Identified! NM - Rio Arriba Co., Wht/HispFem 393UFNM, Nov'08 - Sonnet Stala

CarlK90245

UID Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Nov 11, 2009
Messages
8,242
Reaction score
6,658
The Doe Network:
Case File 393UFNM
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/393ufnm.html
NamUs UP Case 4968 https://identifyus.org/cases/4968

393UFNM.jpg
393UFNM2.jpg

Reconstruction of Victim

Unidentified White/Hispanic Female

The victim was discovered on November 3, 2008 in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico
Estimated Date of Death: Years prior
Partial Skeletal Remains

Vital Statistics

Estimated age: 30-50 years old
Approximate Height and Weight: 5'6"
Clothing: No clothing or accessories.
Dentals: Available

Case History
The victim was located on Forest road 1090 in a rural area south of Coyote, NM.
 
This 1944 case of a woman missing from Phoenix was recently made public in NamUs, although her casefile was created in July 2011.
Bertha Beatrice Smith

https://www.findthemissing.org/cases/11819/0
2280762240045078242S200x200Q851.jpg
393UFNM.jpg


She was said to have left Phoenix to go to Texas. So New Mexico would be a logical end point.

The resemblance is pretty good IMO.

Granted - It's a longshot. But does anyone suppose that "years prior" could mean 64 years prior?
 
Carl, did you end up submitting this match? If not, I say go for it!

Yes, I did submit it to Det. Somershoe of the Phoenix PD back on 22-Sep-2011 . He replied as follows:

Carl,

We just received this report so the information I have on it is still very preliminary. The reporting person has not replied to a few emails I have sent...but I am planning on trying for contact again this week.

I will keep this unid as a possibility.

Thanks for the interest.

Detective Somershoe #6395
Phoenix Police Department
Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit
 
Googling turns up that Ms. Stala bore a child in Espanola, NM in 2002. She may have also been a resident of Jemez Springs, NM in the year(s) prior to her disappearance. I can't locate Forest Road 1090, but the area a little south of Coyote, NM is within several miles of both of those towns. It's too bad there was no information on why she was reported missing from Montana, nor on her previous residences.

Ms. Stala's brother is the one who originally pointed the grandniece of Dorothy Gay Howard, aka "Boulder Jane Doe," to the Doe Network:
Wisconsin State Journal: Madison woman's persistence solves a half-century mystery
http://host.madison.com/news/local/...cle_c7c30770-c8ef-11de-bd85-001cc4c002e0.html

He has been searching for his sister for at least a decade now. I am sorry this had an unhappy ending for him; I hope he gets a little comfort from knowing where his sister is.

Ms. Stala had several aliases, and her photos appear to have been mugshots. I notice that Terry Reyes was located deceased in Jemez Pueblo, which is near Jemez Springs. A witness claimed that Miss Reyes may have been working as a prostitute. There is no verification of this, nor do I find anything clearly indicating that Ms. Stala was involved in any specific criminal activities.
Identified! NM - Jemez Pueblo, Wht/HispFem 686UFNM, 20-35, In Dry Arroyo, Dec'04, Terry Reyes - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community


The above did make me wonder if there is any connection between the two, but there's no reason to think it's not coincidence either. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of places nor of people with motives to dump a body in the New Mexico deserts.
 

Members online

Online statistics

Members online
188
Guests online
2,029
Total visitors
2,217

Forum statistics

Threads
589,952
Messages
17,928,128
Members
228,014
Latest member
Back2theGardenAgain
Back
Top