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Grants Police have new ally in quest for ID of mysterious murder victim

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Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Police have a new ally in the search to identify a murder victim from 35 years ago.

Porchlight International Missing and Unidentified, an international missing person search organization, has now undertaken the quest to help find out who the victim was.

Ellen Leach of Gulfport, Miss., a Porchlight member, contacted the Independent after she found the article last week about Grants Police learning of the killing from a witness who decided to come forward after 3 1/2 decades.

Leach has taken the artist’s sketch of the woman and has contacted the 903 registered members of Porchlight, who are searching databases with the sketch and the physical information given to police by the witness.

The woman was killed at 800 Melvin St. in the summer of 1974.

Grants Police detectives and New Mexico State Police crime scene investigators examined the house, starting after dark in order to use forensic investigative equipment searching for evidence.

Grants Police Detective Sgt. John Castaneda said the department has received one telephone call from the public, through state police, after the story broke in the Independent, even though he has asked the public to contact CrimeStoppers.

“I don’t know why they called state police,” he said.

Police are again asking the public to call CrimeStoppers at (505) 287-8400, a confidential tip line that is open 24 hours every day.

The murder victim is described as an Hispanic woman 17 to 20 years old, 5 feet 2 inches tall, 110 pounds with brown eyes and brown hair with blonde tips.

Police still do not know whether the victim was a local resident or someone passing through town, Castaneda said.

Leach said Porchlight originally was part of the Doe Network, another international missing persons organization but broke away because Porchlight’s members did not like the way Doe was conducting some of its business.

“Porchlight has been a missing persons organization for three years,” Leach said.

During that time, the group has identified 261 possible missing persons, which are awaiting positive identification through DNA samples, she said.

One positive match has been made and that person was located, she said.

“We start with the unidentified information and try to match all the physical information, such as height, weight, hair and eye color,” she said.

On the net: http://porchlightinternationalformissinguid.com/.
Porchlight: (228)-323-6141.
Crimestoppers: (505) 287-8400.
Grants Police detective division: (505) 287-2985.
To contact reporter Jim Tiffin call (505) 285-4560 or e-mail: jtiffin.independent@yahoo.com