Dateline Originals - Dateline Missing in America - Ep. 18: The Vanishing of Melanie James

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

Melanie James, 21, was last seen in the spring of 2014 in Farmington, New Mexico. Melanie’s sister, Melissa, saw her walking down the street with an unidentified man on April 20. Days later, police discovered Melanie’s purse and duffel bag in an alleyway in Farmington, but saw no sign of Melanie. Dateline’s Josh Mankiewicz talks to Melanie’s sister, Melissa James, her mother, Lela Mailman, as well as Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe and Detective Daven Badoni. Melanie is 5’ and weighed about 115 lbs. when she was last seen. At the time of her disappearance, she had dark black hair and a chip on one of her top front teeth. Melanie would be 32 years old today. If you have information about Melanie’s case, please call the Farmington Police Department at 505-334-6622. Get more information and see pictures of Melanie James here: https://www.nbcnews.com/datelinemissing Visit the New Mexico Department of Justice's website for missing and murdered Indigenous people: https://mmip.nmdoj.gov/                               This episode was originally published on July 30, 2024.

It's called the Four Corners region, the area where four southwestern states meet. Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. There's even a spot where you can stand in all four states at once. Historically, that same spot also marks the land boundary of two American Indian nations, the Navajo Nation and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe Reservation. It's a rocky landscape rich with indigenous culture and history. Some Pueblo ruins date back as far as 1300 AD. It's in this area, in the town of Farmington, New Mexico,

where a 21-year-old Native American woman went missing. Her name is Melanie James. This is her mother. I'm not going to give up on trying to look for her. Every little opportunity I have to put awareness out there is what I'm going to do. Leila Mailman has been looking for her daughter for more than 10 years. Unfortunately, where she lives is a place where people like her daughter go missing much too frequently.

Melanie's disappearance has baffled the community there and become part of a rallying cry in a persistent crisis. No more missing relatives. No more missing relatives! No more missing sisters! We just have had this ongoing system of failures when it comes to Native Americans. It's been going on for centuries and centuries, but isn't it time to stop it?

No more missing sisters! Woo! Melanie's family believes she is still alive and still out there somewhere. And they desperately want her back with them. That's where you come in. Please listen closely, because you or someone you know might have information that could help solve this case and bring Melanie home. I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and this is Dateline Missing in America. This episode is The Vanishing of Melanie James.

Melanie James grew up in Farmington with her two brothers and her sister. Melanie is part Walker River Paiute, part Comanche. Her mom says Melanie enjoyed Native American music growing up, especially when that involved dancing. It's just funny. Love to dance. Her and Melissa loved to dance together and make routines. I'd come home from work, look mom, I made this up, and they would start dancing and show me. When I said tell me about her, Leela, you smiled.

Just a lot of memories going through my mind. I could see her face right now. Come on kid, you got this. She was always making us laugh, very caring person. That's Melanie's sister, Melissa James. She says Melanie grew up deeply loved by her family. Then, as she reached her teen years, Melanie started spending time with new friends,

and it made her sister worry. She was hanging out with people that weren't really good for her, people that would just get her into substances and, you know, drinking. That would eventually lead to some serious trouble with law enforcement. At 18, Melanie took part in a burglary and was arrested. It was small, so the people put her in through the window because she was small enough to fit. And then once they saw the cops, they all took off. They were trying to, what, burglarize somebody else's house?

Yeah. They were trying to get some jewelry and some other stuff so they could sell it. It definitely sounds like Melanie was running with the wrong crowd. Yes. And I'm also thinking that both of you at different times said to her, this is a bad idea. You're hanging out with the wrong people. Yes, we did.

Melanie pleaded guilty to the burglary, served some jail time, and was released in November 2013. Her family says when they would confront her about her behavior, Melanie's typical teenage response was queued up and ready. I know what I'm doing. I know what I'm doing. I got this. I got this. I know what I'm doing and don't worry about me. And that's what a lot of our arguments were about because I didn't like her friends, her so-called friends. And, you know, they're only going to get you in trouble. belt because I didn't like her friends, her so-called friends.

They're only going to get you in trouble. By April 2014, Melanie's family believed she'd put that group of friends behind her. She wanted to change her life. She wanted to upgrade her life and stop doing the stuff that she was doing. She knew that life wasn't for her anymore. Sort of time to grow up. Yeah. Melanie was about to turn 22, and for her, growing up meant getting a degree.

She was going up to the college to enroll in some classes, and then coming back from the college, she was going to put job applications in. Her school of choice, San Juan College in Farmington. What do you think she would have been studying? Animals, yeah. Veterinarian. She loved animals. That's where she was going. It seemed Melanie was on that new path. At least that's what Melissa thought up until the last time she saw her sister on April 20th, 2014. I seen her on the way back from dropping off my son and I stopped at this church and I seen her walking and I yelled at her, I said, Mel, Mel, and she realized that it was me. So I pulled over, pulled into the church.

It's like a big old empty parking lot. Melissa says she knew most of her sister's friends. But when she saw her in that parking lot, Melanie was walking alongside a young man Melissa had never met. This was one that I did not recognize. She says he was a slender African-American man, about six feet tall, with short hair and a beard. He was wearing a navy blue muscle shirt with faded black pants and black and white sneakers. Did Melanie tell you his name? Did she introduce you? No, she did not. She just said that it was her friend, and he kind of just stood quiet by the driver's side. Melanie told Melissa her new plan. She was headed to Albuquerque,

three hours away. She was just telling me about how she wanted to go to Albuquerque because she just felt like she didn't really want to be here. When Melissa did not hear anything from Melanie, she began to worry. Lila was not hearing from her either. I just wanted her back home, wanted to know where she was and how she was doing. And she just didn't call me at all or have any contact with me at all. Leela says eventually her anxiety became too great and she started searching for Melanie herself. I was out there looking for her, driving around 2, 3 o'clock in the morning. This cost you a job at one point, didn't it? Yes, it did.

Because you were spending all your time looking for Melanie. Yes, it cost me a job, but that didn't matter. That was just a job, okay. I can always get another job. But my daughter cannot be replaced, and that was the only thing going through my head at the time. I have to find her. There's no doubt about it. I have to do what I got to do.

With no sign of Melanie, Lila decided she needed to report her daughter's disappearance to Farmington Police. In that missing persons report, an officer noted that Leela Mailman told him, quote, Melanie has had trouble with alcohol, been in trouble and arrested in the past, as well as been gone for days at a time, but has never been gone this long, unquote. The timing of that report is one thing Leila and the department do not agree on. Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebby notes, The family made that first report in June of 2014, two months after Melanie vanished. Lila says it was much sooner.

Whatever actually happened, police say it was a sooner. Whatever actually happened, police say it was a two-month delay, which became an instant roadblock for them. The reporting from the beginning is just a little harder for us. We're scrambling a little bit because nobody's seen her for a little while. Or did they? A snippet of video was about to jolt this family with some sudden, unexpected hope.

Sandra showed me the footage and I ID'd her. No question that's Melanie. No question. Yes, it was Melanie. Lila Mailman had been doing everything she could to find her daughter, all the time afraid she might never see her again. Then it came, in September 2014, five months after Melanie disappeared, a new reason for hope. A former co-worker of Leela's named Sandra said she had spotted Melanie at a family dollar store in Farmington.

I worked with Sandra. I worked with her at Goodwill. And so she knew Melanie. Leela was at work when she got the call from Sandra, so she sent one of her sons to go check it out. Could Melanie really be alive and well? Unfortunately, by the time her son arrived at the store, Melanie was gone. Lila says she later asked to see the security footage of that day, and the store manager agreed. And no question that's her? Yes, definitely was her. How'd she look? Well, she looked healthy. She didn't look skinny or like somebody that was on the street, you know, doing drugs and everything. She was pretty well kept. For Leela, those few seconds of security video were equal parts encouraging and ominous.

Her missing daughter was alive and apparently healthy. At the same time, Leela says the camera shows Melanie buying a single lollipop and looking around as if someone might be watching her. She liked lollipops, but the nervousness or the way she carried herself that day was definitely not her. She liked lollipops, but the nervousness or the way she carried herself that day was definitely not her. Melanie's sister, Melissa, has her own theory about what's happening in that video. She would only buy one item like that if she was nervous. There's a few times where some creepy people would just like try to follow us or whatever. So we would go inside of the nearest convenience store and we would just buy

like one item, one thing. So to me, that was my signal as some somebody was definitely following her because that is something that me and her used to do too. Okay. We'll just go in here. We'll buy something because that's what our mom taught us to do. But the cashier didn't say anything. The cashier never called police. So if your friend hadn't been there, you wouldn't know about. Yeah, I wouldn't have known at all. That video would have been a great piece of evidence, except for one thing.

Farmington police have never seen it. They say that by the time they found out about it, the video had been erased. Detectives interviewed Sandra and confirmed her account of seeing Melanie at the dollar store. But without video, it remains a tantalizing footnote. Still, as Melissa thought about that nervousness her mother said Melanie displayed in the video, she thought about someone, a man the family told police Melanie was afraid of, her ex-boyfriend. She'd been in a relationship with a guy who has been described as abusive. Were you aware of that? At first, we didn't think it was abusive physically. It was more like he was controlling. Melanie's family says that boyfriend's controlling behavior

later took a turn for the uncontrollable. I know there was a few times where he did get physically aggressive and grab her and maybe like toss her around the room. She called me up one day and she said, mom, come get me in Aztec. Leila immediately made the half hour drive from Farmington to Aztec, New Mexico to pick up her daughter. She was, you know, kind of sobbing pretty hard. And I kept asking her what's wrong. And she was, I'm just happy to see you. You know, she was hiding the whole thing and he was standing right there. And I said, what happened to your ears? Cause it was cut from her earring. She goes, Mom, I just want to go home. I said, all right.

So we went across to get the stuff. I had a weird feeling. I said, you're not going in there yourself. So I got the bat and I got the mace. And we went in. We got her stuff. And as we were going back, she just broke down crying. And she goes, Mom, he threw me over on the floor.

And he started hitting me with his fist. After they left, Melanie told her mom she couldn't take it anymore and called police. On March 17, 2014, her ex was charged with false imprisonment and aggravated assault against a household member. She filed charges on him, and he went to jail. Yeah, he went to jail, but he continued to try to write, you know, letters to her. It wasn't long before the clues and theories in Melanie's case dried up like a creek bed

in this corner of New Mexico. Months turned to years as her case shuttled through a series of detectives, still with no answers. Through it all, Leela grew more and more frustrated, believing police were not giving her daughter's case adequate attention. It seems to me the only time that we would get any response before was I had to constantly call. I had to keep bugging them, bugging them, bugging them before I could get up, like, answer.

She says recently that began to change. In January 2024, Chief Hebby assigned Farmington Police Detective Davin Badoni to put some fresh eyes on the case. I just need tips or people to come forward and give us statements. Since then, Badoni has been reinvestigating, looking for clues that were missed. He quickly learned police did have some key evidence early on. This is four days after the last time Melissa saw Melanie. On April 24th, 2014, officers found a black duffel bag and a woman's purse, both belonging to Melanie James. Those were partially hidden in an alleyway behind a strip of businesses on 20th Street, not far from Farmington's public library and a movie theater. The officer found the bag and found two cell phones in there, called the last number that was called on there,

and that was a guy named Brian. So Brian said Melanie had left his place the night prior. Brian was a friend Melanie spent time with. At that point, police were not searching for Melanie as a missing person. So officers took a found property report and put Melanie's belongings in evidence for safekeeping. As he reinvestigated in May of 2024, Detective Badoni was able to track down Brian and ask about the last time he saw Melanie. Brian said he remembered Melanie was hanging out with him that night. He was staying with family at a residence on 21st Street here in Farmington,

which is a few blocks away from where her bags are found. So Brian recalled that Melanie was intoxicated and she was knocking on doors, on neighbors' doors, and police were called. Brian says he told Melanie she was disturbing the neighbors and had to get out of the house. And she did. Melanie grabbed her bags and left. So that was the same day, April 24th, about one o'clock in the morning. Did police encounter her on that day? No, no. So police ran two names. One of them was Brian and then another male, but no, they did not run Melanie. I believe she was gone before police officers arrived. Police think Melanie may have walked a few blocks to that spot in the alley

where they later found her purse and duffel. They also learned Melanie had been couch surfing, staying with various friends here and there around Farmington. That meant she would sometimes stash her belongings in a safe place. It was common for her to hide her bags in a nice area of town and then maybe come back for it later. The detective says Brian's story about Melanie has remained consistent.

But he notes Brian did reveal one new detail in an interview earlier this year. The only thing that Brian added was that a week later he received a phone call from Melanie and she was in Albuquerque and it was asking him for money to return back to Farmington. That new bit of information matches what Melanie told her sister, that she was headed to stay in Albuquerque for a while. It sounded as if she got there. So now the timeline's extended a little bit. You believe, Brian, that she was alive as of four days after her family saw her. And sounds as if she's not with anybody else and she's not under duress. That is the perception they gave into us at this time, yeah.

It sounds like she was in Albuquerque a week after April 24th. So that put us in May of 2014. Why would Melanie be headed to Albuquerque? Was she running away from something or someone? Melissa couldn't shake the thought that her sister had to be in danger and her mind kept drifting back to Melanie's ex. I knew she was scared of him. She just wanted to, you know, get away from him. Where was that guy when Melanie disappeared? So she had heard at the time that he was out of jail. So Melanie at least thought, he's looking for me.

And I have to hide. Yeah. Having a missing loved one doesn't come with a manual. There is no one-size-fits-all answer for how to cope with a disappearance. Melanie's kin have now lived a decade without her. What's this done to your family? It has torn us apart, completely destroyed us. There's times where we don't have contact with each other because we're so depressed and we don't want to show each other because

we're trying to be strong for each other. They've also come to realize they are far from alone in their quest for answers. New Mexico has one of the highest rates of missing and murdered indigenous women in the nation. And according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, four out of five indigenous women have experienced violence during their lifetime. Facing those statistics, Leela decided there was only one response, and that was to fight. And to this day, I am still looking for my daughter. When you're talking about her story to whoever, when you're protesting, when you're marching, when you're trying to get the word out, that actually helps you as well as maybe her. It helps us let go of some of the emotions that we have at the time

and also to give us the strength that we need to carry on. Leela relied on that strength at an event in 2022. Deb Holland was giving a lecture at the University of New Mexico and opened the floor for questions. I was watching some video of you talking to Deb Holland at that meeting, the interior secretary. And what I thought was that you were doing a very good job of concealing how angry you were. Yeah. Secretary Holland is in a unique position. In 2021, she became the first Native American to serve as a U.S. cabinet secretary. She's also become a target of criticism for how little has changed over many decades. With the first two families that went up, she kept saying, I sympathize with you. And that's when I said what I said on the tape. Ma'am, I'm so sorry for your loss. I don't. I truly am. I don't need sympathy. I need understanding. We just need help. I think this has gone on long enough and it's getting worse. I just wonder what else are you going to do for these Native Americans that are missing?

I want you to know that we're trying. We're working as hard as we can. We contacted Secretary Holland's office for further comment. They noted that one of Holland's first acts as secretary was to establish the Missing and Murdered Unit, which works to expand collaborative efforts with other agencies when it comes to missing and murdered indigenous people. Her team told Dateline, Holland is determined to make this issue a top administration priority. Attorney Darlene Gomez says she's also making it a top priority. Just for listeners who maybe don't follow this as much, the hashtag that you see online, MMIW, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, that came into being this century after 2000. But that problem's a lot older, isn't it? Correct.

So if you look back at the time of Christopher Columbus and the slave trade and the conquistadors that came into New Mexico. And then we have the federal government that made tribes go on to reservations. We have boarding schools. We have the water being taken away from them. We have poverty. We have alcohol introduced to the Native Americans. And we just have had this ongoing system of failures when it comes to Native Americans. On their website, the Bureau of Indian Affairs notes that many MMIW cases remain unsolved due to a lack of investigative resources. People have gone missing and there's been no accountability and no one to investigate it. Correct. A New Mexico native, Darlene met Lila at a rally and took up Melanie's case.

She helped Lila get a billboard put up to find her daughter. Melanie's is one of many MMIW cases Darlene has taken on pro bono. She helps families plan events and marches, speaks to the media to raise awareness, and sits in as an advocate in meetings with police. She says Melanie's disappearance mirrors similar MMIW cases across the country. She was 21 years old, so she was technically an adult. Police rarely respond to a missing 21-year-old the way they do to a missing 10-year-old, for example.

She had a previous criminal record, which sort of changes the way that law enforcement reacts to someone when they're missing, because that can sometimes lead to an assumption that, well, they've done something to put themselves in harm's way. We're not going to go look for them. Correct. And I think one of the things that you talked about was victim blaming. So we see a lot of this, and even in this report talking about not having a job, having criminal charges. She had been in a domestic violence relationship prior to her going missing. I think cases like these, they

just get put on a shelf. I don't know if there was policies and procedures in place to ensure that these cases get investigated. I asked Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe about that. You know, this is something that comes up in missing cases all the time when they have a criminal record. Do you look for them differently? Is that a lower standard? Is there a sort of an assumption by law enforcement that, well, they've probably done something to put themselves in harm's way? No.

In this case, it just makes it a little harder. The lifestyle of she doesn't really live in a place and have a nine to five job. It's just a little more complex for us to do it, but it certainly doesn't affect our response. It just affects our ability to achieve the same results. The chief points out the challenges his department has faced. Remember Melanie's purse found in that alleyway? Well, Farmington police did submit samples from it for DNA testing. That was much later.

Here's Detective Badoni. We requested that the swabs be tested through our state laboratory, which is the New Mexico Department of Forensic Laboratory. It's in Santa Fe, and it's our state lab where we send all evidence. So they declined to process it because we did not have evidence of a crime. And that's something that they required. They required a criminal offense to process any DNA. So that's kind of where we ran into an issue.

It's sort of a law enforcement catch-22. No proof of a crime means no DNA testing. There was nothing obvious to those bags that something had happened to whoever was carrying those bags. At this point, we don't have any clue whether there's a crime or there isn't. Even so, the department didn't submit that purse for testing until two years ago. That's eight years after Melanie had disappeared. Chief, are you confident that your department has done all it could from the beginning? I haven't come across information that shows me, look, we dropped the ball here or here. And I'll be honest with you and tell you, you know, I've certainly in my time as chief,

we've had those days where we didn't do a good job. And, you know, you're going to own those and you're going to try and figure out what we didn't do right. Farmington is running into the same problems faced by a lot of departments. Resources are limited and searching for the missing is never the top priority. Chief, how many sworn officers on your force? Deployed, we're around 105. In a city of how many people? 45,000. And the only guy on missing persons is the one next to you? Correct. So it's a tall order. It's a tall order. Chief Hebby says he's determined to get answers in Melanie's case. To this day, you know, I think it's terrible. And I would not want to be in that position of having a family member that's gone for 10 years

and the emotions that go around that. We still are looking. We actually do care about this. And we're going to do all we can to see if we can bring this to conclusion. We need leads. We need other people to help us try and locate her. Detective Badoni says he's actively chasing any new lead he can find. I'll let my evidence lead me where I need to go, but I'll talk to whoever, anybody. This whole case revolves around people that know her or came across her. And at that point, I would hope that they would give me information.

People like that ex-boyfriend. The detective did look into his whereabouts at the time Melanie disappeared. We could confirm that through our jail records, he wasn't incarcerated at the time in April. And even, I believe, most of the time in May, he was incarcerated. So there's very little chance that he's involved in her disappearance? Yes. Melanie's ex pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in September 2014, five months after her disappearance. Prosecutors dropped that other charge of false imprisonment. However, the detective has yet to interview him, and he says he can't rule out any potential suspects until he talks with them.

He's also hoping to track down that friend Melissa saw Melanie with in that parking lot days before she went missing. She says he was a slender African-American man, about six feet tall, with short hair and a beard. I need this unknown black male to come forward and give me a statement. That way I can check his name off the list and then we can move on and not focus on him. Melanie's family says they are pleased with the way Badoni has handled the case so far, after years of feeling abandoned by law enforcement. The detective that's working on the case just really gave us a lot more information than the other detectives have before. And it gives us a lot more hope, you know,

that he's really doing something. Melanie's mom, Leela, does not just hope her daughter is alive. I do think she's still, well, I know she's still alive. You know, like a connection. I loved her before she was born, and I loved her more after she was born. So in my spirit, I think she's, I know she's alive. I just know she's alive in my heart. I won't give up on her.

I won't give up on you, Mel, wherever you are. I love you. Melissa is still clinging to that last moment she saw her sister. Deep down, I know she's alive and I have to hold on to that hope, but I am human and I struggle with it every day. And it just doesn't make sense. Throughout 10 years, there's no way that she, there's no way she would not call me. There's no way she would not stop by my house. And Melissa has her own theories of where her sister might be. I think she's either being held hostage or she's hiding.

I know she knows how to survive out there. She's really smart. She knows which way to take, how to survive without a phone, without ID, without a lot of things. She knows how to take care of herself. Leela has vowed that she will continue to advocate for missing and murdered Indigenous people long after Melanie's case is solved. I told everybody that I am not going to stop when Melanie's found because I know what it feels like and what every family is going through right now because their loved one

is in the same situation as Melanie. In March of 2024, the New Mexico Department of Justice set up a new website to serve as a hub for information, advocacy, and support, all related to cases of missing Indigenous people. There is also a database for reporting and searching for missing Indigenous persons. Melanie James is listed there. Here's where you can help. Melanie James would be 32 years old today. She's five feet tall and weighed about 115 pounds at the time of her disappearance. Her hair was dark black and one of her top front teeth was chipped.

Melanie has a tattoo of a spade on her right hand. You can see photos of her on our website. Anyone with information about Melanie's disappearance should call the Farmington Police Department at 505-334-6622 or the Detective Tip Line at 505-599-1068. You can access the New Mexico Department of Justice's website

for missing and murdered indigenous people at the link in the description of this episode. To learn more about other people we've covered in our Missing in America series, go to datelinemissinginamerica.com. There, you'll be able to submit cases you think we should cover in the future. Thanks for listening. See you Fridays on Dateline on NBC. Missing in America is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Veronica Mazzaca is the producer and audio editor of this episode. Kiani Reed is associate producer.

Bradley Davis is senior producer. Paul Ryan is executive producer. And Liz Cole is senior executive producer. From NBC News Audio, sound mixing by Bob Mallory. Bryson Barnes is head of audio production.