In February 2009, a woman walking her dog in West Mesa, an elevated landmass in Albuquerque, New Mexico, made a horrifying discovery embedded in the dirt – a human bone. Upon police arrival, the bone revealed a mass grave spread out across the Mesa containing 11 bodies. The West Mesa Bone Collector, who is still walking free, killed all 11 female bodies that were found in the mass grave in West Mesa.
West Mesa Bone Collector murdered eleven women
After the bodies were discovered, it was eventually revealed that between 2001 and 2005, a serial killer known as the West Mesa Bone Collector murdered and buried eleven women in the outskirts of Albuquerque. All of the West Mesa Bone Collector’s victims were between the ages of 15 and 32, Hispanic, suspected to be involved in the Albuquerque drug scene, and worked as prostitutes. The bodies of 11 women and one unborn child were not found in a single mass grave, but rather they were found scattered under dry sand, hot sun, and tumbleweeds. It took law enforcement officials quite some time to recover all of the bodies, and then they started the process of identifying each of them, quickly coming to realize that many of them had been missing for years. By the end of their investigation, the bodies of 11 women had been identified.
Officially, the cause of death of the 11 women was homicidal violence, but in truth, the medical examiner’s and forensic experts could not figure out how the women died, which is very unusual. No witnesses have come forward, and there was virtually no forensic evidence at the burial site, which meant there was nothing to tie the victims together except their shared grave and high-risk lifestyles. The West Mesa murders are not a cold case, but law enforcement officials say they also won’t name any suspects involved, and they actually have a bigger pool of people they’re looking at than ever before.
Case remains unsolved
Lorenzo Montoya had a rather suspicious criminal background. He not only lived near the burial site, but he was arrested in 1999 for attempting to strangle a prostitute that he picked up and taken to a secluded area. In 2006, Montoya died after the boyfriend of Sherek Hill, another prostitute, murdered him. Montoya had hired him and then tied her up and strangled her. But when she didn’t emerge from Montoya’s home at the time she said she would, her boyfriend, whom she brought with her, approached the house and killed Montoya in self-defense. Suspiciously, the West Mesa murders stopped after Montoya was killed, leading police to believe that he may have been the serial killer after all.
Another suspect is Joseph Blea. Blea’s wife suspected he may have been the West Mesa Bone Collector. First, there was a large collection of jewelry found in their home that didn’t belong to either her or her daughter, and then a stash of women’s underwear was found in their backyard shed. Blea had already been on law enforcement’s radar thanks to his habit of stalking prostitutes’ clothes. He’d also been arrested for exposing himself in public.
Joseph Blea was found with potential incriminating evidence: electrical tape and rope
When the police finally caught up with him to bring him in for questioning, they discovered electrical tape and rope in his car. In fact, after the bones were found in West Mesa, Blea’s ex-wife promptly called the police to inform them that she believed her ex-husband was the killer. However, so far, nothing has definitively connected him to the crimes. Blea is currently in prison serving a 36-year sentence for raping a 13-year-old girl in the late 1980s. Investigators say Blea wore a ski mask when he attacked victims and was usually armed with a knife.
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