Crime Junkie - INFAMOUS: Las Cruces Bowling Alley Massacre

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

A normal Saturday morning at the bowling alley takes a shocking and brutal twist that shakes a New Mexico town all the way to its very foundations. If you know anything about the Las Cruces Bowling Alley Massacre, you can report tips to Crime Stoppers anonymously by calling 1-800-222-8477 or by visiting their website at www.nmcrimestoppers.org. For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations, for a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/infamous-las-cruces-bowling-alley-massacre/ 

Hi Crime Junkies, I'm your host Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And today I want to tell you about a crime that rocked a town to its very foundation. What started off as an average Saturday morning took a brutal shocking twist and no one has ever been the same since. This is the story of the Las Cruces Bowling Alley Massacre. On the morning of February 10, 1990, in Las Cruces, New Mexico, a 12-year-old girl named Melissa Repass is hanging out at the Las Cruces Bowl with her friend Amy Houser.

Now, Amy's 13 years old and works in the Bowling Alley's daycare center. Melissa's mom, Stephanie Sienak, works as the manager at the Bowling Alley, and it's like a real family business, like Melissa's grandpa Ron actually owns it, and one of her uncle's bar tent is there, so everybody's like really tight-knit, you know? Totally get it. So anyways, the Bowling Alley doesn't actually open until 9am, but Stephanie's there a little early with the girls to get the previous day's deposits ready to go to the bank. And the Las Cruces Bowl snack bar cook, this woman named Ida Holguin, is there too.

It's said to be a pretty typical Saturday. The Las Cruces Youth Bowling League will be there once the lanes open, so the place is going to be like swarming with over 50 kids between like 4 and 12 years old anytime soon. So Stephanie and Ida are working while Melissa and Amy are kind of doing their own thing. And at some point between 8am and 820, Stephanie's brother, who's also Melissa's uncle, Steve Scenac, swings by on his way to class to pick up his backpack, and he notices a couple of weird things. First, he notices that the doors to the Bowling Alley are unlocked, even though they're not

supposed to be unlocked until the Bowling Alley like officially opens her business at 9. He also notices two guys outside the building walking through the East parking lot from like the back of the building up toward the front. And he gets a really good look at them, so he can see that one looks older than the other. And Steve's able to see the older guy pass the younger guy some kind of like case. Like a briefcase or what? All Steve says when he's describing it to Unsolved Mysteries is that it's quote, a small case.

So I don't have any more detail than that. So Steve sees his guys, he goes inside, he gets his backpack, and he makes a point to stop in on Stephanie and remind her to keep the doors locked before he ends up leaving. Now back inside, Melissa and Amy are hungry, and they ask Ida if she'll make them a snack. Ida's not even supposed to be working today, like she usually works night, so she doesn't want to start cooking yet. So instead, the girls go to Stephanie's office and ask her for some quarters for the vending machines.

Quarters in hand, they head out of the office at around 8.20 AM only to have their lives change forever. Because there, at the front doors of the bowling alley, are two men with guns. The older of the two men orders the girls back into the office with Stephanie. A moment later, the younger man comes back there too with a terrified Ida held at gunpoint. While all this is happening, someone else walks into the bowling alley and he's not alone. It's the bowling alley mechanic, a man named Steve Toran.

He comes in with his two little girls, his daughter Valerie who's two and his stepdaughter Paula who's like six or seven depending on what source you read. Oh no. Steve, Paula and Valerie are rounded up and forced back into the office where Stephanie, Melissa, Amy and Ida are all huddling with their heads down paralyzed with fear. And then the gunmen start shooting. Melissa hears gunshots and she's clutching at her head as the shots keep firing. She's herself shot three times.

And according to Michael Scanlon's reporting in the El Paso Times, she's not alone. Every single one of these seven people, the three adults and four kids is shot in the back of the head execution style. Oh my God. Once the shooting stops, the killers go to Stephanie's desk and light her papers on fire before making it their escape. Now somehow, Melissa is still conscious. She waits until it's quiet, waits until they're gone.

And then through the smoke and the horror all around her, she manages to gather up her courage and remember what she had just learned in school literally a week ago. How to call for help. Melissa crawls to the phone and dials 911 at 8.33 a.m. And here I am going to play you the call since it was published by the Las Cruces Sun News. But just a warning, it is a long call and it is really hard to hear. Emergency. Please help, please.

Well, slow down, slow down. We are shot. And hold up. Okay. Where are you at? I'm in Stamador, Las Cruces Bowl. Yes. Okay.

There were shots fired? Yes. All of us were hurt. Huh? All of us were hurt. I think I'm the only one conscious. All of you were hurt? Okay.

We'll get an ambulance rolling. Please. Okay. What's your name? Melissa Repess. Please hurry. Okay, Melissa. We've got them dispatched.

Did you see who did it? No, sir. They told us all to get down. They shot me five times. Okay. We'll get them rolling, Melissa. Just hang on. Take a deeper patrol unit in route.

How many people were hurt? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven people were hurt? Yes, I think. Seven people were hurt. Okay. Sorry. Okay, Melissa.

It hurts. It hurts. Okay. Melissa, I've got an ambulance and I've got the police officers in route. They'll be with you just shortly. Okay. You didn't see what any of the men were wearing. You didn't see what any kind of the men were wearing or anything?

No. Nothing. Are they just walked in? Uh-huh. Do you know if they were black men, white men? Two black men? Yeah. Okay.

No, they've left. Two black males. Please hurry. Okay. Okay. It's okay, Melissa. There's a fire, too. There's a fire?

Right on the desk. They're going to burn us up. Are the men still there? I don't know. You don't know? I don't know. They put us in the office. They put you in the office?

Yes, I need a fire engine, too. Please help me. Okay, Melissa. She said they locked them in the office. She doesn't know if they're still there or not. The door's open. There's a fire. It's on Amador, yes.

Please help. Please help. Can you smell smoke, Melissa? Yes, I can see it. Okay. Can I get the fire extinguisher? Fire department, too? Yes.

She says she smells smoke. They may have left the building on fire. No, it is on fire. It is on fire? It is. Okay, Melissa. Can I go get the... Can I buy utility one?

Oh, oh, oh. Okay, Melissa. We've got them coming, honey. We've got them coming. Please tell my mommy. Okay, Melissa. There's a police officer there now. Okay?

There is? Yes, there is. He's going to try and find you. Oh, why in the office? It's terrible. Didn't I have 33 traffic? Please. Melissa.

Oh, my God. Okay. They're dying. Oh, my God. Hold on, Melissa. We've got the ambulance coming. They're just down the street. Huh?

She advises all seven are shot. They're injured. They're in the office. Where's the office at, Melissa? In the first desk, and then you take a right, and we're right in the middle. Okay. She says you go in, and in the first desk,

take a right, and they're right there at the office. Okay, I'm giving the directions on how to get to you. To the police officers that are there. Oh, my God. Please help me. They're helping you, Melissa. We've got them rolling. Okay?

You've got to be brave. You've got to be strong now. Okay? Oh, God. It's going to burn us right now. Okay. Can you see flames? Yeah.

Okay. It's burning us. Okay. Oh, I got bullets in my feet. Okay. The bullets in my head. You've got the bullets in your head, too? I can't.

I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't.

I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. Was that the police officer? Yeah. Get out.

Then get out. Okay. Okay? Oh, my God, Ashley. This call is just heart-breaking. It is hard to hear. And you said what? She's only 12?

Mm-hmm. That moment when she says she wants her mommy, I just, like, just instant tears. I mean, yeah. And, like, I just can't get over how, like, how strong she is and how much courage she truly had to have had. Like, I don't even know how she's able to make this call and sound so coherent. And calm. And, you know, she's truly doing this to try to save her family and friends. Yeah.

I mean, the girl has been shot multiple times. I just don't even know that I'd be able to function and be as good as she was on the phone. Yeah. And there's even one line, like, a minute in or so where she says something about them taking the money. So maybe this is just, like, a robbery that went terribly, terribly wrong. Well, I mean, like, about as wrong as you can go, right? Like, potentially, robbery is the motive. But, like, in this early in, nobody has any idea.

Well, and going back to, like, what you said about her being so coherent and honestly helpful, you know, she gives the 911 operator instructions on to get to the office. She even gives them a description of the shooter. Yeah. She said that they were two black men. But, I mean, that's not much to go off of. But it's something. I mean, she's got some observance.

She's being, you know, trying to do everything she can to help out in the situation, which is just incredible and inspiring. Now, you obviously heard at the end of that call when first responders are getting there. So police and firefighters, I mean, rush out to the bowling alley within minutes. And they get to a scene that no one is prepared for. Like, one of the first responders from the police department actually tells the Las Cruces Sun News that she thinks this is some kind of training exercise at first because it was just so unexpected and so outside of the norm.

And she doesn't realize that it's real until she sees one of the children's bodies. The first responding firefighters put out the blaze with fire extinguishers while medical personnel worked to get the bodies to a safe spot and to get survivors transported to the hospital. Now, Melissa and several of the others are still alive. But no one in town knows yet, like, who has survived, who has been murdered, or even which way is up at this point. Backup arrives by 8.37 a.m. And the whole scene is just chaos.

I mean, there is smoke, blood, fire extinguishers. Like, everybody is trying to remember that, like, this is exactly what they've been trained for and trying not to, like, get in each other's way. But there's so many different things going on at the same time. Like, their adrenaline is in overdrive and everything is an urgent priority. Getting them out is urgent. Stopping the fire is urgent. And so everyone is just kind of, like, walking over one another, not trying to step on any toes. Right. And I feel like in this situation, especially when you have not only a crime scene but a fire,

like, it's super easy to mess up the crime scene. You have, like you said, all these people running around. There's chemicals from the fire extinguishers, maybe even water. I mean, it's now completely compromised. That's exactly what happens. The scene gets compromised, like, from the get-go. Fred Rubio, who was the Las Cruces police chief at the time, is honest about this from day one. Like, he's quoted in articles, like, the very next day saying,

yeah, this scene is very contaminated. So despite that, are police able to get any kind of forensics at all? They find some fingerprints and some shell casings, but that is it. Honestly, I mean, looking at the pictures from this scene, I'm amazed that they've even been able to get that much. And we actually have some pictures up on our blog post if you guys want to see what I'm talking about. But with suspects on the loose, police are also hurrying to canvas the neighborhood. Like, it's not just evidence collection.

They've got people collecting evidence and other people, like, spanning out, looking for any witnesses. And one of the first people they find is a man named Albert, who says that he was across the street and heard six or seven shots. Okay, but did he see anything? No, he just says that he didn't pay much attention to the noises until the emergency vehicles showed up, which, I mean, we've seen this in cases before all the time. Or how many times have you even heard something that you're like, that's a strange noise, but like, as long as everything else seems to go on, you're like, it was probably nothing.

Right, right. So police on the city limits are working to set up roadblocks on every single road leading out of Las Cruces. Interstate 10 goes right through the city and it's a straight shot out of Las Cruces across state lines to Texas and from there to the U.S.-Mexico border. Like, Las Cruces is less than an hour away from Mexico. So you can see why these roadblocks are so important. Right. I mean, no one wants to mess with trying to extradite someone if they don't have to.

Right. City, police, border patrol, and the Dona Ana County Sheriff's Department are all working together to get these roadblocks up as fast as possible. Through their shock and fear, police and everyone in town are hoping that the shooters won't get far. And their hopes might not be in vain. Around 9 a.m. that morning, police pull over a car carrying four men. According to Charlie Min's documentary A Nightmare in Las Cruces, these guys have got over $12,000 in cash with them. Oh, wow. Police get Steve out to have a look at these people as soon as possible.

But once Steve sees them, he delivers some crushing news. He says that none of these four guys are the men that he saw outside of the bowling alley. So eventually the men are let go. So without that lead, police keep working with Army, Border Patrol, and U.S. Customs officials to scan the area with, I mean, everything. They've got planes, they've got helicopters looking for any trace of the killers or their vehicle, which the Associated Press described as a tan or green van or slash utility vehicle. By 9.47 that morning, Chief Fred of the Las Cruces Police Department is on the local news announcing that three people died at the scene. One was dead on arrival and three more have been taken to the hospital in critical condition. What we learn is that Amy, Steve, and Paula all died there at the scene.

Valerie was dead when she arrived at the hospital. She was, like I said, just two years old. So just like that, a whole family murdered, leaving only Steve's wife Audrey behind. Now, even though we know this, police didn't release the names of the survivors at the time, but Ida, Melissa, and Stephanie are all still alive. And once the public is hearing this, I mean, this sends shockwaves through the community because not only is this an absolutely brutal crime, but Las Cruces then like isn't the type of place where anyone is used to seeing this kind of level of violence. Well, and also this goes way beyond what you and I would think of as a quote unquote normal robbery. Like this isn't someone just sticking up a gas station in the middle of the night.

This is children killed execution style like in the middle of the day or the morning even like it's just it's almost unthinkable. I mean, like for every reason you just said, I mean, that part of why Las Cruces is just like devastated by this. I mean, this town's got around 55,000 people, so it's not like super tiny or anything. But up until now, I mean, it's been like considered a pretty safe place to live. Yeah. And I mean, this is 1990. So this is even before like mass shootings really became a part of the American landscape like they are now. And worse, according to an article in the Seymour Tribune, another murder happens in Las Cruces on the exact same day.

So put together with the bowling alley killings. I mean, that triples the city's homicide rate from the year before all in one day. Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, the sense of security that people felt is just out the window at this point. And by the time the roadblocks come down at about 2 30 that afternoon, six hours after the shootings, no arrests have been made. Well, wait, was that other murder connected at all? I mean, at this point, nobody knows yet.

The Las Cruces police already have way too much on their plate with the crime scene being in such bad shape from the fire and the rescue efforts. And with the scene being contaminated like this, like, I mean, a lot of their focus was like on salvaging what was left. I mean, I have no idea how they split up personnel, how this other case was even handled. So while technicians are calling in the New Mexico State Crime Lab for help, other investigators are going through witness statements to put together some profiles of these shooters. Now, Steve's description of the two guys he saw outside winds up being critical in this case. He describes them as being Hispanic men, one appearing to be in his 30s with textured hair and the other as being larger set somewhere he said probably in his 50s or 60s. Wait, back in the call, Melissa said that the men were black. Yeah, and this is a discrepancy based on Steve's description, though.

Police must have done something to like decide that they are talking about the same people and eventually they're thinking that they were probably darker skinned Hispanic guys. I don't know why. I mean, I can understand being in the situation Melissa was in. I mean, there's smoke. It's one of the most stressful situations. So it's possible that they're taking all that into account and thinking that she potentially was mistaken. And Steve's was more believable because he wasn't under some kind of dressing. He saw them outside in the daylight.

I'm not 100% sure. Right, right. Now, Bill Diven reported for the Albuquerque Journal that police at this point haven't been able to do more than just briefly question Melissa Ida and Stephanie yet since they're all in the hospital. But just using these last few memories and Steve's description, law enforcement gets a clearer picture of the shooters that they're looking for. Like both shooters were speaking English, but the younger man didn't have an accent and the older one had a hint of a Spanish accent. So compiling everything that they have and whatever assumptions they're making, a sketch artist comes up with two composites. And here I'm going to send you what those look like. So what you sent me looks like maybe like a newspaper clipping of the sketches, right?

So they're a little bit smaller and not quite as defined as you expect them to be. But it's definitely an older man and a younger man. It looks like the older man maybe has like kind of a wrinkled forehead, bags under his eyes and maybe even a receding hairline. And I can't quite tell if that's a mustache or just a shadow. Shadowing, I can't either. It looks more like a shadow. Yeah, but the second suspect definitely has like a very legitimate mustache, full head of hair and kind of imposing eyebrows. Yeah, very like prominent.

Yeah. Now those sketches start going out to the media and the public the very next day and not just in Las Cruces, but all over the country. The police department also passes these sketches out to law enforcement in El Paso, which is just over the state line in Texas, like I said, as well as to authorities in Mexico. And right away, the police are swamped with tips, like to the point that they have to open up two extra phone lines to handle all of the incoming calls. Oh, wow. As this whole community tries to like do everything they can to help. And yet, despite over 50 calls coming in every single hour and every one of the department 17 detectives focused solely on this case, hardly anything of real substance is emerging. Within two days after the murders, the police still have no solid leads.

The other murder in Las Cruces that day, the one that I mentioned earlier, turns out not to be related. A suspect from Texas is actually in police custody for that by Monday. And he's got no connection that they can find to the killings at the bowling alley. Now at this point, police are leaning towards robbery as a motive. And according to the same Albuquerque Journal piece that I talked about before, the shooters did take over $5,000 with them when they fled the scene. But what's strange is they also left some cash behind. And according to Ida, she saw the men looking for something in the filing cabinets. Okay, so it might have been a robbery, but the shooters might have been after more than just the cash.

But I guess what else would they be looking for? Nobody knows yet. I mean, it could have been more money since we know that someone's left behind or maybe it was something else and the money was like a ruse or just like an afterthought. I mean, the problem is I couldn't find out how much money was left behind or where it was left behind. So it's hard to say. So where was the owner of the bowling alley at during all this? So the owner, Ron, who remember was Stephanie's dad and Melissa's grandpa, was actually in Arizona on a golfing trip on the day of the shooting. But after the murders, he hurries back to Las Cruces.

But when he gets there, his behavior raises more than a few eyebrows in town. Less than a week after the shootings, literally six days later, while his daughter and granddaughter are still in the hospital recovering from their injuries, Ron reopens the bowling alley. What? Yeah. Wait, are you kidding me? According to one of Michael Scanlon's pieces in the El Paso Times, Ron's taking a very, like, the show must go on type of mentality because he says, quote, life is for living, end quote. Okay, that makes a little bit more sense.

I mean, as long as the crime scene has been released and everything, and depending on his financial situation, he might not have had much of a choice. Like, he's still got bills to pay even before he factor in the fact that there's going to be hospital bills for Melissa and Stephanie. Yeah, I mean, that's totally possible. And I think they definitely release a scene. Like, obviously, he's not like opening it up to an active crime scene. But what's so interesting is to me, like, according to that same article, literally like the day before he reopens, the place is still a mess from the shootings and the fire. And I actually found a picture of Ron at the reopening. He's like kind of showing people around.

And I mean, it's in black and white, and there's definitely some damage there. But like, they probably did new carpet. They probably did paint. I have no idea, like, what condition the bowling alleys themselves were in. But I think everyone thought it was strange, right? Like, it just seems too quick. But this was the approach that he took. So as you can imagine, Ron's all over the media with the reopening.

But the attention also makes the public take a second look on what's going on at the bowling alley before the shooting. So the media is asking Ron like a ton of questions. Like, could this shooting have been an act of revenge against you or your family? Like, was this targeted? A lot of the questions are also asking revolved around Amy working there because she was 13 at the time. And they're like, I don't think she could legally have a job. Right, right. But, you know, Ron at the reopening basically straight up denies that Amy ever worked there.

He's just like, look, I don't hire 13 year olds. But I mean, reports from around the same time say that she'd been working there for about five weeks before she died. So, like, again, this is super messy. I don't think it has anything to do with the case. I think it's one of those like rabbit holes you can go down. Like, obviously it's against the law to hire someone that young. And we don't have anything on paper confirming her employment. But again, I think it was kind of like this, oh, we're a family business, you know, since Amy's dad was Stephanie's boyfriend.

Like my gut feeling here is like maybe this was just like a little cheap under the table kind of employment, you know, albeit illegal. I mean, I've worked for family businesses like that before. So not incredibly out of the realm of possibility in my mind. Right. Now, while Ron's reopening, police are still hoping and praying for even a single crack in this case. Crime Stoppers puts up $12,000 as a reward while local businesses pitch in another 8,000 in donations through the city's Chamber of Commerce. In the hopes that maybe the money will sway anyone sitting on the fence to come forward. Now, around this time, investigators are also looking into any possible connections between the bowling alley murders and yet another unsolved murder in town.

Now, this is not the one that happened the same day as the shootings, but one from back in January of 1990. And on the surface, the two crimes have some similarities. Gordon Dixon reported for the El Paso Times that a man named Salvador Lasano was shot in the head on the morning of January 14th at a gas station where he worked. He was found with his hands tied behind his back and $500 was missing from the gas station. Was it set on fire at all? No, it wasn't. But like to talk about a town where like nothing like this really happens, like they have to look at the idea that it could potentially be connected. But eight days after the shooting and two days after Ron reopens, the police announced that they've got no evidence to suggest that these two shootings are connected by anything other than just like a horrible coincidence.

At this point, police still don't have any suspects or any idea about a motive beyond potentially robbery. As the days go by, frustration really starts to build. It seems just totally unbelievable that such a brazen heinous crime isn't producing more hard evidence. Like, I mean, what everyone keeps thinking is like someone has to know something, right? And yet, even with the hundreds of tips and law enforcement working around the clock, they still have nothing like nothing has shaken loose. In an effort to broaden the investigation a bit, police go to the hospital on February 19th to visit Ida, Stephanie and Melissa and to show them some news footage. According to another one of Bill Diven's articles for the Albuquerque Journal, the footage is from El Paso, Texas. And it shows three men thought to be from northern New Mexico currently incarcerated down in the city of Juarez. This is just across the international border into Mexico and less than an hour away from Las Cruces.

So I don't know, you know, how these men popped up on their radar, why they're showing this footage, but they're thinking that potentially there could be connection and they obviously want them to see if they can identify these men. But none of the survivors recognize any of the men. As February flows into March, the police are following up on leads from all over the United States, and the reward money is up to over $30,000 from donations. By the end of March, over a month after the shooting, the police release updated sketches of the suspects. And here, but I'm going to send you the new ones and you can look at the old ones again and tell me what you think, like if there's anything new in this. I mean, the younger suspect, the one with the mustache, I don't feel like his sketch changed all that much.

Like it looks pretty similar to the original one to me. Yeah. Whereas the older suspect, the second sketch almost makes him look younger than the first one did. Like maybe closer in age to the second suspect. But I mean, they're definitely more lifelike. Yeah. So I don't think this is a case where, you know, for example, you know, when we talked about our Killer on the High Bridge episode, right? Like they came out a couple years later and had a completely different sketch.

Yeah. No, these are definitely like on par. Just like you said, a little bit more detailed, a little more nuanced. Yeah. And again, the biggest difference I can see is in the older suspect. Yeah. When I looked into this, it turns out that there was actually a sketch artist who worked for the Houston Police Department. This woman named Lois. And I guess she had like heard about the case and was so affected by the crime that she came herself.

Like the police didn't ask her. They didn't like commission this, but she came almost 800 miles to the town. Like volunteered her help really just to say like, Hey, let's take what you've already got and really like bring these people to life so hopefully someone can recognize them. You know, this is amazing, but Lois isn't even the only one from out of state who's haunted and deeply moved by these shootings. The case is still drawing tons of national attention to the point that unsolved mysteries shows up in town before the end of March to film a segment about the shootings. And it's on air with Lois's sketch before the end of April 1990. So that's like when we talk about cases that get picked up by unsolved mysteries in America's most wanted. That's like pretty fast.

Yeah, that's an incredible turnaround. And the episode has an impact almost immediately. Michael Scanlon reports for the El Paso Times that the show goes out on NBC in prime time on Wednesday, April 25th and puts national interest, which had drifted to other stories right back on Las Cruces. By Friday, when this piece hits newsstands, police have fielded over 300 new calls from all over America. Oh my God. But just as all of these hopes are rising, they fall once again because no arrests are made and no suspects are named as a result of all of this. And just like before the news kind of moves on and the heartbroken community does its best to keep living with such a heavy loss. By June, police admit that the unsolved mysteries bump hasn't produced any new leads.

1990 ends with periodic updates like the typical, we're still looking into this kind of thing, like, you know, really designed to reassure the public that they haven't given up, but not really to give any new developments. But then in 1991, 10 months after shots rang out in Las Cruces Bowl, an unexpected transaction brings up new questions about some old theories. On January 4th, 1991, Las Cruces Bowl is sold at auction. By Ron? Not by Ron, because as the Deming Headlight reported, the bowling alley's been foreclosed on. Ron is bankrupt. Turns out he's got almost $2 million of debt and multiple mortgages related to the business. And as soon as the news of the sale goes public, people start to wonder, like, what if Ron's debt had something to do with the shootings?

Amy Hauser's mom, Gloria, actually shows up there at the auction with a sign that says, quote, non-payment may have caused four lives. Justice? End quote. For his part, Ron's adamant that the attack wasn't any kind of revenge targeting him or his family. He claims there's no reason for anyone to want to hurt him or his family, and he blames the press for making that theory up and spreading it around. His behavior again doesn't really paint him in a great light, because you see, Ron and the Las Cruces Police have two very, very different versions of what he did immediately after the shooting. According to Ron, in interviews he gave to filmmaker Charlie Min for a nightmare in Las Cruces, he says that he was at the police station every single day from February 10th to February 16th being cooperative. According to police, though, Ron didn't come into the station like he claimed, and beyond that, they always had to be the ones to reach out to him, they say.

Now, Ron tells the El Paso Times in February of 91 that he took a polygraph back in the fall and that he's tired of being the number one suspect, not treated like a suspect, but as the suspect. Wait, was he ever actually named a suspect? He wasn't. No one's been named as a suspect. Okay, that's what I thought. Yeah, Ron's the only person who's ever said that. And the other thing is like, so he's saying he took a polygraph, but police won't confirm or deny that. So we've got a lot of like information we can't confirm or like conflicting stories.

Just a month later, in March of 91, about three hours north in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, a man named James Chapman is murdered while he's working as a custodian at the Ideal Lanes Bowling Alley. And here's where things get weird, because wouldn't you know it, but Ideal Lanes used to be owned by Ron until 1985 when it went bankrupt. Like to be very clear, he didn't own it at the time of the murder, but it's strange to have two bowling alleys that both have murders occur in them by the same guy who goes bankrupt in both of them. Yeah, it's strange. But once again, the Las Cruces police chief like takes to the press and like is like, listen, this is another one of those things like like the murders on the same day or even the other murder that had some similarities. Like it just happens to be a coincidence and there's no connection. Okay, but that's a huge coincidence. No, I agree with you.

But again, without any clear evidence, that's all there is. The rest of 91 is pretty uneventful. Like again, even if people don't like how Ron's acting or things are suspicious, like nothing anyone can do. Please keep investigating and in December, Austin, Texas is rocked by a horrific crime with striking similarities. And this is a case that will likely be familiar to our listeners. Four teenage girls are murdered in a yogurt shop. They're shot twice in the back of the head. And according to the Fort Worth Star Telegram, the building is also set on fire.

Right. There's one key difference, though. The girls all had their hands tied, whereas none of the victims at Las Cruces Bowl did. I mean, that's true. But the gas station worker who got murdered, his hands were tied, right? Right. Maybe that's the missing link between these two cases. I mean, it could be, but nothing's ever definitively linked any of these cases together.

And then basically, like again, they're saying there is no connection. We looked at this like, yes, this popped up and it was strange. There were some similarities, but they would not say that there was a connection. So both Las Cruces and Austin are grieving, I mean, almost in parallel. And both have to watch as time goes on in the hopes of catching a suspect inevitably start to fade. Every once in a while, like something will pop up in the news on this case. Like there was for a little bit, there was some confidential information about the investigation that accidentally got published in some, like, law enforcement training manuals in 92.

But obviously that didn't, like, push the case forward. It was just like this news blip. In 1993, we get a little bit of something. Like the Dona Anna County District Attorney tells the Opaso Times that he believes someone in town harbored the killers and helped them escape. But in that same article, the Las Cruces police chiefs pushes back and, like, disagrees with them. So it's like the people who are even working this can't even get on the same page. Right, right. The years keep passing and by the five year anniversary of the shootings, there's still nothing.

America's most wanted does a segment in 95, but the impact is pretty much the same as when Unsolved Mysteries came in, like new attention, new tips, then just fading interest. All through the 90s, the pattern keeps repeating while the survivors keep grappling with the crime and its lingering aftermath. In August of 99, the shooting actually claims its fifth victim all those years later when Stephanie dies from complications related to her injuries. Oh my God. It's 10 years after Stephanie's death in 2009 that a filmmaker named Charlie Min announces that he's working on a documentary about the shooting. So his film, which is called A Nightmare in Las Cruces, premiered in 2011 with some truly shocking revelations and brand new insights from former detectives and others who are close to the case. Now, one of the things that comes out in this is that one of the first responders at the scene that day was a former detective named Rose,

talks about how she got word from a confidential informant about a woman named Irma saying that she actually harbored the two gunmen right after the shooting. Which fits with what the DA said back in the early 90s that he thought someone hid them. Yep, that was my first thought too. So according to Rose, when police went to talk to Irma, she seemed to be intoxicated, like she was on some kind of narcotic. But she confirmed what the CIA said about the gunmen staying with her and how basically she says they could hear the search helicopters flying overhead. Irma also told police that the motive behind the whole attack was drugs and that the shooters knew about a big stash hidden somewhere there at Las Cruces Bowl. Which also fits with them, you know, looking through the cabinets for something else. Right.

Now, she later passed a polygraph with this same exact story. But Rose went on to say that Irma recanted this like story confession, whatever it is, during a period of sobriety and said that she made the whole thing up for clout basically. But aside from that one time where she took it back, Rose says that Irma's story stayed very, very consistent. Were any traces of drugs, you know, found at the scene back in 1990? Not that I've seen in any of my research, but I mean, then again, right, like between the fire and the rescue efforts, the scene was so contaminated. Right, right. So even if there was like remnants of something, I don't think that would be there. And if they found like actual drugs anywhere, that's never been reported.

But according to a nightmare in Las Cruces, there were some rumors around town at some point that the bowling alley was involved with cocaine. Now, they don't go into any more detail than that. Like they don't clarify if someone was thought to be dealing drugs out of the building or using or whatever. But like to me, this adds like a whole another dimension to any kind of motive we might be talking about. Oh, for sure. And on that same level, the documentary mentions Ron's other son, so this guy named RJ. He was a bartender at Las Cruces Bowl. And according to witnesses, RJ had substance use issues related to cocaine.

Even further, RJ was rumored to be doing what the documentary calls, quote, drug transactions, but they don't clarify like what that means. Whatever they are, though, witnesses alleged that RJ was doing these transactions there at the bowling alley. RJ was talked to one time by the police, but then he died actually in 97. So to this day, like none of, you know, all these rumors or like that are kind of swirling around have ever been proven by police. So maybe this was a robbery gone bad or maybe some kind of drug transaction gone bad. But I keep coming back to what you said earlier about how this crime doesn't feel like a normal robbery. I mean, it's vicious. Like it seems or maybe this is just like me being unwilling to come to grips with reality, but it seems like who would do all of this for drugs and or for just $5,000.

Right. Like I just keep coming back to execution style killing kids. Yeah. Little kids like, you know, Valerie and Paula. Little, little kids. And a lot of it just is us not being able to come to terms with reality of that. Yeah. I mean, like truthfully, when you think about it, like we can't use the same logic that you or I would when we're talking about this right now.

Right. Like in our normal state of mind, like you have no idea what someone in that desperate situation might do. So it is totally possible that this is just a robbery gone bad that is related to something else. But so far, everything is just a theory and nothing has ever been proven to mark the shootings 30th anniversary in February of 2020. Las Cruces crime stoppers announced a $30,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. But so far it's been unsuccessful. And through three agonizing decades, the Las Cruces bowling alley mass shooting remains unsolved. Holes still gape in the lives of those left behind and the survivors are haunted by lingering health problems and their memories from that terrible morning.

Somebody out there knows something and that someone has the ability to help bring these killers to justice. So if you know anything about the Las Cruces bowling alley massacre, you can report tips to crime stoppers anonymously by calling 1-800-222-8477 or by visiting their website at nmcrimestoppers.org. To see pictures and our source material for this episode, you can find all of that on our website crimejunkiepodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast. And we'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crimejunkie is an audio chuck production. So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?