November 29, 1999 was the day Carla Simmons was battered and left to freeze to death in the mouth of the Sandia Man Cave. Her van was stuck in some buckled asphalt on the road and ruts showed her desperate attempts to get it free. At some point that night, someone got to her – someone who probably stopped to help her. Now she is memorialized with an angelic portrait she had modeled for in 1989 by Steve Hanks. A billboard offering ten grand for information into her homicide looms over I25 North in Albuquerque. So just what did happen to this beautiful wife and mother of two?
Instead of just thinking of Carla Simmons as a murder victim, we must think of her as a real person. Learning about who she was makes this case even more heart-wrenching.
In a beautifully written article in the November 25, 2000, edition of the Albuquerque Tribune, Simmons is commemorated by her many loved ones. She left behind a best friend, Margaret Johnson; a doting high school sweetheart husband, Rik Simmons; two children; a brother, Joe Salinas; and a mother, Carmen Salinas. She also left behind many other friends and coworkers who want to know what happened to this gorgeous and caring mother.
Simmons was born Carla Denise Salinas. She grew up in Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights, next door to Margaret Johnson. Margaret was half a year older and bigger than the slight Carla, who only grew to be 4’11” and 93 pounds. So Carla always looked to Margaret to protect her. Carla’s mother was emotional and demanded perfection from her; her relationship with her father was described as “complicated.” She also had a sister, Monica, who died of Hong Kong flu at the age of five. Her friendship with Margaret Johnson was a source of solace for her.
While Carla excelled in school, she was shy and quiet and didn’t worry about boys. She was more interested in gymnastics and straight As. But Margaret said the boys really liked her and many perverts went after Carla because she was so pretty and delicate. When Margaret and Carla were just twelve, a man followed them home and tried to approach them as they knocked on the door to get into Carla’s house. Margaret eventually scared the man off by yelling at him and taking down his license plate number.
Carla met Rik Simmons when she was 19. After marrying him, they settled in the Sandia foothills and raised a boy and a girl. Rik Simmons worked at the Sandia National Labs while Carla worked at the Le Cafe Miche as a waitress and baker. Her cheesecakes became quite famous. She also was heavily involved in her children’s school, always the first to volunteer for events and committees.
In the months before she died, she became more withdrawn than usual and lost a lot of weight. She even shut her husband out. Margaret was the only person she trusted at this time. Over wine one night, the two women made peace with some conflict from high school that had lingered between them and then spoke about how they felt as if one of them would die soon. After Margaret was nearly killed in a freeway accident, she thought she would be the one to die first, but actually it was Carla.
People who knew Carla said that she was a perfectionist who was way too hard on herself. She never felt like a good mother, despite her best efforts. She was also very over-sensitive and tended to jump to the worst possible conclusions. So she often became overwhelmed by her inner turmoil and took off alone to decompress. Sometimes, she drove across the mountains to Placitas, where Margaret Johnson lived. She always liked to take the treacherous back road to Placitas, Highway 165, because she thought it was beautiful.
At some point before her murder, Carla had a scary moment when a man followed her from Le Cafe Miche after her shift. The man frightened her and reminded her of the middle school incident. It is unclear if this man continued to harass Carla after that incident. It is also unclear how long after that she died.
The Murder of Carla Denise Simmons
November 29, 1999, turned out to be Carla Simmons’ last day alive. Rik Simmons was driving home from work when he spoke to his wife on the phone around 6:30. She told him she was going shopping. Little did he know this would be the last time he would hear her voice.
When he got home, Carla was already gone. Since she had been arguing with her kids, Rik assumed that she had taken one of her usual trips to be alone for a while. It didn’t occur to him she might have gone to Placitas to see Margaret.
Around midnight, he called her cell phone just to check on her. Someone kept answering but the phone was unable to connect enough for them to speak.
It wasn’t until the next day when he tried to file a missing persons report. Police told him to call hospitals and jails but they would not file a report yet. Rik panicked when he couldn’t find his wife anywhere.
Unbeknownst to Rik, a jogger had already found his wife’s body at the mouth of the Sandia man cave, a former archaeological dig site in the Sandia Mountains. Carla was nude save for her panties and a single blue sock. She had received blunt force trauma to her head and neck, which likely had caused unconsciousness, but the actual cause of her death was determined to be hypothermia. Had someone found her earlier, she may have been saved.
Though she was stripped of clothing, she had not been raped. Nothing was known to be missing from her van, either. The motive for the crime is the biggest mystery of all.
Her van was stuck on the side of Highway 165, keys still in the ignition. It appeared that Carla had been attacked in or near her van. Blood was on the rear left hubcap and the pavement. Her clothes were piled nearby. There was definite evidence of a struggle.
How she got to the Man Cave is more of a mystery. The man cave is a good few hundred yards from the van. There was tar on her foot and abrasions on her back and leg, as if she had been drug to her final resting place. The medical examiner determined the abrasions had occurred after she had already died. Her time of death is believed to have been between 6:30 pm November 29 and 9:30 am November 30.
Near her body, there was an open bottle of wine with some of the wine missing. It is believed that she was thirsty and dipped into some wine she had with her. There was also a piece of paper with a license plate number scrawled on it. Margaret Johnson theorizes that that license plate number may have been for the man who had followed Carla from the café. It is not clear if police tracked that license plate number.
Police found a cigarette butt in the van that was not a brand Simmons smoked. It is not clear if this cigarette butt has been tested for DNA, but there is apparently male DNA in this case, so this may be the source of it. There was also a Raley’s grocery store receipt for the bottle of wine found with her.
She had apparently been driving through the scenic mountain pass to visit Margaret Johnson in Placitas. She had been bearing a pinon lasagna casserole and a bottle of wine. When the van accidentally veered off the road and got stuck in a bit of buckled asphalt, she desperately tried to get it out without success. Police could see the rut where she had tried to reverse out and the way she had burned the tread off her rear tire.
Then she tried to reach Margaret Johnson with her cell phone. She left three voicemails on Margaret’s phone that sounded like crackling and gurgling as her cell phone tried to connect in the spotty service area. Margaret had heard the voicemail machine picking up these messages and she found them disturbing, so she unplugged her phone. She wasn’t expecting Carla that night, so she didn’t think the calls might have been from her.
Carla also misdialed Margaret’s number by one digit one time, showing the frantic way she was trying to get help. Remember her husband also called her cell phone at midnight and someone was answering without being able to speak.
Since she was found on National forest land, the FBI got involved and notified her husband that she had been found dead. Rik Simmons was the FBI’s prime suspect for months before they were able to rule him out with cell phone records and DNA.
The FBI then zeroed in on witness reports of two different men driving through the pass. One man was described as having a dirty blond beard and driving a light blue Chevy truck with a camper shell and Marlboro packs strewn on his dashboard. The other was driving a VW Beetle. Neither man has ever been identified. DNA was recovered from Carla’s body but it doesn’t match anyone currently in the database.
So…What Happened to Carla Denise Simmons?
Did one of those men seen on the highway kill Carla? Was Carla being followed by the same man who followed her from the café? Lots of women are killed by their stalkers, like Dorothy Jane Scott. Or was Carla targeted by a random creep who stopped to help her and then realized she was an easy victim?
This crime really puzzles me. Maybe the FBI is withholding some key details that would explain this crime scene much better, but just from the scant details available in papers, the case seems truly bizarre. I really can’t see why someone would want to hurt this woman. The typical motives for murder are: robbery, sex, jealousy, gang violence, or vengeance. She wasn’t robbed and she wasn’t raped, so was this vengeance by someone? Was it a gang initiation rite? Was it an attempted rape, but the killer was scared off?
If someone took the time to strip her down and beat her, then why didn’t they also sexually assault her? I almost wonder if Carla stripped down herself. Hypothermia victims tend to feel very hot pins and needles and they then strip down, which unfortunately causes them to die even faster from exposure.
Another thing that perplexes me is the fact the abrasions on her back and leg were determined to have occurred after she died. So was she drug to the man cave from the van after dying? If she died of hypothermia, then her death was a slow one, so who would have waited on the side of the road with her until she finally died to then drag her away from the scene? Off a highway like this, the odds of someone driving by is a pretty high risk. Maybe an animal drug her around after she died?
I think that possibly someone attacked her in or near her vehicle for some unknown reason, probably after the time she called Margaret and Rik. But she was still alive, and probably confused due to head trauma. At some point, the cold got to her, so she stripped herself down. She crawled for help, taking the wine bottle with her for hydration, and she wound up at the Man Cave. Maybe at some point she scrawled down the license plate number of whomever had attacked her. She eventually succumbed and an animal drug her around, causing the postmortem abrasions.
This Can Be Solved
A billboard was erected over I25 to get information for her murder. Rik Simmons helped pour the concrete and cut the steel for the billboard. Signs were also plastered around the Man Cave, where hikers and students often visit. Disturbingly, people in Placitas didn’t like the signs and had them taken down.
Margaret Johnson still visits the Man Cave to freshen the flowers on Carla’s memorial and to decorate it for the holidays. Her children who had to grow up without their mother would really like answers. Her husband, her brother, and her mother still advocate for her case to be solved.
The FBI asks the public to look for a man who was absent from work, who changed his appearance, or who moved away after Carla’s death and who followed her case with zeal. They also suggest to watch for someone who decreased or increased drug usage after the murder.
There is a $10000 reward for information that leads to an arrest. If you know anything or saw anything weird in the Placitas area around December 30, 1999, you can call Crimestoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS. Please come forward with even the tiniest detail because anything could help solve this case and bring much-needed closure to Carla’s many hurting loved ones.
Since there is DNA available, this case could be solved! I hope the killer is quaking in his boots.
