Norma Sahm was from Alamogordo. In 1987, at the age of 17, she was frequently in trouble for truancy. The courts sentenced her to live for two years at a group home for troubled youth in Albuquerque called Hogares Youth Facility.
On June 13, 1987, Norma’s mother Judi Sahm received a call from the group home that Norma had run away with another girl. The other girl eventually returned to the group home. But Norma never returned.
Judi Sahm would never hear from Norma again. Norma was listed as a runaway by police, though her mother believed something bad had happened to her. For 18 years, her mother called the Bernalillo Sheriff’s office frequently for updates on her daughter’s case. She never stopped advocating for Norma.
Norma Sahm’s Identification
In 1988, Norma’s skeleton was found in the West Mesa off Squaw Road by hikers. Decomposition made her cause of death impossible to determine, but the manner of death was determined to be a homicide. Because Norma Sahm was listed as a runaway, police did not find her case file when they tried to identify the remains. So Norma was unidentified and her mother anxiously searched for her for eighteen years.
Judi Sahm recalls thinking various things over those years: that Norma was mad at her and chose not to talk to her ever again; that Norma had gone into prostitution; that Norma had joined the CIA. By 1995, she had resigned herself to the fact that her daughter was dead. She said she knew due to her mother’s instincts. Meanwhile, Norma’s remains were stored in an anthropological museum that whole time, tagged as a Jane Doe. Norma got to rest in peace in a box on a shelf, with no dignity. Her family had to fight to get law enforcement to listen to them and take her case seriously.
In the 90s, Judi Sahm advocated for her daughter until the case was updated to say missing person. But there was no news coverage to renew interest in the case. There also wasn’t any effort to match her with any of many Jane Does recovered around Albuquerque. It wouldn’t be until 2003 when the Bernalillo Cold Case Unit started to review missing persons cases and compare them to Jane Does found around Albuquerque. An investigator noticed Norma Sahm’s physical description matched the 1988 Jane Doe. They collected DNA from Judi Sahm and compared it to DNA obtained from Norma’s bones. At long last, in 2005, DNA technology finally identified the 1988 Jane Doe as Norma Denise Sahm.
Eighteen years after her murder, Sahm was finally returned to Alamogordo. Her brother picked up her bones in a box from the Office of the Medical Investigator and brought them back to southern New Mexico. Her mother did not look at the bones. She had the funeral home place them in a child-sized casket. Then the Sahm family buried Norma at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church cemetery. Sahm’s graveside memorial was attended by a few family members. It was full of purple flowers and purple balloons because that was Norma’s favorite color. Her gravestone features the image of a unicorn, another thing she loved.
The Bill for a Missing Persons Clearinghouse
Norma Sahm’s case highlights a big problem in New Mexico with unidentified bodies. When a cop works a case involving an unidentified body, he or she is supposed to update national databases to lead to identification. But many cops are not aware of this and the law is not enforced. Therefore, many cases are not properly entered into databases, hence leaving many cases with no chance of being solved.
Another problem is how some cops sometimes refuse to categorize certain people as missing persons because they appear to be runaways. When this happens, runaways who are harmed or people who are abducted do not get a chance at being identified. This is what happened with Norma Sahm. People also mistakenly believe that a person cannot be reported missing until 48 hours have passed; even some cops believe this and tell people to wait 48 hours after their loved ones disappear. But this is not true and you can report anyone missing if you believe they are in danger. The first 48 hours are critical to finding missing persons and early action can lead to better case outcomes and fresher evidence.
As of 2005, there were 338 unidentified remains in the Office of the Medical Investigator’s storage rooms and over 854 missing persons cases. Some of those remains could be missing persons but backlogs in DNA, administrative errors, and incompetence result in the cases not being handled properly and identifications not being made. Norma’s story of being identified after 18 years is actually unusual; many people are never identified at all and their loved ones pass away before they get answers. After Norma’s identification in 2005, the Albuquerque Journal used her case to highlight the issue and advocate for families that wait for answers about their missing loved ones for years or even decades.
Judi Sahm gave up on cops in 1995. That’s when she turned to other avenues. She reached out to senators and caught the attention of Senator Diana Duran. Duran proposed a bill that would make New Mexico develop a special office as a liaison with the National Database of Missing and Exploited Children. At the time, New Mexico was one of only four states that did not have a way to link to the national database. Duran’s bill called for a clearinghouse that would store and exchange information on missing persons, like dental records and fingerprints. This information could then be shared nationally, aiding in the identification of missing persons and unidentified bodies all over the country. Senator Ann Riley proposed a similar bill at the same time but this bill focused only on children and not adults; Duran’s bill included all missing persons regardless of age.
The bill passed and now there is a clearinghouse for all missing persons in New Mexico. You can view it here. This clearinghouse is required for all law enforcement agencies and tribal agencies to participate in. It stores and exchanges information on missing persons, aiding in their identification. We can thank Judi Sahm and Norma Sahm in part for that.
The FBI has also become more invested in solving cold cases and assisting where they have jurisdiction. The state police and various other investigative bodies have also formed cold case task forces. One formed in Bernalillo County in 2003 is how Norma Sahm was eventually identified after nearly two decades. These are all positive strides for New Mexico that came far too late for many victims and their families.
Suspects
Identifying Norma’s remains led to her case being properly investigated for the first time. Carlos Gutierrez was identified by a witness as the last person seen with Norma before she died back in 1987. The witness recognized him from yearbook photos (I wonder if the witness was Norma’s friend whom she ran away with). According to the witness, Norma and the other girl from the group home met up with two teen boys at a park in Albuquerque on June 13, 1987. One of the boys was Carlos Gutierrez; the other remains unnamed but has been investigated as an accomplice in Norma’s murder. After her friend left to return to the group home, Norma stayed behind and likely met her terrible fate at these boys’ hands.
Carlos Gutierrez was a sheriff’s deputy in Bernalillo County for six years when this detail came to light in 2005. He was put on paid leave for eight months during the investigation. He was only 14 back in June 13, 1987.
The tragic thing is that if the sheriffs had taken Norma’s initial disappearance more seriously, they could have identified Norma in 1988 and then prosecuted the deputy as a juvenile before he turned 18. Due to the amount of time that has passed, this man cannot be tried for the murder anymore. Here’s why. He was six weeks shy of 15 when he and his possible accomplice encountered Norma Sahm in June 1987. State law in 1987 did not allow children under 15 to be tried as adults. The law was not updated until 1996 to allow children over the age of 14 to be tried as adults. So by 2005, Gutierrez was an adult and there was no way he could be tried as a juvenile for this murder anymore. In other words, Gutierrez got lucky due to a legal loophole.
Even if he had been tried, there is a strong chance he could have gotten off. Gutierrez claimed he was out of town when the murder happened, and due to the amount of time that has elapsed, this alibi is difficult to either verify or dispute. He vehemently denied knowing Norma Sahm or participating in her death. Gutierrez was administered a polygraph in February 2006 and passed, after which he was allowed to return to his deputy duties. Polygraphs are only 72% accurate so I don’t think that is sufficient evidence that he is innocent.
In 2006, Carlos Gutierrez filed a defamation lawsuit against the sheriff’s office, claiming they ruined his reputation with the whole thing. The sheriff’s office declined to name Gutierrez in the news during the investigation, but Gutierrez’s attorney argued that everyone in the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office knew it was him. Gutierrez was also angry about missing out on $9000 of overtime he could have earned during his paid administrative leave. The lawsuit outed Gutierrez’s name to the public and so now the whole world knows who was investigated in Norma’s death.
I cannot find the results of the lawsuit. Gutierrez is no longer with the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office. It appears he is still in Albuquerque or possibly California.
I do not know if Gutierrez was involved or not. I am curious about his alibi and if investigators were able to verify if he really was out of town. I do think that it is unusual – not impossible or unlikely, but unusual – for a 17-year-old girl to hang out with a 14-year-old boy.
How did Norma and her friend know these two boys they met up with at the park? Was it a random encounter and the park was the first time they ever met, or did they know each other prior? And what did the friend that Norma ran away with have to say about all of this? I am sure she is the best source of information about Norma’s last moments, but it is not clear if she was investigated properly, since this entire case was mishandled from day one. Was this friend the witness who identified Carlos Gutierrez from yearbook photos? Did she give the names of the two boys from the park and any details about them? Did she give any information about why Norma stayed behind with them while she returned to the group home? I almost wonder if that friend may know more than she let on. Maybe she was even involved. After all, why did she run away with Norma, only to return to Hogares and leave her friend behind?
Another person named Simonetta Galanis decided to make Norma Sahm’s death the center of a bizarre Christian conspiracy theory. This person tried to claim that Norma Sahm was a direct descendent of Jesus Christ due to matches between DNA taken from the Holy Shroud and Sahm’s DNA. Therefore, she was shot as a result. The whole thing is confusing and bizarre but you can read it here. What really bothers me is that Simonetta Galanis says she has reached out to Norma’s cousin, Kellie Breeding. This family is grieving and dealing with the trauma of homicide, and now they’re being bothered by this conspiracy buff. Just leave grieving families alone!
As of now, this case is still unsolved. Norma’s father, Steve Sahm, posted an impassioned plea for someone to come forward with details about his daughter’s case. He refers to her by her middle name, Denise, and he mentions her love of unicorns and the color purple.
In Conclusion
It is heartbreaking that this child may have been murdered by another child. And that the other child got away with it and went on to become part of our law enforcement. If Gutierrez is innocent, then someone else did this who is still out there .
Norma was a child with a family who loved her and her family deserves justice. Judi and Steve Sahm are in their seventies, living in Alamogordo. While they now know where their daughter is, I am sure they want to know who did this to her.
Norma may have thought she was all grown up, but in reality, she was just a child who was not ready for the cruelty of the world.
Sources
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/16541626/norma-denise-sahm
https://www.koat.com/article/cold-murder-case-from-1987-suddenly-warms-up/5020632
https://stevesahm.blogspot.com/2005/06/norma-denise-sahm-in-memory.html