In February 2009, a woman walking her dog in West Mesa, an elevated landmass in Albuqerque, New Mexico made a horrifying discovery, embedded in the dirt was a human bone.
Police discovered 11 female bodies believed to be victims of West Mesa Bone Collector
Upon police arrival, the bone would reveal a mass grave spread out across the mesa containing 11 bodies. All 11 bodies were female. The women were believed to have been killed by a serial killer known as the West Mesa Bone Collector. He has still never been collect.
After the bodies were discovered, it was revealed that between 2001 and 2005, a serial killer known as the West Mesa Bone Collector murdered and buried 11 women in the outskirts of Albuquerque. This is probably the most horrific case Albuqerque and New Mexico has ever seen. Police promised the families of the victims that solving the murders was a top priority.
Initially that seemed to be the case. Investigators assembled a crack team of detectives, bringing in FBI profilers and working with law enforcement agencies around the state to try to figure out how the bones of 11 women had wound up in the desert, how they died.
His victims fall between the ages of 15 and 30. Two were Hispanic and were suspected to be involved in the Albuquerque drug scene and worked as prostitutes. The bodies of 11 women and one unborn child were found not 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.
Cause of death was ruled homicidal violence
Officially, the cause of death of the 11 women was homicidal violence. But in truth, the medical examiners and forensic experts, they couldn’t actually 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 APD still won’t call the West Mesa murders a cold case. But they say they also won’t name any suspects involved. They actually have a bigger pool of people they’re looking at then ever before. To this day, law enforcement has been unable to determine who was and is the West Mesa bone collector. Things take an usual turn when we look at the potential list of suspects.
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 Sherick Hill, another prostitute, murdered him. Montoya had hired Hill, 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’d brought with her, approached the house and killed Montoya in self-defense. Suspiciously, the West Mesa murders stopped after Montoya was killed, leading the authorities to conclude that he may have been the killer.
The West Mesa Bone Collector Might Also Be Responsible For The Disappearance Of Six Other Women
Another suspect is Joseph Blea. His wife, Cheryl 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 in Albuquerque’s East Central neighborhood. Plus, he had also been arrested for exposing himself in public. 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, April Gillen, 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 remains in prison for raping a 13-year-old girl
Blea is currently in prison serving a 36-year sentence for raping a 13-year-old girl.
Authorities say Blea wore a ski mask when he attacked victims and was usually armed with a knife. Police have never charged him or anybody else in the West Mesa murders in 2002. Scott Lee Campbell was released from prison early, having agreed to work for the FBI as an informant. But instead he went on a killing spree, causing him to wind up back in prison in 2005. So letting him go as an informant. Yes, good job done.
Since then, he has been accused of murdering his former cellmate’s girlfriend, Jennifer Marcum, as well as a 19-year-old woman named Kaysi McLeod, who would have technically been his stepdaughter, as he married her mother after she “vanished.” Kimball also reportedly killed his uncle, Terry Kimball, and a woman named LeAnn Emery. He is currently serving a 70-year prison term.
Kimball a possible suspect in the West Mesa Bone Collector Murders
In 2011, the authorities listed Kimball as a suspect in the West Mesa killings. He allegedly visited the area regularly between 2002 and 2005 for his job, and has a history of violence. However, he denies being the killer, and no direct connections have been made between him and the victims.
In 2010, George Walker, a private investigator in the Albuqerque area, began receiving messages from someone claiming to know who the West Mesa Bone Collector is. In fact the emails and phone messages are suspected to belong to the killer himself.
However, law enforcement still hasn’t determined who has been leaving the messages, and they aren’t sure if the person even knows anything reliable, as none of the information provided has been verified.
In 2007, two years before the West Mesa murders were uncovered, an Albuquerque reporter discovered that the city’s lone missing persons detective had compiled the names of 16 missing prostitutes between 2001 and 2007.
Police didn’t take the missing women seriously
But to police, it seemed like nothing more than just a bunch of missing hookers, people known as the less dead. Eventually, nine of those women were identified by the West Mesa boneyard. The whereabouts of the other seven remain unknown, leaving open the question of whether the killer might have had other burial sites picked.
The similarities are pretty close. So I think any person putting this together would say, yeah, there has to be something more out there. What is still out on the West Mesa?
And whether he may be there’s still killing, there is the possibility that the serial killer just came and went. Serial killers move. That’s why they don’t get caught. If he didn’t get caught, there are probably more victims out there somewhere. He could be loose in New Mexico or another state.
New theories are emerging that somewhere out there, a second burial site may exist. Burial site. However, there are no known leads at all, the entire case of the West Mesa killings has gone dead cold.
If you enjoy what you are reading, consider supporting us by becoming a Patron or just making a one-time donation. Your financial support will help us grow and improve the quality of our product.
 |  |  |
