The West Mesa Murders

On February second, two thousand nine, a woman walking her dog on the West Mesa development site found a large bone protruding from an earthen trail. Within days, investigators had begun excavating. What they found over the following weeks was eleven sets of human remains, along with the remains of one unborn child, buried in makeshift graves in an arroyo bank on the unpaved western edge of the city.

All eleven victims have been identified. They were predominantly women of color. The killings are believed to have occurred between two thousand one and two thousand five. The youngest identified victim was fifteen years old. Several of the women had been involved in survival sex work, which is to say they had been in a situation that made them especially difficult to report missing and especially unlikely to be reported quickly when they were gone.

No one has been arrested. No one has been charged. Several suspects have been named in media coverage over the years, but investigators have stated they have not accumulated sufficient evidence for prosecution. Nine additional women who went missing in the same period and in the same part of the city are believed by investigators to be connected to the case.

The families of the eleven women have continued to mark anniversaries, hold vigils, and press for investigative resources. The site on the West Mesa, now partially developed by the sprawl that was consuming the area in the years the killings occurred, receives no formal memorial marker. The case is listed as open.

What it documents, as much as anything, is a hierarchy of who gets investigated urgently and who does not. The West Mesa murders have never generated the sustained national attention that cases involving other victims routinely receive. The eleven women named by investigators are: Victoria Chavez, Veronica Romero, Syllania Edwards, Monica Candelaria, Doreen Marquez, Michelle Valdez, Jamie Barela, Evelyn Salazar, Cinnamon Elks, Julie Nieto, and Virginia Cloven.