NM NM - Melanie McCracken, 25, Valencia County, 5 Aug 1995

Melanie McCracken was found dead on August 5, 1995 following a single car rollover accident when a car driven by her state police sergeant husband Mark McCracken suddenly veered from the left lane, left the roadway, glanced off a small tree and rolled over. The accident occurred within the Isleta Indian Reservation just south of Albuquerque and the Bernalillo County line. Moments before the accident, Mark McCracken had driven at a high rate of speed passing a Bernalillo County Sheriff's Officer who then witnessed the accident...

In a statement to Luis Brown, Mark McCracken stated that he found Melanie "blue, pulseless and not breathing" in their bed at 7:45 PM, approximately forty-five minutes prior to the auto accident. He did not call 911 when he found her and did not place her into his patrol vehicle equipped with an emergency radio, siren or lights. The accident location was approximately a five-minute drive from the McCracken residence.

Two New Mexico State Police Officers, Art Ortiz and James Keryte, both of whom were close personal friends of Mark McCracken, and who worked directly under his supervision, accompanied Luis Brown to the McCracken residence... However, neither Ortiz nor Keryte requested a criminalistics team, or notified local law enforcement, as is the policy for unattended deaths. As a result of Ortiz and Keryte failing to follow standard procedures, no physical evidence was preserved from the crime scene.

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A district judge has cleared retired State Police officer Mark McCracken of murder charges stemming from his wife Melanie's death in a 1995 car crash near Los Lunas.

Retired District Judge David Bonem of Clovis was critical of State Police for not involving an independent agency early on when investigating one of their own.

But he said that, in the final analysis, there was no credible evidence of a crime, so there will be no trial.

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My daughter, Stephanie Houston, 27, died on February 27, 2000, in Belen, NM, after being run over by her boyfriend, Patrick Murillo. The State Police refused to investigate Stephanie's death as anything other than an accident, despite strong evidence that she was killed deliberately by a jealous lover who thought she was on her way to meet another man...

However, when the criminal division of NMSP arrived, everything changed. If there was ever a guy who should not have been made scene investigator, it was Sgt. Mark McCracken, who was under investigation for the suspicious death of his own wife. On top of that, McCracken's buddy, Art Ortiz, who was a defendant in a civil suit for cover-up of the McCracken death, was dispatched to the scene as case investigator. McCracken and Ortiz must have felt like Patrick was a soulmate. They took him to the station, questioned him for a while, and then let him go. They even let him take all Stephanie's personal possessions, like the keys to her home and vehicle.

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