West Mesa Killer Satellite Image
West Mesa Serial Killer Satellite Images

Confirmed to be the work of a serial killer that was active between 2001-2005. Almost no media coverage and the killer was never caught. True Crime Garage ep. West Mesa Serial Killer-$100,000 Reward. Victim: Victoria Chavez Suspect: Unknown Location: 118th Street SW, Albuquerque, N.M. Synopsis: In 2005 an unknown.

Albuquerque Journal Special Report

Jamie Barela

Jamie Barela, 15, was last seen with her 23-year-old cousin Evelyn Salazar heading to a park at San Mateo and Gibson SE in April 2004.

Neither woman was ever seen again until their bones turned up in the mass grave site on the West Mesa in 2009.

Jamie was the final skeleton to be identified, almost a year after the first bone was found.

But Jamie’s mom believed investigators would find her daughter’s body long before she was named.

Unlike the other West Mesa victims, Barela had no known prostitution or drug arrests.

Do have information about Jamie Barela or pictures we can add? Please contact westmesa@abqjournal.com or call 505-823-3860. If you have a tip or investigative leads, contact APD at 1-877-765-8273 or (505) 768-2450.

Monica Candelaria

Sheriff’s deputies investigating the disappearance of Monica Candelaria in 2003 heard from her friends that she had been killed and buried on the mesa.

It turns out, those friends were right.

When the 21-year-old never showed up, detectives turned it over to the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office cold case unit. The case stayed cold until she was identified as one of the women found on the mesa in 2009.

She was last seen near Atrisco and Central in Southwest Albuquerque. Deputies said she lived a “high-risk lifestyle” and may have had gang ties. She had been convicted of prostitution once, according to court records.

But her obituary highlights a happier side.

“Monica enjoyed laughing, joking, taking care of babies, and spending time with her family,” the obituary reads. “She will be remembered as a loving daughter, mother, granddaughter, niece, cousin and friend who will be truly missed.”

Do have information about Monica Candelaria or pictures we can add? Please contact westmesa@abqjournal.com or call 505-823-3860. If you have a tip or investigative leads, contact APD at 1-877-765-8273 or (505) 768-2450.

Victoria Chavez

Victoria Chavez, 26, was the first woman whose bones were identified after they were found on the mesa — before the public learned the women were likely murdered by a serial killer.

“To have them come and knock on my door, I was devastated,” stepfather Ambrose Saiz said at a memorial event in 2009. “I never thought it would end like this. I just had that hope.”

Chavez’s mother reported her missing in March 2005 after she hadn’t seen her in more than a year.

The mother also said in the missing persons report that Chavez was on probation and was a “known drug user and prostitute.” She had five prostitution convictions, according to court records.

Do have information about Victoria Chavez or pictures we can add? Please contact westmesa@abqjournal.com or call 505-823-3860. If you have a tip or investigative leads, contact APD at 1-877-765-8273 or (505) 768-2450.

Virginia Cloven

Virginia Cloven grew up in a small trailer heated by wood-burning stove in Los Chavez.
She was funny, loved doing her makeup and was a favorite at school.

“She was a really humorous girl, she would take everything in stride,” her dad Robert Cloven said in a 2015 interview. “She would try to lie to you, and then come in and tell you the truth anyways two minutes later. The teachers wanted to adopt her.”

But tragedy struck the family when she was in high school.

Her brother was shot and killed in a homicide that would later be ruled self-defense.

Virginia Cloven ran away from home a week later, when she was 17. Another brother ran away too.

“They said they couldn’t stand it anymore,” Robert Cloven said.

At first Virginia Cloven lived with her grandfather in Albuquerque, then moved in with a boyfriend.

He got hit by a car and went into a coma, and soon Virginia Cloven had lost her home and was living on the streets of Albuquerque’s International District.

One year, she called her dad asking what he wanted for his birthday. He asked her to clear up her citations and then they were supposed to meet in Albuquerque.

“We went to go meet her on my birthday after court, she said ‘come to grandpa’s.’ But she wasn’t there,” Robert Cloven said. “After that she just vanished.”

Robert Cloven and his wife searched high and low for their daughter. They taped pictures of her on the cab of their truck and drove through the seedier parts of the city.

They last heard from her in June 2004. She called to say she had a new boyfriend who had just gotten out of prison and that she was probably going to marry him.

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“We said we’d like to meet him, but we never heard from her again,” Robert Cloven said in 2009. “After that, everything just went dead.”

Robert Cloven reported his daughter missing four months later, in October 2004. She was 23 at the time.

Though he hadn’t heard from her in years, Robert Cloven said he never expected detectives to show up at this door and tell him his daughter was dead.

“We just couldn’t believe it. We were hoping it was a mistake,” he said. “In the back of our minds we were still hoping she might be out there.”

Now, years later, his daughter’s death still haunts him. He doesn’t celebrate holidays anymore, and sleeps in the living room instead of the bedrooms where his kids would have been.

“When you lose a kid it’s the hardest thing in the world I think,” he said. “I’ve lost other family members … but when it’s your daughter or son, it hurts worse.”

Do have information about Virginia Cloven or pictures we can add? Please contact westmesa@abqjournal.com or call 505-823-3860. If you have a tip or investigative leads, contact APD at 1-877-765-8273 or (505) 768-2450.

Syllannia Edwards

Syllannia Edwards stands apart from the other West Mesa victims.

She had no known friends or family, and was a runaway from foster care in Lawton, Okla. Qcad pro.

Edwards, who was 15, was the only African American victim. She never knew her father, and last saw her mother when she was 5.

Police believe she may have been a “circuit girl,” meaning she was traveling along the I-40 corridor as a prostitute.

Early in the investigation, a tipster told investigators Edwards was seen in Denver in the spring and summer of 2004. The tipster said she had been at a motel on East Colfax Street in Denver.

“They were high-prostitution areas,” then-APD spokeswoman Nadine Hamby said in 2009.

Police believe she may have been travelling in a group.

“We’ve received information that Syllannia was associated with three other females and that she may have gone by the aliases Chocolate or Mimi,” Hamby said.

Early on, investigators hoped Edwards’ background, because it’s different from the other victims, would provide the details needed to crack the case.

Police released photographs of her fingernail, which had a distinct painted design on it, to media outlets in both Albuquerque and Denver in the hopes someone who painted the nail would come forward.

It’s unclear if investigators ever got any credible leads from the fingernail, or from digging into her past.

Do have information about Syllannia Edwards or pictures we can add? Please contact westmesa@abqjournal.com or call 505-823-3860. If you have a tip or investigative leads, contact APD at 1-877-765-8273 or (505) 768-2450.

Cinnamon Elks

When Diana Wilhelm didn’t hear from her daughter on her birthday in August 2004, she knew something was wrong.

But it would take nearly five years for police to confirm what Wilhelm already believed — her daughter Cinnamon Elks was dead.

Elks, who was 32 when she went missing, was the third of the West Mesa victims to be identified after the first bone was found in early 2009. She, like many of the others, had a string of prostitution and solicitation arrests — 19 total, with 14 convictions.

She was friends with at least three of the other victims — Gina Michelle Valdez, Victoria Chavez and Julie Nieto.

Do have information about Cinnamon Elks or pictures we can add? Please contact westmesa@abqjournal.com or call 505-823-3860. If you have a tip

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