Police to search Malpais
for missing men

By Helen Davis
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — New Mexico State Police announced yesterday that the agency will renew the search for missing Magdalena resident Steven Romero today. Romero has been unaccounted for since mid-April.

A news release from the Department of Public Safety late yesterday said that officers from the state police, the Cibola County Sheriff’s Department, New Mexico Department of Corrections and the National Park Service will deploy from a command post near mile marker 35 on N.M. Highway 117. Romero’s pickup was found with one flat tire at that location on April 18, apparently abandoned.

The search is scheduled to start at 6 a.m. before the day heats up. Searchers will conduct a line search approximately 3 miles into the Malpais west of the highway. Capt. Dominic Pargas of NMSP District 6 said the search will be on foot today; the search will continue on the east side of the highway tomorrow on horseback if nothing is found today, he added.

Romero was reported missing April 19, after the truck was reported in a routine call the day before. State police and K-9 units from the New Mexico Correctional Facility conducted a search of the area and set up a roadblock for over six hours in an attempt to gain information on Romero’s possible movements at that time, but found no hints of criminal or voluntary activity in the area, New Mexico State Police Officer Craig Vandiver reported in April.

Pargas said some of the community, still concerned about Romero, believe it possible that he is out on the Malpais and have asked the state police to search the rugged lava fields more closely. No information indicating that Romero has been seen or may have traveled out of the area has come to light since he was last seen. The Romero disappearance is being treated as a missing person at this time.

Pargas asked the public to assist law enforcement agencies in locating Romero and another missing person.

Eusebio Montoya has been missing from Oso Ridge since mid-January. His disappearance is being treated as a criminal investigation, Pargas said.

Romero is described as being 6-feet, 1-inch tall with brown eyes, about 175 pounds, with a well-trimmed gray beard and neat gray hair with a wide bald area in front. He is 61 years old. There is no information about what he was last wearing.
Montoya is described as thin, approximately 5-feet, 8- inches tall, with brown hair and green eyes, the left one being a prosthetic.

Anyone with information about either of these men or their possible whereabouts should call the New Mexico State Police 24-hour line at (505) 287-4141, the Cibola County Sheriff’s Office 24-hour line at 287-9476 or, to remain anonymous, Cibola Crime Stoppers at 287-8400.