Police: Body believed to be Navajo woman
Albuquerque PD seek help in ID of homicide victim

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — Albuquerque Police are seeking the identify of a young female, possibly from the Navajo Reservation, whose skeletal remains were found Feb. 25, 2005, after she was killed and dumped on a mesa in West Albuquerque.

Detective Rich Lewis of the Cold Case Homicide Unit said Monday that an autopsy determined that the victim had been killed but would not say how the death occurred.

“The place where she was disposed of is not some place you could just get to by driving off the freeway. It took some determined motivation to get there — kind of a ‘local knowledge only’ place,” he said.

Lewis took over the case about 1 1/2 years ago after it was passed down from homicide. Police ran stories in the local media but received no good leads. The forensic anthropologist could not be certain of the girl’s race, but thought the skull had some black characteristics.

“We’ve since had it looked at again and think she may be Native,” Lewis said.

The victim, who is believed to be between the ages of 15 and 23, was wearing a 2004 “Just Move It” T-shirt when found. “On the back of the shirt it had the event. It was tracked to May 24. I believe the 24th through the 26th there was an event in Chinle, and that’s where the shirt was originally handed out.

“What I’ve learned since then is excess shirts were later handed out at different tribal events in New Mexico and Arizona. At the most, we think it (the shirt) could be only 8 months old before we found the victim, so we’re hoping she’s tied to the event.” He said investigators don’t believe the shirt was passed down or purchased at a swap meet or thrift shop.

“She was wearing nice clothing. She had Jordache jeans, she was wearing Victoria’s Secret underwear, and she was wearing a sports bra which leads me to believe that maybe she was an athlete that attended this race out in Chinle,” Lewis said. “She had very good dental. She’s not going to be a throwaway street person — she’s going to have a life. I know somebody’s missing her. It’s just finding that right report so we can identify who she is.”

Lewis spoke to the doctor at Indian Health Service who runs the “Just Move It” event and learned that the shirt might have been yellow, tan or white in color. The victim had short hair when found, but the detective said it is believed that she may have had long hair.

Artists’ renderings of the victim depict her with both short and long hair, and with both black and Native facial characteristics.

“We’re just not sure. She has characteristics of both black and Native, and she has some Hispanic in her,” Lewis said.

“We’ve researched missing persons reports all over Arizona and New Mexico and we just can’t identify her. The interesting thing is this young lady’s mitochondrial DNA — the maternal DNA that you get from your mother — was entered into the nationwide database and we got a hit out of San Juan County, N.M.

“There was another young lady back in 2002 who they think is also Native, that was in a car accident as she was driving off the reservation into San Juan County. The vehicle she was driving caught on fire and she was burned beyond recognition. She has never been identified.”

According to DNA experts, the two either could be sisters or “just a statistical coincidence” and no relation at all, Lewis said. “But we think with both of the young ladies having ties to the Navajo Reservation, they may be related.”

“We’re working with San Juan County Sheriff’s Department now, trying to identify her. She’s fairly similar in stature and age. The problem is with just examining skeletal remains, it’s not very exact. They think she was 14 to 23 and our girl was approximately 15 to 23.”