Mesa graves excavation opened to media

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - For the first time news cameras have been allowed inside what investigators call the largest crime scene in U.S. history: the dozen graves spread across a construction site in southwest Albuquerque.

On Thursday news cameras went behind the yellow tape while the crew from “America's Most Wanted” shot video for an upcoming show dedicated to the case.

The size of the area where investigators unearthed the skeletal remains of 12 bodies is astounding. The once remote section of sandy desert is now part of a residential development with 100 acres of vacant lots marked off as the crime scene.

The search for remains began early in February and still continues. In the last 24 hours another bone fragment was discovered and is believed to be from one of the known sets of remains.

Investigators so far have identified six of the victims as women reported missing in Albuquerque in 2004. They shared troubled pasts that included drugs and prostitution, and several on a list police had complied of 16 women who vanished in the city between 2001 and 2006.

The seventh victim was the unborn fetus of one of the women, and the other five have yet to be identified.

Because of the way soil was moved for the subdivision project, investigators working in an area that became know as "the bowl" found most of the remains only after digging down 15 feet.

“America's Most Wanted” host John Walsh also saw the crime scene for the first time Thursday and compared it to the devastation in New York City when terrorist brought down the World Trade Center towers in 2001.

"It is something that you can't really conceive; it's a hundred-acre crime scene," Walsh said. "Then you get here, and having been at Ground Zero and seeing that terrible hole, this is way bigger than Ground Zero."

Walsh said in his more than two decades of seeing crime scenes, this one is one of the best-handled.

"They are doing this the right way," he said. "They have brought in experts from all over the country.

"They are trying to make sure that when they catch the person or persons who did this that all their ducks are in order."

Walsh said he is confident they can help catch this killer when the episode about the case airs on Saturday April 25 on Fox network stations including KASA Fox 2 in Albuquerque.

“The No. 1 objective is to find out who the coward is that killed these woman and dumped them here in Albuquerque," Walsh said. "April 25th the world will be a much smaller place for this lowlife.

"The white-hot spotlight of AMW and its international viewers will be put on this case,"

Police said they will re-evaluate on Monday to decide how much longer to keep the dig going.

While outside observers including Walsh have speculated the deaths are the result of a serial killer, Albuquerque police have said little about any theories of the case. Early on investigators made passing references to two men, both now deceased, but stopped short of calling them suspects or even persons of interest.

One of the men, a pimp who died of natural causes, had photographs of some of the missing women. The other man had killed a prostitute at his home and was carrying the body to his car when he was shot and killed by her pimp.

And while medical investigators have identified seven of the dozen victims, they have not released any causes of death.