West Mesa Bone Collector

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Discretion is advised. This is ten
minuted murder. On February two, two

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thousand and nine, a lady was
walking her dog in the West Mesa,

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a large elevated land mass in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Midway through her walk,

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she came across what appeared to be
a human bone. Alarmed, the

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woman reported her finding to the police, who confirmed that the bone was human

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and began an in depth search of
the area where the bone had been found.

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The searchers expected to find the rest
of the body that the bone had

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come from, but they found much
much more than that. The investigation uncovered

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eleven sets of human remains buried in
the area, as well as the remains

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of an unborn fetus. All of
the victims were female. The youngest was

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fifteen years old and the oldest was
thirty two. Most of the victims were

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Hispanic, and almost all of them
were from backgrounds that would have made them

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vulnerable to predators, such as sex
workers and drug addicts. Satellite images of

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the area were reviewed, allowing the
police to estimate a time frame of when

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the bodies had been buried. Whoever
this killer was, they had killed prolifically

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over an extended period of time.
The first body had been buried in two

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thousand one and the last one in
two thousand five. The satellite images also

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gave investigators insight as to how the
bones were eventually exposed to the elements.

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They had all been buried in the
bank of an arroyo, a type of

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dry water course that fills with water
during heavy rain. It was an area

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that was well within the city limits, but that had not been developed at

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the time the killings began. The
series of satellite images showed soiled disturbances and

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tire tracks appearing between two thousand and
three and two thousand and five, indicating

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that the killer was able to visit
the sites whenever he needed to dispose of

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a body without being disturbed. Then, in two thousand and six, the

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burial site was mapped for development of
residential properties and the arroyo was buried.

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Because the arroyo acted as a reservoir
to store and naturally direct heavy rain flow

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without its, flooding began to encroach
on the nearby houses, and after enough

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people in the neighborhood complained about the
flooding, an artificial retention pond was built

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in the same area. Where the
remains had been buried. It was only

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through this series of coincidences that the
bones were gradually exposed to the surface.

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One by one, The remains were
matched to missing girls and women who had

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gone missing between two thousand and one
and two thousand five. The dates that

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each victim vanished matched up with the
satellite images showing that the final body had

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been buried in two thousand and five. The youngest victim was fifteen year old

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Solonia Edwards, who had run away
from her home in Lawton, Oklahoma.

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Out of all the victims, she
was the only girl of African American descent,

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and she was also the only one
who had lived in a different state.

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The fetus in the grave was the
unborn baby of twenty two year old

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Michel Valdez, who had been about
four months pregnant when she was killed.

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In December twenty ten, six photos
were released by the Albuquerque Police showing seven

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women who investigators believed might be linked
to the West Mayson murders. The next

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day, a seventh photo was released. This time, the woman in the

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photo was quickly identified by members of
her family, who said that she had

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passed away due to an unrelated illness. Four days after the photos were released,

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two more of the women in the
photos had been identified by their loved

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ones, and both of them were
still alive. However, the remaining women

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in the photos were never named.
Investigators had a good reason to be concerned

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for the well being of the women
and several of the photos. They seemed

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to be asleep or unconscious, and
several of them looked similar to the eleven

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victims found buried in the West Mesa
Desert. In the early days of the

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investigation, the police realized they'd stumbled
upon the dumping ground of a serial killer.

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They couldn't rule out that the killer
may have worked with an accomplice,

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but they were certain that the same
person or group of people was responsible for

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the murders and burials. As news
of the case spread, the unidentified killer

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became known as the West Mesa bone
collector. Considering that the case began with

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eleven unidentified sets of skeletal remains,
The progress made in the investigtion gation was

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initially impressive, but since the day
that the last victim was identified, the

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case went cold. As of November
twenty twenty three, no suspects have been

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officially named. By authorities in connection
with the West Mason murders, and that

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despite a one hundred thousand dollars reward
for information leading to the killer's arrest,

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the FBI received an anonymous tip that
potentially linked the crimes to a suspect who

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lived in Central America. At several
points in the investigation, the police wondered

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if the murders were the result of
a sex trafficking ring that targeted sex workers

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at times when there was a large
influx of people in the area, such

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as during the popular New Mexico State
Fair, but no suspects being officially named

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by the authorities doesn't mean that there
were no suspects at all. In fact,

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several people attracted the suspicion of the
police since the early days of the

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case, and some of them have
even had a connection with the victims.

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One of the earliest unofficial suspects was
a pimp named Fred Reynolds, who allegedly

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kept photos of prostitutes and escorts who
had gone missing. He also had connections

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to at least one of the women, but he was never able to be

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connected to the crime itself, and
in early two thousand and nine he passed

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away Then, in late twenty ten, the police carried out an extensive search

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of multiple properties in Missouri which were
connected to Ron Irwin, a businessman and

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photographer who regularly visited the Albuquerque State
Fair. Although the police removed tens of

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thousands of photographs from Ron's property,
they later stated that they were confident that

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he was not involved with the West
Mason murders. Joseph Blee, a man

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known as the mid School Rapist,
was a sex offender who targeted teenage girls

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in the around area of Albuquerque's McKinley
Middle School. He would break into the

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girls houses and sexually assault them before
running away. He'd also convicted of murdering

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a sex worker who was found dead
on the street. After a breakthrough in

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an unsolved unrelated case led to Joseph
Blee being identified as the perpetrator, the

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police began to wonder if he could
be the West MASA bone collector close to

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where the bodies had been dumped,
a tree tag had been recovered by the

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investigators, and it turned out to
come from a plant nursery where Joseph had

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been a frequent customer during his time
behind bars. Joseph also reportedly told a

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fellow prisoner that the West Masa victims
were trashy, but that he had used

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their services anyway. Joseph was never
convicted of the West Mason murders. In

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June twenty fifteen, he received a
thirty six year sentence for the other crimes

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he committed. Out of all of
these unofficial suspects, there is one man

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whom many people believe to be the
strongest link to the case. His name

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is Lorenzo Montoya. Lorenzo lived close
to the West Masa bone collector's dumping site.

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In fact, the trailer park where
he lived was a little under three

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miles away from the graves. Allegedly, he visited the arroyo often enough in

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two thousand and six that there were
visible trails between his trailer and the burial

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site, although this has never been
confirmed by the police. Lorenzo also had

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a history of violence. His girlfriend
reported that he had repeatedly threatened to murder

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her and then bury her remains in
lime to counteract the smell of decay.

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On multiple occasions, he had been
arrested for brutally attacking the prostitutes that he

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hired, and his coworkers found his
conversation topics equally disturbing. Several of Lorenzo's

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co workers reported that he talked to
them about how he'd killed sex workers and

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then disposed of the remains on a
spots on the West Mesa. However,

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Lorenzo was never investigated in connection with
the murders because he was long dead himself

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by the time the bodies were discovered. In late two thousand and six,

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he hired a teenage prostitute. He
took that girl back to his trailer,

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he attacked her and strangled her to
death. That girl's boyfriend tracked Lorenzo down

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and shot him to death. After
that, no more bodies were dumped by

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the West Masa bone collector. Whether
the timing of Lorenzo's death was a coincidence.

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Something eventually did stop the West Masa
bone collector from returning to the site

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where he had disposed of the bodies
all those years, But the question of

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whether he truly stopped killing or just
started burying his victims in a new location

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remains unanswered. That's ten minute Murder
for today brief and bingeable true crime.

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I'm Joe the host, and thank
you so much for listening to ten minute

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Murder Today. Quick email question,
Dear Joe, Maybe you've answered this before

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and I could have missed it,
but what made you start doing this podcast

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and what made you do one where
the stories are in a condensed format?

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I love it and have noticed a
few copycats pop up since I started listening

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to yours. None are nearly as
well told or researched as yours though,

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Plus they don't have Joe the host
winky face. That's from Mackenzie and WIDGETA.

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And by the way she wrote out
winky face, there's no emoji there.

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It just says winky face Mackenzie.
I don't know that I've answered this

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completely before, but I will now. What made me start doing this podcast

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is the pandemic got real bored.
I've done commercial voiceovers for a really long

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time, so I already had the
equipment the studio at home, so it

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was just a matter of deciding what
to do the podcast about. And I

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didn't want to be just another white
guy with a podcast, because those are

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a dime a dozen. But what
I do have an interest in is storytelling

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and true crime. But I also
have a little bit of ADHD which makes

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me lose my attention span pretty quickly, so I figured if people like me

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exist, they would like a show
that's more condensed in nature, so that

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you don't have to sit through an
hour and a half or two hours of

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a story when you really just need
the meat of it, just get to

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the point. So I did some
research and found really no show like that

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existed, not in the way that
I wanted to do it, So I

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started one. But it did take
some encouraging from one of my closest friends.

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I've known a guy for a really
long time. His name is Cassio.

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Obviously that's not his real name,
but he has a bunch of different

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podcasts. If you just type Cassio
into whatever podcast listening at that you listen

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in, chances are you going to
find about thirty seven different podcasts that he's

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on. I don't know how many
he's on at this point, but he

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does a lot of different podcasts and
he's great, and he encouraged me,

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yeah, you should definitely do this
ten minute murder because I bounced that idea

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off of him and he was like, yeah, do it. So I

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did it, and now here we
are, however, many years later.

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Anyway, that answers your question Mackenzie
and WIDGETA. And by the way,

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I didn't mention this before, but
if you're new to listening to ten Minute

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Murder, make sure you hit subscribe
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me on social media to see the
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lastly, if you like this episode
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