Investigators ID 8th mesa murder victim

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) - Investigators confirmed Thursday they have identified one more murder victim from among the 11 women buried in a makeshift West Mesa graveyard.

However police said they were not ready to release the latest victim's name until Friday.

It's been almost seven months since the last victim was identified. Police have said all along that with every victim they identify they get closer to figuring out how their paths may have crossed and to their killer.

Last month police released a sketch of what the youngest victim may have looked like. The sketch had been done by an investigator at Office of the Medical Investigator who used the unidentified woman's skull as a guide.

Last week another OMI medical investigator zeroed in on 10 missing women from across the country that she thought could be the victim. Police would not say if the recent work on the woman had resulted in the identification.

The three remaining unidentified bodies are at a Texas laboratory where they are being analyzed by forensic anthropologists who help crack cold cases. They've been working on determining a cause of death as well as extracting DNA.

In February a woman walking her dog near a construction site found a bone that turned out to be human. Investigators began digging, and the more they dug the more the mystery deepened.

Eleven women, one of them pregnant, were believed to have been buried sometime between 2001 and 2005.

The latest woman to be identified will join the list of victims. Her family will join the other families who wondered for years where they were.

Although they may now know, their deaths have left them with more questions than answers. For now police don't know who the killer is or even how the women died.

Police have said the women identified so far were mixed up in the world of drugs and prostitution.
Investigators have also said they're optimistic they'll find the serial killer and the answers he hoped to bury forever.