Second body found in southern Santa Fe County

Unclear if discovery is related to remains found Monday by rancher in Stanley

Fidel Montoya thinks he passed the yellow trash can on the side of Montoya Road in the southern Santa Fe County town of Stanley about a dozen times before he finally stopped to pick it up.

The bin, yellow with a black lid, was a few dozen feet back from the road, near a fence, with some leaves scattered on top of it. He’d seen it there for about a week; every time he passed, he thought about picking it up and making some use of it on his horse and cattle ranch a few miles up the road.

It was late Monday morning when he finally made the move.

But when Montoya opened the container, which was bound with a strap, he discovered what no one wants to see: a body.

The Santa Fe County Sheriff ’s Office announced Tuesday that it was investigating a suspicious death after discovering a body in an unspecified location in southern Santa Fe County. On Wednesday, the office said it had found a second body. Both have been transported to the state Office of the Medical Investigator in Albuquerque, the sheriff ’s office said, but it provided no further details.

Montoya, who first spoke to KRQETV, told The New Mexican he believes the first body the sheriff ’s office announced was the one he discovered, that of a woman, inside the trash can.

When Montoya opened the container, which was suspiciously heavy, he first saw painting supplies. In fact, he said, he splashed paint on his shirt and gloves while he tried to pry the lid open. Inside

was a paintbrush, rags and miscellany, along with a black trash bag.

“I figured tools or parts, or somebody stole something and dumped it here,” Montoya said. “It never clicked for me until I … pulled on the strap that was around the [trash bag] that it felt weird, different.”

Maybe it was dead animals, he thought, like a dead dog or maybe a pig. Then he felt toes.

Ripping open the plastic trash bag, Montoya said, he saw the lower half of a woman’s naked body, with her hand dangling between her legs.

The fingers were smooth, he said, without wrinkles — the fingers of someone young.

Montoya, who had left his phone at home charging that morning while he drove down the street to check his mailbox, went to the closest neighbor’s house to call authorities.

Sheriff ’s office investigators and, Montoya believes, agents with the FBI questioned him for hours Monday on Montoya Road, which connects with N.M. 41 on the county’s southern edge. Four miles farther south is Interstate 40: a heavily trafficked highway that runs all the way from California to North Carolina.

The second body, it seems, was discovered north of where Montoya found the first one.

Montoya said another member of the Stanley community called to tell him the second body was discovered Tuesday on B Anaya Road — a five-minute drive up N.M. 41 from where Montoya’s mail run turned into something more sinister.

Sheriff’s office spokesman Juan Ríos declined Wednesday to provide any more information on the case — such as how long the victims might have been dead, their genders or whether they were killed elsewhere and dumped at the site or died close by.

“It’s an ongoing investigation,” Ríos said. “We are not releasing anything else because we don’t want to jeopardize it.”