Eighth West Mesa victim was a runaway

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Recently, an investigator with the Office of the Medical Investigator identified the eighth murder victim in the West Mesa Mystery case as a 15-year-old runaway.

Wendy Honeyfield said she identified Syllania Edwards through dental records earlier this week and spoke to her family who live in Texas.

"They had questions that, you know, were reasonable as to well, 'who did she know here? Why is she in Albuquerque? Why did she runaway,'" Honeyfield said.

Edwards is the youngest of 11 women found buried nude between 2001 and 2005 in a mass grave on Albuquerque's West Mesa. So far, seven of the women have been identified.

Investigators said Edwards was only 15 when she ran away from her foster home in Lawton, OK in 2003. That was the last time anyone there saw her.

Police there called her a chronic runaway.

She'd landed in foster care at the age of 5 when her mother went to jail.

Now investigators must trace her steps and figure out how she ended up in New Mexico and a victim in the West Mesa Mystery.

For months police knew her as Jane Doe number seven.

A medical investigator used her skull to sketch her face. Then Honeyfield found ten missing women from across the country she thought could be Jane Doe number seven. She requested their dental records and found a match.

All the identified West Mesa victims have had histories of drug use and prostitution.

Investigators said Edwards may have too. When she ran away, her case was given to the FBI because of that possibility.

Her identity and history are crucial to investigators because they say that could help find the killer.

Three other victims have not been identified yet.

Their bodies are at a North Texas lab, being analyzed by forensic anthropologists who specialize in cold cases.