NM NM - Joel "Deano" Valdez, 36, traveling from a job in Silver City to his home in Coyote, white Chev truck, got gas in Santa Fe, 18 Sep 2025

[LawletDNE23]

Love this, thank you. Was rereading the original posting and wanted to bring up some things about the route for a more accurate path he would have taken.

He started in silver city, on his way to Coyote he stopped twice in Santa Fe for the gas and money.

“The route to Coyote would have taken Deano Valdez through Española and up U.S. 84, through Abiquiú, and then west across N.M. 96” (copied from original post) I plan to reexamine the route with this information in mind, but I am particularly busy today so I’ll be a bit spotty on working on this!!

Also does the route take about 5 hours?

 

[LawletDNE23]

You see the part where it was talking about the wife telling him to be careful look at these areas

Green- safe
Red - not safe
Orange- close to not safe
Yellow middle

<modsnip: Images removed due to no link to source>

 

[LawletDNE23]

Also lime green is near or close to safe

 

[luvnlayercakes]

Also we can see if there is any camera footage on that date for those roads to see if his car was there

there was a traffic camera on that date pointed towards that road- I do believe we would be able to find the car if we get ahold of the footage, which I have been attempting to hunt down, if you have a surefire method for getting past traffic camera recordings please feel free- but until then I will continue looking around.

 

[luvnlayercakes]

Also does the route take about 5 hours?

yes, a bit over, about 5 hours to santa fe where he had stopped, and an additional 40 minutes to Coyote, which was his destination.

 

[LawletDNE23]

Ok

 

[LawletDNE23]

Did you guys find anything new?

 

[luvnlayercakes]

Apologies, I’ve been rather busy, I haven’t had the chance to keep looking into this… Though I may have some time in a few hours. Anyone else?

 

[LawletDNE23]

Apologies, I’ve been rather busy, I haven’t had the chance to keep looking into this… Though I may have some time in a few hours. Anyone else?

It's okay

 

[dalsglen]

There's a help find page on fb, I'm not exactly sure who the admin is in relation to Deano, I think it's his wife's friend/family member but not 100%.

Sadly there doesn't seem to be any updates at all.

 

[LawletDNE23]

Can you send us the link to it

 

[LadyL]

IMO seems like he was carjacked sadly.

 

[Lebowski]

IMO seems like he was carjacked sadly.

yeah. not a lot of bodies of water to accidentally drive into. and if he had, why the further activity on his card?

thing is, it's hard to carjack someone unless they're stopped. he'd already gotten gas and money. could have happened right after the last stop (ATM?). where else might he have stopped? looks like only a few red lights between him and the highway. maybe he also stopped to get food somewhere?

the places and times where whatever happened could have happened seem pretty constrained.

 

[LawletDNE23]

One possibility could be that he was stopped some crooks in the area that were following him and they probably took his possessions and his car and took him to another place and during the time he was missing they probably did what ever they wanted with his card like the transaction with at the restaurant (This is just a possibility) also the area he went in was not safe

 

[LawletDNE23]

Also it says that there are 680 gangs in New Mexico

 

[LawletDNE23]

yeah. not a lot of bodies of water to accidentally drive into. and if he had, why the further activity on his card?

thing is, it's hard to carjack someone unless they're stopped. he'd already gotten gas and money. could have happened right after the last stop (ATM?). where else might he have stopped? looks like only a few red lights between him and the highway. maybe he also stopped to get food somewhere?

the places and times where whatever happened could have happened seem pretty constrained.

Hmm

 

[LawletDNE23]

There is where his cousins got a footage of him going to the gas station and he was there around 5:40pm

 

[LawletDNE23]

He arrived in Santa Fe at around 5:15-5:30 pm an article said that

 

[LawletDNE23]

Also he first went to the ATM and the the gas station

yeah. not a lot of bodies of water to accidentally drive into. and if he had, why the further activity on his card?

thing is, it's hard to carjack someone unless they're stopped. he'd already gotten gas and money. could have happened right after the last stop (ATM?). where else might he have stopped? looks like only a few red lights between him and the highway. maybe he also stopped to get food somewhere?

the places and times where whatever happened could have happened seem pretty constrained.

 

[Curiousobserver]

Very quiet case since the original reporting.

Family searches Santa Fe for answers in case of missing Marine veteran

New Mexico native Joel “Deano” Valdez was last seen leaving his Silver City job site on September 18, headed towards his residence in Coyote. His vehicle has not been found.

www.nbcnews.com

He uses an ATM, then buys gas, then goes dark. Somebody uses his debit card several times before his family cancels it, and his truck is caught on highway plate readers but has yet to be found.