NM NM - Don Gallegos, 25, Albuquerque, 11 March 2009

[Donjeta]

The man appears to be in his twenties and had no ID with him. Cause of death and identity are not yet known. He was found in a ditch near Second Street and Rio Bravo.
http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S827586.shtml

 

[Donjeta]

I can't seem to find a news article about this body being identified but some of the comments here seem to indicate that he was ID'd pretty quickly. (See comments by Crystal, Patti Yuma, Heartbroken and Panda bear.)

http://www.topix.com/forum/city/laguna-nm/T5M0ABDJL2GGPSART

Rest in peace.

I did find another article mentioning the name in the topix posts and it appears the crime is still unsolved:

http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/crime/cold-case-murderer-on-the-loose

Cold case murderer on the loose
The crime of the week is from 2009

Updated: Wednesday, 08 Dec 2010, 12:49 PM MST
Published : Wednesday, 08 Dec 2010, 10:54 AM MST

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Someone killed Don "Traviso" Gallegos in March 2009, and now police are looking for his killer.

On March 11, 2009, police found Gallegos floating in a canal near 2nd Street and Lagunitas SW in Albuquerque's South Valley. He had been shot multiple times.

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I can't watch the video in the above link so I don't know if there are extra details that could help.

 

[Cubby]

Thanks Donjeta. There seems to be enough info..... Sometimes if I am looking for better confirmation on an id I will look up the persons name and date found in the SSDI.
http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/

Which I did in this case and the dates match up.

GALLEGOS, DON GABRIEL 18 Jan 1984 11 Mar 2009 (P)25(New Mexico)(none specified)New Mexico

 

[Cubby]

RIP Don, prayers your killer is found and justice served.

 

[Donjeta]

Thanks Cubby.

One thing that gave me pause was that the original article said that the cause of death was not yet known but if he was shot multiple times it ought to be pretty obvious. But I suppose people can shoot people who are already dead or even if shot you can be drowned etc before the wounds can kill you, or the police might have known the cause of death but just didn't want to say yet.

Here's the approximate map of where it happened. It's not far from the West Mesa murders site btw although it does not appear connected. The West Mesa bodies were found at 118th Street SW and Dennis Chavez which is just west from Rio Bravo.

Rio Bravo Blvd SW, Albuquerque, NM - Lagunitas Ln SW, Albuquerque, NM 87105 - Google Maps

 

[OkieGranny]

Listed as a cold case with the Bernalillo County SO:

http://www.bernalillocountysheriff.com/09-613632.html