Janis Pulliam was a 43-year-old La Cueva High School employee and a mother of two. Recently divorced from her husband, she decided to take a two-day trip to Elephant Butte with a “special someone.” That proved to be the fatal mistake of her life.
Janis left on July 10, 1989. She left a note that she was taking a trip and that she would call the next day. Darcy waited for the call but it never came. That was unlike her mom, who always called once or twice a day when she was out of town.
After several days of no calls, her family began to worry. Her mother lived across the street from Darcy and Janis. She is the one who reported Janis missing to Albuquerque Police on July 14, 1989.
Janis was found on July 15, 1989 by a person boating on the lake. She was floating facedown in Elephant Butte, her hands and legs bound with rope. She had been strangled, tied up, and weighed down with a gas can filled with sand. All these years later, her death remains unsolved – even though police have a name and DNA evidence.
Police were called to investigate a 1981 gray Mercedes parked at the Hilton Hotel on 1901 University Boulevard, Albuquerque (now the Crowne Plaza) on July 20, 1989. It is not clear who called this in. This vehicle was determined to be Janis’s car. Apparently, there was no evidence in it, but it had been locked and abandoned for 15 days. There was no evidence it had been stolen. Since Elephant Butte is 150 miles from Abq, it is clear she must have met someone at the Hilton and left her car there. Why do this and be so secretive? Why couldn’t her friend pick her up at the house? It seems that she had to hide her “friend” from her family for some reason.
The Letter
The really weird thing about Janis’s death is that she wrote her friend a letter about her boyfriend an entire year before she died. Though she would not reveal his identity in this letter, she said he was a “secret friend” who was an acquaintance of teh family. She said he had helped her through the divorce, took her on secret trips, and planned to help her get into a federal job. Then she mentioned that she had written his name on a document and stashed it in the pocket of a gray suit; in the event of her death, they should look in that suit. Isn’t that weird?
The recipient of this letter turned it into the police. Agent Ramirez then used it in an affidavit to get a search warrant for her home. Investigators found the gray suit and the documents contained in it, and thus they learned her boyfriend’s name. Since they had also found two gray-brown hairs in the sand used to weigh her body down in the lake, they were able to obtain a warrant to get hair samples from her boyfriend. They took hair from his head and arm to compare to the hairs found in the sand. But now, in 2022, there have been no arrests. So while newspapers never mentioned the results of the DNA tests, it appears that they must not have matched her boyfriend. Unless there was some elaborate cover-up going on.
This is now a cold case. I can’t believe it because all evidence seems to point to this mysterious boyfriend. He left Albuquerque the same day Janis did – the tenth – driving a truck pulling a boat. When people are hauling boats in New Mexico, they are more often than not going to Elephant Butte, as its one of the largest bodies of water in the state and water recreation is a rare treat in other New Mexico waterways due to drought. We don’t have lakes and rivers everywhere like up North. Janis was clearly afraid for her life because of him. But he was never charged. Maybe he wasn’t involved or maybe he was but someone else working with him left the hairs in the sand. With only circumstantial evidence, the DA chose not to move forward.
Who Was Janis Alwin Pulliam?
Janis was born in Wisconsin. Her father’s job caused the family to move to Albuquerque. Shortly after high school, Janis married Harvey Pulliam. They moved to California, where she had two children and began working as a secretary at various high schools. Eventually, the family returned to Albuquerque, where Harvey thrived in business.
But in 1989, they were separated for undisclosed reasons. Janis lived with her adult daughter across the street from her mother, while her fourteen-year-old son Brian lived with her husband. She had just had a cancerous tumor removed from her thigh and was planning to go back to work at La Cueva High School after a 2-year medical leave. She was excited to work again; she loved her career.
On July 10, 1989, Janis left a note on the door that she was leaving for a few days for a vacation. It made sense she might want a vacation after all that had transpired in her life in the past few years. But this was obviously not an ordinary vacation.
Darcy told the news that her mother must have died soon after reaching Elephant Butte. Otherwise, she would have called. She always called when she was away, sometimes two times.
On the surface, Janis led a quiet, normal life. Her affair, though steamy, was actually pretty normal if you consider how many people have affairs. She was clearly unhappy with Harvey Pulliam, as indicated by their divorce, and finding another lover in a family friend is a common result of marital unhappiness. Her death, however, has created questions about what really went on behind closed doors.
Theories
Who would want Janis Pulliam dead? She was a secretary and mother, not known to be involved in anything dangerous or weird. The riskiest thing about her life was the fact she had just gone through a divorce. The timing of her death with the divorce does cast suspicion on her husband I think, but there is a good chance he wasn’t involved because of the evidence she left behind about her “secret friend.” Newspapers never mention if Harvey Pulliam was investigated and if he had an alibi. However, since spouses and exes are often the first to be suspected in murders, it is likely that LE did investigate him and clear him.
So who was this secret friend? And if she was killed by him, why in July of 1989? They had been seeing each other for at least a year prior to her death, probably longer. So what triggered her murder at that particular time? If Darcy is right and she was killed shortly after reaching Elephant Butte, what made someone kill her so quickly after embarking on what appeared to be a pleasant boat trip? The two had taken secret trips before, so what was it about this trip that resulted in Janis’s death?
What made Janis fear for her life enough to leave hidden evidence about her beau in her gray suit pocket, a whole year before her death? If this man was so scary, why didn’t she leave? Was she trapped or scared to leave him? Or did she know he was involved in something that made her have misgivings about him, despite being in love with him enough to stick around?
The secrecy surrounding her affair looks weird. Of course, it may have been for decency’s sake. Especially since newspapers reported he was an acquaintance of the family, maybe Janis hid his identity to keep her ex-husband and her children from hating her. She didn’t want to be judged for having an affair with a family friend. However, it seems that after her divorce, the need for secrecy would have evaporated. She could have disclosed the man’s identity to her close friends at least. But she didn’t do that. She hid his name in a document in the pocket of a gray suit. That seems like a level of secrecy that is well above average.
I wonder if this “secret friend” was not even a boyfriend. He seems like a boyfriend on the surface. After all, they took secret trips and he helped her through the divorce. But the secrecy surrounding their relationship and the fact he was getting her a federal job suggests that maybe he was someone important in the grand scheme of things, someone with federal connections or a federal position of power. Revealing his identity may have compromised his reputation if they were dating, which explains the secrecy. Or perhaps the two were not even romantically linked and instead they were secretly colleagues. The secrecy was necessary to disguise what Janis was really doing.
The secret trips may have been romantic rendez-vous, or they could have been subterfuge for some type of mission related to the federal job this mystery man promised Janis. She could have been working with him on some type of secret project or reconnaissance mission for the federal government, such as the DEA or CIA. Since New Mexico is close to the border, maybe the pair were involved in some type of undercover investigation into a cartel or drug smuggling ring. They pretended they were going to Elephant Butte for a day of fun on the water, but in reality, they were conducting some type of investigation that ultimately got Janis killed.
If I were working for the DEA or any other organization and I needed to go undercover, I would certainly pick a woman like Janis Pulliam to conduct the undercover missions. She seemed so ordinary to the casual observer. She was a secretary, and she looked like one. No one would suspect her of being involved in an undercover mission.
This could also explain why her death was quietly swept under the rug in the news and no arrest was made even after getting DNA from her “secret friend.” Police realized this death was way beyond their jurisdiction. They might have suppressed evidence at the orders from another agency above. While the case is still open in the NM State Police cold case unit, this could be all for the sake of the cover-up.
But this is purely conjecture. If you look at the bare facts, there was no evidence of her being involved in anything suspicious or wild at all. She was just a newly divorced woman enjoying a vacation with her new man. That vacation resulted in her death. The man appeared to have gone to Elephant Butte based on the boat he was pulling, so he was probably there when she was killed. Yet he never came forward to report anything. That is very suspicious. Then you add in Janis’s warning to her friend and you get a picture of someone scary. Janis may have been a domestic violence victim who was too scared to leave, but also scared to stay.
Another theory that I thought of was that the killer was David Parker Ray, the Toy Box Killer. I saw on a live chat that other people share that theory. Ray moved to Elephant Butte around 1987 and continued his career of abducting and torturing women there. He was known for strangulation as well as other forms of violence against women. Though he was never convicted of murder, he was believed to have killed at least 40 women, maybe even up to 60. He also had many rape and abduction victims who have never been found, but Ray described in his journal how to properly dispose of a body in Elephant Butte. He claimed in his journal that he left his victims in the lake to be eaten by catfish.
On top of that, Ray was super into BDSM. He had been since his father showed him BDSM porn when he was a child. This is believed to have triggered his later violence and his creation of BDSM snuff videos that he sold for thousands of dollars. Hence, maybe he and Janis were dating. When he exposed Janis to his kink, she began to worry about her life.
Maybe she was even one of his many accomplices in the abductions and tortures of women. Though she participated in the crimes, she worried one day she might be next. Ray often had girlfriends help him; his biggest accomplice was Cindy Hendy, his girlfriend at the time he was arrested in 1999. This could explain why Janis was so invested in keeping her new friend a secret. She certainly doesn’t seem like that kind of person on the surface, but even the most ordinary people can have secrets that are very dark.
However, when Ray was tried, you would think they would have tried to get him for the Janis Pulliam murder. Especially if the note found in her gray suit mentioned his name. The investigation and trials were pretty botched, though. It’s hard to say. But there is no official mention of David Parker Ray being a suspect in her murder.
Another possibility is that she wasn’t dating David Parker Ray himself, but her boyfriend was friends with him. Ray had many, many accomplices over the years. Most of them have not been identified. He would have friends come into his “toy box,” or “Satan’s den,” and help him rape women. Perhaps Janis’s boyfriend was one such creepy friend. Janis somehow found out about this and was too afraid to leave him, so she warned her friend that she might die at his hands instead.
Yet another possibility is that Janis was killed by her estranged husband. Her affair with this “secret friend” began while she was still with her husband. One newspaper article even mentions that her friend was actually an acquaintance of the family, therefore someone known to her husband. Maybe her husband learned about them together and killed her out of jealousy and rage after following them to Elephant Butte. He may have threatened her companion, which is why he never came forward to report her death. Janis knew what her husband was capable of, so she left the friend’s identity in her gray suit pocket to try to point the way to Harvey.
Clearly, Harvey and Janis had some type of trouble that contributed to their divorce; was it abuse? The fact their son Brian grew up to be a violent offender himself could possibly be explained by abuse in his home life as a child and exposure to abuse between Harvey and Janis. (More on Brian in a moment).
Yet another thing is that there could be a cover-up at play here. If investigators have a name and they have hairs, but they can’t identify the man, could it be because they don’t want to? Janis seemed very secretive about this man’s identity, even to her close friend in whom she confided about her affair. The man said he would get her a federal job, though in what field is unclear. Maybe he was involved in the federal government or the New Mexico government. Police found out who he was and they let the case quietly die instead of convicting her killer.
I really wish I could read those documents found in her gray suit!
Brian Pulliam
So now we get to the second weird part of this saga. Janis’s son, Brian, has become a violent criminal himself. In 1999, he was convicted of the assault of another young man in 1997. Then, when he got out of prison, he was taken in by his girlfriend, Kirsten Landeau, and her family. He repaid their kindness by murdering both Kirsten and her 20-year-old nephew, Dillon Cearfoss, in her home in August, 2012.
Just the day before, Kirsten had split up with Brian. So he showed up and shot her and Dillon. Dillon was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time; he had an autism diagnosis and wanted to teach children with disabilities. He had never done anything wrong to Brian. The other residents of the home, Kirsten’s sister and Dillon’s mother Sherry Nelson and Dillon’s sister, Dominique Landeau, weren’t home when the murders happened. If they had been, they might have been shot, too.
There is also some vague mention online that Brian’s paternal grandmother murdered his paternal grandfather. Yet I couldn’t find confirmation of this. If it is true, that suggests a pattern of generational violence within the family. It raises questions once again about what Janis’s life was like behind closed doors.
Murder Across the Generations
I think this is a perfect example of how murder ripples through communities and through generations. It does so much profound damage to the families and friends of the victim. You’re not just killing a person if you commit murder; you are creating carnage and destruction for hundreds if not thousands of people. Janis’s unsolved homicide as well as other tragedies and trauma may have turned Brian into someone terrified of abandonment. This caused him to panic and act vengefully when she broke up with him.
However, I also wonder if Brian may have inherited his violent nature and psychopathy from his father, Harvey. Janis clearly left Harvey for a reason. Maybe Harvey learned about her affair, or maybe he had no clue, but abuse may have been the cause of their split. They were a private couple and their friends refused to speak on the nature of their relationship.
After the split, Brian lived with Harvey and went to high school, while his sister, Darcy, lived with his mother and attended college. Darcy has gone on to be a businesswoman, taking after her father and grandfather. But Harvey is now serving a life sentence for a double homicide. Since one of the people he killed was his girlfriend, maybe he learned violence against women from his dad. Maybe he even witnessed or helped his dad kill his mother. It is interesting to note that at some point in Brian’s past, his defense attorney says Harvey abandoned him. Harvey also remarried a woman who was convicted of fraud. This does not paint a pretty picture of who Harvey Pulliam was.
The odd thing about Janis’s murder is how she seemed to know she was in danger, hence the letter, but she didn’t extricate herself from the situation. Maybe she couldn’t. Or maybe she was involved in some things, such as drugs, that Brian Pulliam was also exposed to growing up. While she didn’t seem like that on the surface, it is possible that she was involved in some ugly or illicit or underground things. His home life probably wasn’t happy before she died; but afterward, the trauma probably made his life much worse.
Janis’s death is now considered a cold case. But if you have any information that could help crack it, please call New Mexico State Police Cold Case Homicide Unit at (505) 827-9066 or email [email protected].
Sources
https://medium.com/a-murder-runs-through-it/janis-a-pulliam-af770fb56b1f
https://www.abqjournal.com/581251/no-contest-plea-in-2012-double-murder.html
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/46716672/obituary-for-janis-a-pulliam/
https://www.koat.com/article/cheers-heard-in-court-as-killer-sentenced-to-life/5064032