And then a stash of women’s underwear was found in their backyard shed.īlea had already been on law enforcement’s radar thanks to his habit of stalking prostitutes in Albuquerque’s East Central neighborhood. First, there was a large collection of jewelry found in their home that didn’t belong to either her or her daughter. His wife, Cheryl suspected he may have been the West Mesa Bone Collector. The West Mesa Bone Collector Might Also Be Responsible For The Disappearance Of Six Other WomenĪnother suspect is Joseph Blea. Suspiciously, the West Mesa murders stopped after Montoya was killed, leading the authorities to conclude that he may have been the killer. 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. Montoya had hired Hill, and then tied her up and strangled her. In 2006, Montoya died after the boyfriend of Sherick Hill, another prostitute, murdered him. 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. Lorenzo Montoya had a rather suspicious criminal background. Things take an usual turn when we look at the potential list of suspects. To this day, law enforcement has been unable to determine who was and is the West Mesa bone collector. They actually have a bigger pool of people they’re looking at then ever before. But they say they also won’t name any suspects involved. The APD still won’t call the West Mesa murders a cold case.

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. But in truth, the medical examiners and forensic experts, they couldn’t actually figure out how the women died, which is very unusual. Officially, the cause of death of the 11 women was homicidal violence. Cause of death was ruled homicidal violence By the end of their investigation, the bodies of 11 women had been identified. 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. 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. Two were Hispanic and were suspected to be involved in the Albuquerque drug scene and worked as prostitutes. His victims fall between the ages of 15 and 30.

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.

West mesa serial killer satellite image