Tree trimmer haunted by discovery
Human skull found in Tijeras being investigated as a homicide
Del Garcia still can’t get it out of his mind.
He and a co-worker were trimming trees in Tijeras late last month when they stumbled upon a human skull inside a cardboard box.
“It wasn’t buried. Somebody set it behind the trees,” he said. “We called the police, and the police didn’t even
believe us.” But that didn’t last long. Arriving deputies with the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office separated the workers for questioning and sealed off the forested area south of the Roots Farm Cafe, near Kay and N.M. 337.
BCSO spokeswoman Felicia Maggard said the disturbing find is being investigated as a homicide. The Office of the Medical Investigator is trying to identify the remains.
“It is my understanding,” she said, “this information can take months to come back.”
No other details have been released. Garcia said the men were clearing trees for Trees LLC when they came across a white cardboard box in the way.
Assuming it was just trash, he said his co-worker tried to move the box and it “broke open.”
Garcia said there was a Smith’s grocery store bag wrapped around a towel and inside the towel was a skull.
“I thought it was going to be an animal — a dog or cat or something,” he said. “It was a human head. It was mummified.”
Garcia said the face was “gone”— the nose, lips and eyes — but the ears and some hair remained.
“Your mind can’t compute it,” he said. “It freaked me out. The last thing I ever want to find.”
After the deputies showed up, Garcia
said the owner of the Roots Farm Cafe told him the box had been there “if not weeks, months.”
Speaking generally, Medical Investigator Matthew Cain said the time it takes for a body to decompose to skeleton can take anywhere from weeks to months and varies depending on climate, body position and other factors.
He said a skull can be identified using a few different methods.
Cain said an OMI odontologist and anthropologist would first attempt to identify the skull through a dental comparison — either through NamUs, a national database, or by subpoena of the suspected person’s medical records — or determine an age range and gender to narrow down the search.
“That would be our preference,” Cain said. “DNA would be our last resort.”
If it’s truly a John or Jane Doe, he
said they would send the skull to the University of North Texas, where DNA would be extracted.
Once extracted, Cain said the DNA could be matched through CODIS — the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System — or family of the deceased.
“The vast majority of our Doe’s are identified,” he said. “I would say 1 percent, or less, stay unidentified.”
Garcia said he hopes they figure out who the skull belonged to, so the person’s family can get some closure as well as possibly some justice.
“Somebody would’ve had to picked it up and carried it, set it where it was,” he said. “I hope they catch the person that did this.”
Garcia said it “bothers” him to this day, but he doesn’t regret being the one to trim trees that day.
“My mind says I wish I wouldn’t have found it,” he said. “My heart says I’m glad we did.”