Esther Valdez has been missing from Chama since 1984. She would be 49 now. Her story is an odd one and answers do not appear to be forthcoming.
In 1984, Esther was 17 and just beginning to taste the life of a young adult. She enjoyed partying and drinking. She also had a job as a dishwasher at the Branding Iron restaurant in Chama. Her best friend, Cindy Redwine, worked with her. The two girls liked to have fun, but they had dreams too.
The day of September 7, 1984, Esther got off of school and went with Redwine to pick up their checks at the Branding Iron. Then they got someone to purchase them whisky and they got drunk together. At some point, they visited the grave of Esther’s little sister Carmen, who had died some time before. They had a deep talk, the kind only best friends do, and Esther shared that she was tired of hurting her parents. It is not clear what exactly she meant by this, but she could have been referring to her partying and other normal teenage girl behavior.
The girls then parted ways to hang out with different friends. Redwine left Esther talking to a guy. She hitchhiked home and arrived around 10 pm.
Later that night, close to midnight, Esther knocked on Redwine’s window. She was with an older man whose name has not been released publicly. Esther planned to go camping with him and urged Redwine to join them. Redwine declined. She didn’t feel right about the whole thing. She encouraged Esther not to go, but Esther was determined to go with this older guy. She left with him in his Bronco.
That was the last time the beautiful young girl was seen alive.
Redwine felt uneasy and watched for her friend all weekend. On Sunday the 9th, she saw the older man and confronted him. He lied and claimed he had left Esther at Redwine’s house. When Redwine told him she knew that was a lie, he swore up and down that he had not hurt Esther. “It wasn’t me, I wasn’t the one who killed her!” he cried. Cindy Redwine became furious and confronted him, which she now worries kept him from revealing the truth of what had happened to Esther.
Cindy Redwine reported Esther missing then. The police did not take her seriously.
Shortly after that, the unnamed man fled the Chama area for Texas. He returned to Chama for a short while, then left again. Cindy Redwine feels police never properly investigated him. Without a name, I cannot confirm what happened to him or where he ended up. I am interested to know if he was convicted or suspected in any other crimes against women or young girls.
After Esther vanished, her wallet was found in Chama. It is not clear if there was money in it. No other signs of Esther have ever turned up.
Several rumors complicated the investigation. Some people claimed that they saw Esther Valdez in Farmington, Albuquerque, and Colorado. Police were never able to substantiate these sightings. Esther’s mother regards them with suspicion because the people who have supposedly sighted her all knew her in Chama and none of them were close to her. She thinks they know what happened to Esther and they make up sightings to deflect suspicion.
More disturbing rumors centered on Ben’s Lounge in Chama. Several people gave signed statements to the police that a party had taken place at the bar on the night of the 7th, and Esther Valdez was murdered there. Many people repeat the rumor that Esther had been killed by blunt force trauma with a stake or bat and she cried for her father as she died. Despite these signed and sworn statements, police have not appeared to have followed up on the lead.
Though now closed, Ben’s Lounge was a popular bar in the area, which has a low population and a rather lean selection for nightlife. The bar hosted frequent dances and was the scene of many crimes, including assaults. The owner, Ben Martinez, had been previously convicted of letting Esther Valdez come into his bar and drink as an underage girl. A State cop had gone to the lounge and busted Esther. Ben Martinez was facing a trial, in which Esther was the main witness. Esther vanished before the trial even took place. Some think that Martinez may have played a role in her disappearance.
But what about the mysterious guy she left to go camping with? Did he bring her to the party and witness what happened, or is he implicated more deeply? Why did he say he wasn’t the one who killed her? That tells me he saw something or knew something. He knew she was dead before Cindy and Esther’s family did.
In 2005, a birthday party guest told Esther’s mother that Esther’s neck had been snapped at a party and her lifeless body had been thrown down a well. That tip led investigators to a specific Chama property that Esther’s friends had been renting at the time of her disappearance, about three miles from the house where Esther had lived all her life. While police searched the land, they did not turn up Esther. Cadaver dogs hit on two areas but remains were not found there. It is not clear how extensively investigators searched and if they dug deep for her remains in those two places. They did check the well and did not find her in it. Investigators also previously dug behind the Village Hall for her remains, again without success.
Esther liked dating older men and drinking. She had previously run away from home twice, returning both times. But Esther had a wonderful heart and she was just experimenting and exploring the way teenagers do. It is unfortunate that she could not do that safely. Esther had five younger siblings, and they do not believe she would have abandoned them forever. She usually cared for them while her parents were at work. A family-oriented person, she loved to gather her siblings before Mother’s Day to think of surprises for their mother. She was also a student at Escalante High School and wanted to graduate so that she could become a cosmetologist. She enjoyed practicing haircutting on her younger siblings every month. Her favorite color was purple.
Asucena Valdez, or Tena, is Esther’s mother. She believes her daughter was killed and dumped like an animal. After all of these years, she feels each new fruitless tip is like salt in the wound. Esther’s father, Cipriano Valdez, died in 2001 without answers as to what had happened to his daughter. Esther’s little brother, Cipriano Jr, misses her and fondly remembers her cutting his hair in preparation for her future career. She has many other people who want to know what happened to her and who want to lay her to rest. After all these years, I think it’s time that someone tells what they know.
Esther’s niece, Marietta Valdez, is an advocate for Esther’s case. She wrote a letter imploring Governor Bill Richardson to goad police into taking more action to find Esther. She is also active on Websleuths, digging for information into her aunt’s case. She claims that law enforcement has never been invested in Esther’s case from Day One. They have failed to dig for her in the property mentioned in the tip and they have failed to follow up on important leads, like interviewing the man Esther left with the night she died. The fact Esther had run away in the past and she turned 18 while missing may have made law enforcement dismiss her as a runaway, sort of like with Teresa Reyes.
Something about Esther’s story really stuck with me. Maybe because I was a lot like Esther once. A teenage girl in a small town, working at a restaurant while dreaming of bigger and better things. I also had aspirations of becoming a beautician. And I liked older men, not realizing that normal older men don’t like teenage girls. I just wanted to have fun and drink and party; but I got to become an adult and she did not, which makes me very sad.