered. The family may be in denial, but the car detail is rather weird.
This is such a sad story. I think it is most likely that Munoz committed suicide. He would not be the first or the last to jump from the 650-foot-high bridge. He had so much to offer the world and so much life ahead of him. I am sad that he couldn’t go on and died instead. Please let’s not think of suicide victims as selfish people. Let’s instead think of them as ill and in pain and needing help. None of them deserve to die and none of them should be blamed for the pain that drives them to commit their final act. Even though it does hurt so, so many people that they leave behind.
Melissa Crabtree – 2020
A semi-famous musician from Taos, Melissa Crabtree vanished without a trace in 2020 and her car was found abandoned near the Taos Gorge. Unlike White, however, Crabtree was struggling with suicidal thoughts due to a recent Lyme Disease diagnosis that was impacting her mental health. Her body has never been found.
Crabtree was very familiar with the Gorge. She also was a musician who performed folk songs at the Taos Inn. Crabtree had a large social media following and was respected in the local music and outdoors scenes. In 1991, she became the first woman to do ski patrol at the Grand Targhee Ski Run in Wyoming. She was also one of the first female raft guides in the Taos Box Canyon. Her love of the outdoors is palpable when you read her Women of Taos profile.
Crabtree was bitten by a tick that carried Lyme disease at some point. Her diagnosis was a shock to her. Her mental health took a turn for the worse, now that she was facing a future of late-dissemination-stage symptoms like arthritis, painful skin swelling, vision loss, neck stiffness, rashes, and muscle weakness. Then the Lyme disease actually began affecting her brain chemistry and her mental health really took a swan dive.
By 2020, Crabtree was transient. She was also very depressed. She went into a psych facility in Santa Fe, but was released after five days with some meds. At another time, she went to the Salvation Army for help and began to scratch her face, which may have been swollen and itchy from late-stage Lyme Disease symptoms. At some point, Crabtree attempted suicide on the Gorge. But she was intercepted. She later decided not to end her life. Her friends and her girlfriend, Bettina Lancaster, witnessed her begin to spiral into schizophrenia.
Then she vanished one day on February 11, 2020. Her car was located near the Bridge and towed on the 13th. The worst was assumed. But her body has never been found.
Even more strangely, various people around Taos think that they have seen Melissa Crabtree wandering around. They say she looks like the girl in her missing posters, but she has scratches on her face and behaves like a schizophrenic. One woman saw her at the Hanuman Temple in Taos; a therapist named Deborah Roberts saw her walking toward the post office in Taos in mid-February and assumed she was a transient with schizophrenia. The sightings are very intermittent, though, and in a town as small as Taos, you would think that Crabtree would have been found by now if she was still there.
Nevertheless, some of Crabtree’s family believes she is still alive and in Taos. A Taos casino graciously erected a big billboard for Crabtree to assist in the search for her. People around Taos still keep their eyes peeled for her.
Peter Crabtree is Melissa’s brother. A diehard Deadhead, he met his wife, Paige Williams-Emery, on the road. The two were living in paradise, CA, when the vicious 2020 wildfires destroyed their home. They moved into a FEMA camp. When they learned about Crabtree’s disappearance, they felt they had nothing to lose if they came to New Mexico to find her. Due to the disruption of the pandemic, they ran into many frustrations trying to get a hold of Crabtree’s financial records and conduct an amateur investigation. They still haven’t found Melissa Crabtree.
I don’t know if Melissa Crabtree is alive or dead, but given her past suicide attempts and the location of her car, jumping from the Bridge seems quite plausible. While I hope she didn’t die this way, I also think it is sort of fitting that she died in Nature. I just wish her family could have some closure. I also wish that Crabtree could have gotten a Lyme disease diagnosis earlier so that she could have gotten treatment and carried on giving the world the many beautiful things she had to offer from deep within her heart. If she is still alive, I hope she is found soon so her family can care for her and possibly save her from the hell that is severe psychosis.
Anthony Hildebrand – 2019
On April 5, 2019, Anthony Hildebrand’s car was found parked at the west end of the Rio Grande Gorge. But there has been no sign of the man himself since. As you can now see, this is a common theme of Bridge deaths.
Hildebrand was a tall man at 6’3” and 215 pounds, and he was wearing blue jeans and a camo jacket. It would be hard to miss someone of this stature. Yet no one has seen or heard from him for going on four years.
It is believed that Hildebrand probably committed suicide. Not only was his car parked at the popular suicide destination, but he also emailed a note to all of his friends. The mystifying lack of a body leaves questions, though, and one of them is the inevitable “Did he meet foul play?” Without a body, it’s easy to start wondering if he is still alive somewhere, or if someone did something to him and emailed a fake note to his friends. These same questions swirl around Holly White’s disappearance as you’ll see below.
Search and rescue teams have combed the Gorge several times for the missing man. They have used binoculars, kayaks, drones, and helicopters, but there is just no sign of his body. It has taken months to find other people, but not usually years. What happened to his body and where is he?
Hildebrand was 35 when he disappeared. Now he would be 38. He had moved to New Mexico from Pennsylvania. He graduated from University of Kansas and also went to Carnegie Mellon for a while to study entertainment technology. I’m not sure why he chose to end his life, but I am sorry that he bore such a burden of pain.
Morgan Sanders – 2020
Morgan Sanders was a Taos resident who owned a sustainable landscaping company called the Stone Fruit Garden. She was also trained in acupuncture and did massage therapy. On April 9, 2020, Sanders committed suicide by jumping off the Bridge when she was only 37. Her car was parked near the Bridge and her body was found soon after by kayakers.
It is unclear why Sanders did this. Maybe no one knows. Maybe her family and friends have an idea. She grew up in Texas and seemed like a fun-loving person with a passion for the outdoors and animals. Whatever drove her to take her own life must have been very heavy and very dark. I am sorry she had to go through that and end her life in this way.
Unidentified Body – 2019
In January 2019, a man’s body was pulled from the Gorge. This man was believed to have jumped. The problem is that no one knows who he is. He could be a missing person from New Mexico or another state. As you will soon see in the case of Douglas Weiss, many people from other states come to this Bridge – some of them for their very last vacation on Earth. It could be this individual is one such “suicide tourist.”
Recovering the body was hardly an easy feat. The body was frozen over by ice and the path to it was treacherous for rescue workers. Eventually it was successfully retrieved but it was in an advanced state of decomposition by then. It is thought that the body is that of a man missing from Alamosa, CO. But authorities still aren’t sure. I’m not sure why they have not done DNA testing to confirm if a match is there.
Ignacio Perez, Jr. – 2018
Ignacio Perez, Jr., was 49 years old and from Albuquerque. He was reported missing on May 10, 2018. On May 18, everyone’s worst fears were confirmed when his car was found parked at the Bridge. However, helicopter and drone searches of the Gorge failed to turn up his body at first. The Rio Grande was incredibly low at the time and state police said that hampered their search endeavors.
It took two months to finally find Perez’s body. Two kayakers in the river finally found him, well-decomposed, on July 22. July 24 was the day rescuers managed to retrieve him from the river. While this fortunately brought closure to the case, it also adds just another name to the litany of tragedies that have occurred from the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge.
I don’t know why Perez did this. It is undoubtedly a tragedy. He left behind his parents, his wife, and his adult daughter, as well as many other extended family members who miss him very much. Ignacio Perez, Jr., was from Mexico and had a deep passion for his Mexican roots. He graduated from UNM and was successful in property management and real estate. He also worked with youth with disabilities for many years.
Holly Alcott White – 2016
Holly Alcott White was only 49 when she vanished from Taos on May 5, 2016. Her car was found abandoned near the Taos Gorge. No one knows what happened to her or if she met foul play, but suspicious circumstances in her case suggest she is now deceased.
Holly didn’t appear to have a reason to kill herself. She lived in Taos but was preparing to move to Albuquerque to join her husband, who had started a new job there. She also had a new job lined up, managing a dentist office in Albuquerque. A farewell party was being thrown for her at the Taos Center of the Arts, which she had managed for 22 years. She told her loved ones she was excited to start a new chapter in her life. She was also looking forward to her fiftieth birthday in three months.
On May 5, 2016, Holly returned home from work. She called her lifelong best friend, Jill, who was living in Oregon at the time. Then she called her husband, Jeff White, who was in Albuquerque. She was due to see Jeff in a few days at her going-away party. Both Jeff and Jill said Holly sounded stressed about the move but also cheerful and excited for the future. There was no hint of what was about to happen. She was last heard from at 9:20 pm.
On the morning of the 6th, Holly was supposed to meet her friend, Cynthia Arvidson, for their daily morning walk. Holly always brought along her dog, Rosie, whom she loved like a child. But when she didn’t show that morning, Cynthia went by her house. Rosie was inside, earnestly waiting for a walk. Holly’s purse and phone were on the table, and Holly always took her purse with her, wherever she went. Nothing appeared to be amiss – except Holly’s blue Ford Escape was gone from the driveway. Cynthia thus reported Holly White missing.
Later on the 6th, Holly’s car was located abandoned by the Taos Gorge, with the keys in the cupholder. Vendors of food and jewelry tend to set up along the rest area at the mouth of the bridge; one such vendor showed up the morning of the 6th at 6:15 am and noticed the car was already there, empty.
Fingerprints were pulled from the car but they didn’t match anyone in any databases. Searches began of the riverbed at the bottom of the Gorge. Searchers found a black Skechers shoe floating in the water. Friends confirmed this shoe was Holly’s. But her body was not found in the Gorge.
A neighbor reported seeing a black Toyota Solara car with Colorado plates in Holly’s driveway the morning she vanished. A similar car was found abandoned on Hwy 285 near the Colorado-NM state line with the plates removed. Jill tried to get this car identified, but unfortunately, no one who knew Holly recognized it. During her investigation, PI Elaine Graves put the neighbor under hypnosis to try to recall the license plate. The neighbor provided a jumble of letters and numbers. By digging through car license plate numbers, Graves was able to find a person who knew Holly and drove a black Toyota Solara. She gave this update on the True Consequences podcast in August 2021, but there have been no updates on this development since. I really want to know why this person was at Holly’s so early in the morning, why they never responded to public please for information about the black car, and if this car was the same one found abandoned on the state line. It looks suspicious! Hopefully it is the puzzle piece missing from this case.
Due to the proximity of Holly’s car to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, suicide was the first thought for many law enforcement officers. Holly’s friends say she did not seem like she was suicidal, though. She had many things to look forward to. Her dad describes her as “balanced” and “full of optimism.” She would have let her loved ones know or left a note, at the very least. Holly appeared excited for her new job, new home, and her closet full of new clothes. Also, Holly loved her dog very much and would not have just left her without care for an indefinite period of time.
In addition, most people who jump from the bridge are found in the rocks below. Though there have been six searches along twelve miles of the riverbed, using raft guides and cadaver dogs, no trace of Holly has ever been located. Also, many people come to the Gorge to hike, take pictures, and tube or kayak in the Rio Grande. So they usually see something or find a body. It isn’t a vast untouched wilderness where a body can go unfound for years, like in other parts of New Mexico.
However, some people still think she committed suicide impulsively, and left her dog behind because she knew she would be missed soon. Weather conditions at the time of her initial search complicated the endeavor, making it somewhat possible that her body was washed to a location where it has been missed. Remember that the Taos Gorge is carved by the Rio Grande, which runs at its bottom. The water can conceivably carry a body away a great distance if it is deep and fast enough to circumvent the boulders underneath the bridge. Usually, though, the water is too shallow to carry a body far, due to drought and irrigation that pulls from the river. That May, the water level was rather high. There have been a few bodies from the Bridge that were not found for years.
Most people who knew Holly personally suspect foul play. Her friend Jill thinks that someone harmed her and then cast her shoe off the Taos Gorge Bridge to try to get police off his trail. But there are no clear suspects. Her friends and Jeff White were questioned. Jeff White even passed a polygraph about his wife’s disappearance. There appeared to be no answers, and police have not declared any suspects. Roy Alcott, Holly’s father, hired a private investigator named Elaine Graves, who has done painstaking work on Holly’s case over the last several years.
A search of Holly’s phone and computer revealed that she had secrets not even her lifelong besty, Jill, knew about. Details about these secrets are frustratingly withheld, probably to protect Holly’s privacy and the integrity of the investigation. Initially, because of the vagueness, my mind jumped to the worst and I thought these secrets may have led to her murder. Was Holly involved in something illegal? Was she having an affair? Did she have something from her past – a love child, an old lover with a tendency for violence, knowledge about a crime that would make someone want her dead?
But Elaine Graves dispelled the impression that Holly White led a life of intrigue when she appeared on the True Consequences podcast in 2021. She admits that Holly kept some secrets from her friends and husband, but she adds that “we all do.” Graves goes on to say that Holly White was very stable and mostly led a mundane life. She didn’t drink or do drugs and her schedule was extremely consistent. Graves doesn’t seem to think White’s secrets were dark enough to have contributed to her death. So that leads me to think these secrets may be as simple as excessive credit card debt from a shopping addiction, an emotional affair, or a porn addiction. These are all speculation, of course, and I certainly don’t intend to besmirch Holly White’s character. I’m simply trying to think of relatively non-lethal secrets that people would want to keep private.
I honestly think White committed suicide. The secrets she had, whatever they were, and the impending big life changes ahead may have caused her to spontaneously decide to end her life. Some people are very impulsive about suicide and do not spend months planning it and giving away possessions. A majority of suicide victims also don’t leave notes. Most people are stunned when their loved ones commit suicide, so it really doesn’t mean much when people say, “She wouldn’t have done that!” White also knew she would be missed soon, so she felt comfortable leaving her dog behind. I just don’t see any signs of foul play. The black car is weird, but what if it was someone she was having an affair with or someone she was arguing with? Their visit to her that morning may have even prompted her to end her life once they left, but they did not physically abduct her and kill her. There is just no evidence that the black car played a role in her murder, or that anyone did besides Holly White herself. It isn’t even clear if the black car seen at her house is the same car abandoned near the Colorado state line, so I don’t think we can read too much into it until Graves’s investigation is complete. White’s family is in denial and it is understandable why. I hope one day they find out the truth and get the closure that is so desperately lacking in this case.
Do you know anything about Holly Alcott White’s disappearance? Then please call New Mexico State Police at 505-454-5010 or call the tip line at 575-613-3415. You can also call the private investigator on her case, Elaine Graves, at 575-613-3415. There is currently a $20,000 reward out for information leading to finding Holly.
Douglas Weiss – 2015
Douglas Weiss was seen jumping from the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge on the morning of September 25, 2015. He was retrieved by noon that day. In his rental car parked at the Bridge, police found a suicide note and contact information for his family back in Chicago. He was only 54.
Weiss apparently picked the Taos Bridge as the spot where he wanted to die. He flew into the Albuquerque Sunport, rented a car, and drove to the Bridge the day he jumped. Police did not find any ties he may have had to the Taos area. It is not publicly known why he did this.
I imagine that if you are planning suicide, the Bridge may be an intended destination. It is beautiful and peaceful. It is also a guaranteed death. Weiss may have seen it in the past or read about it and decided that was where he wanted to go. I can’t imagine what would drive a person to travel all the way across the States to jump 650 feet into rocks, but I have empathy for him.
Erik Sanchez – 1998
This is the most chilling story of tragedy at the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. Erik Sanchez was from Espanola and he was only 18. He worked hard to finally purchase a beautiful teal Grand Prix. On November 23, 1998, he took the car for a cruise through Espanola. Espanola is called “the low rider capitol” for a reason. People love to cruise the town, showing off the cars they put so much love, money, and work into.
Two druggies, David Sandoval and Luis Acosta, saw Sanchez’s car and determined to steal it for themselves. They first stopped Sanchez and asked him if he could get them drugs. He said no and drove off. They stopped him again closer to midnight and this time they held him at gunpoint. Sandoval got in the driver’s seat while Sanchez was ordered to sit in the passenger seat. Acosta followed them in his own car. He dropped the car off at a family member’s house in Taos and then got into Sanchez’s car and Sandoval drove on to the Taos Gorge. The two men beat Sanchez and strangled him with a shoelace in the car. At the Bridge, Sanchez was apparently still alive and fought for his life as they drug him to the railing, stripping him of his clothing and beating him. Despite his attempts to defend himself, they overpowered him and threw him over the edge. Sanchez held onto the railing for dear life, but the men kicked his hands until he was forced to let go and plunge to his death.
Police put out a BOLO for the car. It was later spotted in Mexico. A man called it in to Mexican authorities and the authorities questioned the woman who lived where the car was parked. The woman said her nephew, Luis Acosta, had left it there and was staying in Deming, NM. Mexican authorities contacted the Luna County Sheriff’s Office. Luna County Sheriffs located Luis Acosta staying at his uncle’s house in Deming and they called him in for questioning. He showed up to the police station, wearing Erik Sanchez’s pants. What an idiot.
He soon gave away his accomplice, David Sandoval. The two men both gave similar accounts of the night of November 23. They both said they had stolen the car to sell it for drug money because they were desperate heroin addicts from Taos. They described how they had beaten and strangled Sanchez and mercilessly thrown him over the Bridge. The death penalty was sought for both killers. Unfortunately, it wasn’t granted, but they are both doing life in prison.
Both men have prior criminal records that indicate what lowlifes they really are. Sandoval had been arrested for beating his wife and endangering his children; he got four years probation for that in 1998. He had also been arrested for drunk driving in 1996. Acosta had been arrested in 1996 for possession of stolen property when police caught him with a stereo taken from a truck. He also had battery and shoplifting charges from 1995. The two men drifted from job to job and were known by many people to be shady.
Erik Sanchez’s mother, Donna Garcia, shows up to anti-drug rallies now. She wears a sweatshirt with her son’s photo and the words “My lost treasure.” I can’t imagine her pain at losing her bright and hopeful 18-year-old for heroin money. I also can’t imagine the terror Erik Sanchez must have felt as he was dangled over the Bridge railing and then dropped to his agonizing death 600 feet below. He just wanted to have a good time cruising in his ride and he was murdered instead. Some people are truly heartless.
The Sutherlands – 1996
A young couple from La Llama, NM, got married, but they did not enjoy their marital bliss for long. They jumped off the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge together in November, 1996. Kamala Sutherland, nee Sanders, was only 24 and Charlie Sutherland was only 21. So young, and so tragic.
The couple sat on the railing of the Bridge around noon and then jumped together to the horror of many witnesses. Al Sutherland, Charlie Sutherland’s father, described the couple as “really out there” and “not for this world.” Kamala Sutherland’s father positively identified his daughter’s body and believed that it was not a murder-suicide due to three witness accounts of the couple jumping together.
Julie Sanders, Kamala’s mother, said that the two were depressed about a forest fire that had wiped out a vacant home the family owned near La Llama, but it makes no sense why the couple would kill themselves over a home they weren’t even living in. It appears they had some mental illness that drove them to conclude this was the only option left for them. I hope their suffering ended after the jump and they are not in some sort of ugly afterlife, suffering yet more.
The body retrieval was no easy feat. A helicopter that went into the chasm to retrieve the bodies had its rotor knocked off by a gust of violent wind. The pilot was able to land safely but the helicopter was not operable after that. The current was so strong that it ripped the clothes off Kamala Sutherland’s body. A rescue worker had to enter that brutal current, hook Kamala Sutherland to a stretcher, and pull her out of the water with cables.
Alicia Lauritzen – 1995
Alicia Lauritzen was a 51-year-old woman from Tesque who jumped in August 15, 1995. Ironically, she had worked as a psychotherapist, undoubtedly involved in saving people from the same fate she chose for herself. January of 1995, she even gave a guest lecture about embracing the darkness of your soul at the Unity Church of Santa Fe.
When Lauritzen stood at the edge of the Bridge, people tried to intervene. The Taos fire marshal arrived and tried to talk her down. She told him “Good-bye” and made the jump anyway. She left behind two adult children.
E.D. Parnam also jumped that year. I can’t find much information about him, but I thought I should mention him. He was a 75-year-old man from Fairview, NM. I don’t know why he jumped or why any of the other many suicide victims jumped off the Taos Gorge Bridge. They must have been in soul-wrenching pain to choose such a scary and agonizing death.
Conclusion
As you can see, many people have died from jumping – or being hurled – from the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. It is a heinous danger. Now the state of New Mexico has the funds to remove or at least reduce the danger by installing anti-jumping precautions on the Bridge, yet they haven’t done anything with the funds yet. Isn’t it about time that they do so?
For more reading:
Holly Alcott White
https://thehueandcry.com/holly-white
https://www.facebook.com/findhollywhite
Ignacio Perez:
https://www.abqjournal.com/1200927/nmsp-missing-mans-body-found-in-rio-grande-gorge.html
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/abqjournal/name/ignacio-perez-obituary?id=11067166
Melissa Crabtree:
Juan Munoz:
https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/body-found-r-o-grande-river-identified-juan-mu-oz-n1267039
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