This is the first part of a 3-part series on the dark underbelly of Farmington.
Farmington seems like a peaceful town, full of parks and oil wells, surrounded by red desert, eerie sandstone hoodoos, sweeping grass plains, and scenic mountains. A church seems to stand on every corner, and a “Jesus is watching you” billboard stands disapprovingly next to a sign for the town’s only adult video store. Just thirty miles from the town is the Navajo Nation, the nation’s largest reservation, and the Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde Native American ruins are just a short drive away. Farmington is also less than an hour away from the famous Four Corners monument, where Native American artists peddle their jewelry and paintings, and tourists take pictures sprawled out touching the corners of Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico.
But something dark festers under the neat and industrious surface of Farmington. In the past few decades, over 40 homicides have occurred in Farmington, well above the national average for the population size of the town. Only 85% of the killings have been solved. If you crack open the history books, you will discover a long history of racism and violence against Native Americans, stretching back many years.
Farmington Cold Cases
When a rash of violent deaths of Native Americans happened in Farmington in the 90s, authorities thought a serial killer might be at work. In a way, they were right – Robert Fry murdered four Native Americans in 1996-2000. Not only were his crimes vicious and evil, but the fact he was a white man targeting Native Americans made the murders especially heinous. However, several of the deaths committed during this time frame could not be tied to him. There are also older cold cases that have troubled Farmington authorities for decades, from even before Fry was born.
Lelsie Stahlhut on Medium wrote a series of articles about what she terms the Farmington twelve. These are twelve cold homicide cases from Farmington. These cases remain unsolved, though there have been some developments since her articles were published. While I must credit her with finding the names of the twelve victims, I did my own research for this post. I also include a few more cold cases from the Farmington area.
Paul Napoleon – 1978
This rash of cold cases all started in 1978, with the violent homicide of Paul Napoleon. Napoleon was arrested on October 10, 1978, for drunk and disorderly conduct. On October 11, 1978, he was released of his own recognizance. Within 20 minutes of being released, Napoleon was stabbed sixteen times and left dead in some weeds near the jail. A kitchen knife found near the scene is believed to be the murder weapon.
Napoleon was released with two other men – an unnamed man and a man named Jim. Jim was arrested but went into delirium tremors and was not fit for trial. Apparently, he couldn’t even understand when his rights were read to him. Meanwhile, the other suspect was cleared, though I’m not sure how or why the police were able to definitively determine he had nothing to do with the crime.
Cloyd Nielsen – 1982
Cloyd Andrew Nielsen died about four years later, in 1982. He was only 37. Like with Napoleon, details are far and few between. This is a frustrating commonality among many of these cold cases in Farmington, NM.
Robert Raymond Griesemer – 1986
Robert Raymond Griesemer was murdered in 1986. While he was asleep, someone unloaded several rounds into his head and neck. His wife, Marva Griesemer, was charged with his murder. However, the prosecutor had a difficult time convincing the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that Mrs. Griesemer was the killer, so she was acquitted on January 28, 1987. She cried tears of relief onto the shoulders of her attorney.
On July 1, 1986, Mrs. Griesemer was dozing in her front room in Farmington when she startled awake to find a man standing before her around 10:40 pm. The man was missing a nose and ears. The man slapped her and she sat there, stunned. The man then made his way back to the bedroom, where her husband slept, and she heard a firecracker go off. All she saw was blood in the room when she ran to check on her husband. The intruder punched her as he fled the room.
She frantically called police and they said they have never heard such a hysterical witness. She begged for help while sobbing; it was captured on tape, which was later played at her murder trial. When police arrived, she was on her kitchen floor sobbing and she cried out to see the colonel standing there above her. The police had to reassure her that they were cops. They noted a small injury on her face, presumably from the punch.
Police took Mrs. Griesemer into the local station for questioning where she told the story about the intruder. She also allowed them to search her home and yard, where they could not find the murder weapon. They swabbed her palms for gunpowder and sent it to the FBI for analysis. A few weeks later, cops brought her back in and told her that they had found blood and gunpowder residue on her clothes and hands to trick her into confessing. In reality, they had not found such evidence on her person. Mrs. Griesemer stuck by her bizarre intruder story the whole time.
The autopsy revealed that Robert had been shot seven times in the right side of his head and neck, while lying on his side. Interestingly, Robert Griesemer owned a .25 semi-automatic pistol. Mrs. Griesemer claimed she had not seen that gun since she left Lawrenceville, IL, to join Robert Griesemer in Farmington with their teenage daughter, Heather, who was 15 at the time her father was murdered. Police never found the gun responsible for his death, but they did find a box of .25 ammo in Heather’s room, with eight rounds missing. Since he was shot seven times with a .25 pistol, it is believed that he may have been killed with that ammo.
What was that ammo doing in Heather’s room and how did an intruder know where to find it? Apparently, Heather was at a baseball game with her friends when her father was murdered, and she returned shortly after the police arrived. She testified on her mother’s behalf and helped get her mother acquitted. But did she have something to do with this? Maybe she had a boyfriend or friend slip into the house and kill her father? Were her palms and clothes ever tested for gunpowder?
Also, the description of the intruder is bizarre. No nose and no ears? Police had a tough time believing Marva Griesemer about that detail and so do I. Was she confused from sleep, or maybe under the influence of drugs, like sleeping pills? Was the intruder wearing a weird disguise or mask that made him appear to have no nose and no ears? Or was she lying to protect Heather? A suspect missing a nose and ears would not be too difficult to identify it seems. The absence of gunpowder on Marva Griesemer’s hands and clothes suggests she did not commit this crime – but maybe she knows who did.
The Griesemer marriage was not a perfect one. The couple had divorced and remarried twice. Robert Griesemer was a mechanic for the Texas New Mexico Pipeline Co. When the Taxaco refinery shut down in Illinois, the family was transferred to Farmington in 1985. Then Robert Griesemer injured his ankle and was without work for five months. The family was moving to a different house at the time of the murder. Police began their investigation with the assumption that Robert Griesemer beat Marva and she killed him in self-defense. I’m not sure why they had that assumption – were they just being incompetent or did they have evidence that domestic violence had occurred in the home before?
Feliciano Mendoza – 1988
On May 10, 1988, around 2:40 pm, a hitchhiker found a man’s body stuffed in a culvert. The man had been dead about twelve hours according to the autopsy. Using photographs, police were able to have his family identify the man as 68-year-old Feliciano Mendoza. Mendoza was from Bloomfield, a small town about ten miles outside of Farmington. He was originally from Gallup.
Very little is available about this case, including how Mendoza was killed or if there are any suspects. I also can’t find much about who he was as a person. That makes me sad – I don’t want any of these victims to be forgotten. They were real human beings and they had their lives snuffed out. Their killers don’t get to walk free and also erase all memory of their victims in this world.
Deland Pioche – 1990
On April 7, 1990, Deland Pioche was found beaten and with his throat cut three times in some weeds in Farmington. It is believed someone held him down while another person beat him to death. His pockets had been emptied out, suggesting this was a violent robbery. Based on similar cases, I suspect drugs and/or alcohol played a role.
Pioche was only 40 when he was murdered. His family is quite prominent in the Farmington area. The Farmington newspaper is full of references to his previous alcohol-related charges, yet they have strikingly few references to his murder.
Patsy Taylor – 1991
Patsy Taylor (52) was living in a Farmington motel briefly as her husband consulted for an oil and gas company in Farmington. She was originally from Amarillo, TX. On July 8, 1991, she decided to go speed walking near the motel in the early morning when someone bludgeoned her to death.
She was found dead, nude, and raped across the motel, at the intersection of Camino Rio and Camina Contenta in Farmington. Witnesses say a Caucasian man in his early 40s, driving a 1970s or 1980s hatchback, was in the area when she was killed. Her murder went unsolved for 24 years and it is technically still unsolve, but we now have a decent idea of a strong suspect.
In recent years, Stephen Freeman has emerged as a probable suspect in her death. Someone called in an anonymous Crime Stoppers tip, identifying Freeman as the murderer.
Freeman was a mechanic in Farmington, and he was 30 in 1991. He became a suspect almost immediately in Taylor’s death because he was a strong suspect in two rapes that occurred shortly before her death. The rape victims were a male and female jogger, who both gave descriptions that eerily matched Freeman. They both recalled his “startling blue eyes.” They both picked out Freeman in a photo array, yet the police felt they couldn’t bring charges against Freeman based on that evidence, so he was allowed to walk free and rape more people.
Nevertheless, police suspected him of Taylor’s death because he matched the description given of the man seen near Patsy Taylor around 5 am and he appeared to have a penchant for attacking and raping joggers.
Then Freeman was convicted of the rape of two women and a child in April of 1993. But by 2014, he was free again, where he was arrested for meth possession and aggravated stalking. He committed suicide in San Juan County Detention Center in December 2014, thus avoiding any justice for his crimes.
Whether or not he killed Patsy Taylor may never be determined now that he is dead. Hopefully police can get DNA from a family member of his to determine definitively if he was the perpetrator of this senseless murder. There is DNA evidence taken from Patsy Taylor’s bra cup which shows a mixture of two people’s DNA, one of which is male. However, this news was posted back in 2015, and there has been no update since. The state crime lab is notoriously backlogged, so it may just take a while for them to test it, but Taylor’s three daughters and husband deserve answers.
I do think Freeman sounds like a viable suspect. Not only did he like to target joggers, but he also matched the description of the man seen near Taylor.Can’t women just jog in peace without getting murdered? I’m glad that predator is dead, but it is sad he was jailed for rape and then released to commit more rapes.
Carla Hemler – 1992
Carla Hemler (28) was last seen leaving her job at a convenience store in Farmington on October 26, 1992. She never showed up to work on October 28, 1992. Her boss went by her place and Carla didn’t answer the door, so her boss called police to perform a welfare check. The police found Carla Hemler on her floor, wearing only panties, stabbed 20 times. She had extensive defensive wounds on her wrists, suggesting she put up a good fight. There were no signs of forced entry, suggesting Carla knew her killer.
Police immediately suspected Carla’s estranged husband, who was living in Colorado at the time (Farmington is on the Colorado-NM state line for those unfamiliar with the state). Her husband refused to cooperate and did not submit to a polygraph. While that is his right, it also violated his probation for a different unspecified crime he had committed in Alaska. He was thus expedited back to Alaska to serve time for that crime. I think that all seems quite suspicious.
Pernell Tewangoitewa – 1998
Pernell Tewangoitewa’s death is a troubling one that opened a can of very racist worms with the Farmington Police Department. He also has never been found and his family is left with an aching void of questions.
On May 29, 1998, after enjoying a night out with his sister Brook Milligan and her friends, Pernell left the Gator Bar and Grill, driving Brook’s 1988 Subaru station wagon. His sister rode ahead with some friends. Pernell never made it back to their house, however.
On June 18, an oil field worker checking a well found the station wagon in a dry riverbed in Chokecherry Canyon, burned. Police determined the car had been set on fire deliberately and asked the family to come tow it away. When the family inspected the area, however, they knew it was a crime scene and something bad had happened to Pernell. They asked police to investigate the young man’s disappearance, and the police told them to look for him in local bars.
Pernell was not the drunken Indian that police took him for. He was an ambitious cosmetology student and a bouncer at the Gator where he had been the night he vanished. He was known to be funny and kind.
His sister Ramona advocated for him after he vanished and police didn’t take his disappearance seriously. She was especially disturbed when the police said they would have the burned out car processed for forensic evidence – but instead they took it to a salvage yard in late 2000 and had it junked. Who knows what crucial evidence had been in that car? Ramona was responsible for an investigation into the Farmington Police’s racial relations with the Navajo people in Farmington and the endeavor to recruit more Navajo people to official positions in San Juan County.
Though these are all positives to come from this case, the truth is that Pernell has never been found. His case may have been solved had police taken it more seriously and treated his family with more respect. It is sad that injustice has to destroy lives before positive changes are made.
Who killed Pernell? And why? Why was so little done – was it because of racism, or was it because the police were covering something up? Was he a victim of Robert Fry? This crime sounds like his modus operandi – target a Native American who is in a vulnerable position and enact violence upon them for no known reason. But Fry didn’t bother to hide evidence in his other cases, beyond hiding Lee’s body off a cliff, so it is entirely possible someone else did this. It is also possible that Fry committed many more murders than we know about and he hid evidence well enough in them that he was never convicted.
Berttina Marie Tsosie – 2003
Berttina Tsosie died at the tender age of 19 on May 10, 2003. Shockingly little is available about her case. Misspelled Bertina in the original post about the Farmington Twelve, her name is actually Berttina Marie Tsosie. But even with the proper spelling, it is challenging to learn things about her case.
Born in Gallup, Tsosie lived in Ojo Amarillo at the time of her murder. She left behind her parents, seven sisters, and three brothers. I cannot find anything about how she died or if there are suspects or leads in the case. It appears that the police aren’t terribly dedicated to her case, given that they have posted nothing about her online. Other female Farmington homicide victims from the early aughts and late 90s are well documented online – and, interestingly, they are all white.
http://nmsoh.org/tsosie_berttina_marie_mem.htm
Brenda Wright – 2004
Brenda Wright (45) was reported missing on May 14, 2004. Her daughter dropped her off at Golden Corral to check on a job application on May 13. Wright was supposed to come home and watch her grandson the next day; she even told her grandson she was coming back to see him as he cried over her leaving. But she never did show up.
A few days after she was reported missing, her completely nude body was found beneath a tree near County Road 3535 in Flora Vista. Bits of her clothes were found in Lion’s Wilderness Park in Farmington, suggesting she may have been killed or attacked there.
Her daughters desperately want to know what happened to their mother. It has now been almost twenty years without answers in this horrible case.
I almost wonder if Stephen Freeman could have committed this one as well? He was walking free at that time and we all know he enjoyed attacking vulnerable people for his own sadistic enjoyment. He may have seen Wright near the Golden Corral, walking home, and decided to rape her.
https://www.krqe.com/news/farmington-police-searching-for-leads-in-murder-cold-case/
Blane Stanley – 2007
Blane Stanley was murdered in the early hours of March 24, 2007. He was only 53. He was sleeping in a van outside of an apartment complex on South Behrend in Farmington. Police found him in the back of the van, beaten to death and awash in blood.
Jay Reuben (32) was charged with first-degree murder and tampering with evidence in Stanley’s death, but ultimately he was released. Reuben lived in the apartment in front of Stanley’s van and it is not clear what their relationship to each other was.
Neighbors from the apartment complex recall hearing a man and a woman arguing near the van around 1:30 am, and also a loud scream around 2:00 am, the time Stanley was believed to have been murdered. If there was a woman present, then it could be she killed Stanley? Not much information is available about this case, illustrating the lack of care that police and media devote to the indigent.
Nathaniel Robert Morgan – 2009
Nathaniel Morgan was murdered on October 21, 2009. He had apparently gotten into some sort of fight and was badly beaten when he was submerged in a shallow brook beyond the Auburn trailer park. Before his death, Morgan had been sitting near the brook with an unidentified man who appeared to be his friend. They were drinking and talking. The man was about 25 to 35, had a shaved head, and stood at 5’7” and weighed about 170 pounds. Here is his composite:
Frustratingly, police have received few leads and no tips in the case. Even after the sketch was released, and tips started pouring in, nothing valuable came to light. The police are revisiting the case, which is officially cold. I imagine it was someone that Morgan knew who is not from Farmington. He was visiting Morgan when things turned ugly for some reason and he accidentally killed Morgan and left. I say this because nothing about this seems premeditated or planned; that’s why the killer allowed witnesses to see him spending time with Morgan and why he left the body there to be easily found. It is through pure luck (and the incompetence of Farmington police) that he escaped identification all this time.
Beyond these twelve, here are a few more cold cases from the Farmington area.
Lynn R Goldin – August 2016
Lynn R Goldin came to the Four Corners region to hunt for treasure in August, 2016. Goldin often traveled from his Vancouver, WA, home to hunt for treasure in other states. Recently, he and his son had prospected near Hogback, in the area near the PNM Power Plant. That August, he decided to return to the area alone. He may have been looking for the Trabuca Treasure.
He was 83 when he came to the Four Corners for what would ultimately be his last treasure hunting expedition. When he failed to check in by September 10, his worried son reported him missing. He still has yet to be found.
It has been verified that Goldin did make it to Farmington. On September 1, he purchased gas in Waterflow, a tiny town outside of Farmington, and he also bought some things at Walmart in Farmington that same day. But since then, there has been no trace of him or his vehicle. His credit card and debit card have had no activity. Nobody has heard from him or seen him. He’s like he drove away from Waterflow and vanished into thin air.
His son rented a plane and searched for him. Other efforts have been made by law enforcement and the New Mexico Badlands Search and Rescue Team Inc to locate him without success.
I highly doubt aliens just swooped down and abducted him – someone knows something. The fact his vehicle hasn’t been found suggests to me that he met with foul play. If the wilderness consumed him, then surely his vehicle would have been found by now? He must have parked it somewhere with a road and I highly doubt nobody has traveled said road for all these years. I think someone took his vehicle and burned it or hid it on private land or drove it into a lake.
It is also possible that an accident befell Goldin and his vehicle ended up in a very remote area. Often, when vehicles vanished, they are in deep water, but there are not many spots of deep water in the area. Navajo Lake and the San Juan River are such popular spots for fishing, someone surely would have seen something, right? I considered that perhaps he was caught in a flash flood if it was raining heavily that day and he crossed an arroyo, but according to the weather history, it was not raining on September 1. Then again, it’s not clear what day he actually vanished, the 1st was just the last day he can be confirmed alive.
What if Goldin did find treasure, and someone killed him for it? Did he have a less than scrupulous companion he didn’t tell his son about? Treasure hunters often go out in pairs or groups.
I hope that one day Goldin is found and his son can have some peace in this weird case.
Vanessa Tsosie – 2017
I write about this case in more detail here.
When a woman was found with her head based in at a Farmington park on November 5, 2017, police struggled to identify her. They knew that she was Native American and that she was likely a rape victim, since her pants had been pulled down and one of her shoes was missing. Little else was known about her.
Only after they posted pictures of her clothes on social media did her sister identify her. The victim was Vanessa Tsosie, from Red Valley, AZ. A loving mother of two, it is unclear how Vanessa ended up dead in a park off Glade Lane in Farmington. What is known is that she had been drinking there with three men who have since been identified. And while police suspect that at least one of these men is involved in her death, no one has been charged in the brutal crime. Here’s why.
Police used DNA from Vanessa’s body to identify a man named Jimmy. Jimmy admitted that he had been with Vanessa and two other men drinking at the Glade Lane Park on November 4, 2017. The other men present were named Eric and Alvin Nelson. At some point, the evening turned violent and someone shoved Jimmy, so he left.
Police then tracked down Alvin Nelson – but he had committed suicide shortly before they could talk to him. If that isn’t an admission of guilt, then I don’t know what is. Then they found Eric, who vehemently denied knowing any of the above mentioned people. However, after seeing evidence, Eric admitted that he had witnessed Alvin murdering Vanessa. Police confirmed that DNA matched Alvin and he was the murderer – but what was Eric’s role in all this? Was Eric a willing accomplice, or an innocent and scared bystander? He has not been charged in Vanessa’s death. I think he should get at least some sort of charge for not coming forward or trying to protect Vanessa.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where we talk about Robert Fry and his chilling crime spree.
https://medium.com/a-murder-runs-through-it/the-farmington-new-mexico-twelve-6451f39d2a9b