NM NM - Melissa Ann Montoya, 42, Dulce, 9 March 2001

[TheArtfulDetective]

Melissa Ann Montoya

• Case Classification: Endangered Missing
• Missing Since: March 09, 2001
• Location Last Seen: Dulce, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico

Description:​

• Date of Birth: circa 1959***
• Age: 42 years old
• Race: Indigenous/Native American
• Gender: Female
• Height: 5' 7" - 5' 8" (67 - 68 inches)
• Weight: 155 - 165 lbs.
• Hair Color: Black
• Eye Color: Brown/Wears contact lenses
• Nickname/Alias: Unknown
• Distinguishing Marks/Features: Unknown
• Clothing & Jewelry: Blue jeans & brown boots.
• Identifiers: Dental records, fingerprints, and DNA available.
• Other: Tribal information - Jicarilla Apache

***Some agencies report her age as 33 at the time of her disappearance.

Circumstances of Disappearance:
Montoya was last seen in Dulce, New Mexico on March 9, 2001. She attended a St. Patrick's Day party at the Apache House of Liquor and has never been heard from since. Few details are available regarding her disappearance and her whereabouts remain unknown.

Investigators:

• Bureau of Indian Affairs - Jicarilla Agency: (575) 759-3951
  Reference Case Number: Unavailable

• Jicarilla Apache Nation Police Department: (575) 759-3222
  Reference Case Number: 010007

NamUs Case Number: MP8420
NCIC Case Number: Unavailable

3135DFNM - Melissa Ann Montoya
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)
Melissa Montoya, Missing from New Mexico since 2001.

 

[victoriarobinson642]

I've only been able to find one photo of her at around age 10.

 

[Pennysmom1]

Sept 27, 2023

A family tradition of giving aid leads to advocacy for the Missing and Murdered

Darlene Gomez, owner of The Law Offices of Darlene Gomez in Albuquerque, works extensively with the families of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives as a pro bono attorney. One of her f...

www.tricityrecordnm.com

<<Melissa Ann Montoya, an enrolled member of the Jicarilla Apache Nation, disappeared on St. Patrick’s Day, 2001. Knowing Gomez was studying law at UNM, Montoya’s family sought her help. Gomez did the best she could to answer legal questions and assisted in the search for Montoya.

At the time of her disappearance, Montoya had been living in a remote area of Colorado, just across the New Mexico state line. Gomez said it was extremely difficult to get agencies to work together, but she enlisted the help of Gabe Valdez, a New Mexico State Police Officer who had spent most of his career in Dulce.

“Valdez knew everyone in Dulce and the surrounding area, including the Colorado communities on the other side of the state line,” said Gomez. “To the best of his ability, Valdez tried to work with Colorado law enforcement to solve the case.”

But nothing much happened, and when Valdez retired, the case went cold.

Gomez was appalled to discover that only a silhouette of Montoya was attached to her name on missing persons websites. In October 2022, after Gomez lobbied the FBI, her photograph was added to the missing person databases. Gomez was also instrumental in getting Montoya’s story profiled on an episode of Uncovered.>>


May 9, 2023- Melissa is mentioned

Farmington Missing and Murdered rally draws families, officials, support organizations

Family members of missing and murdered relatives gathered May 5 in Berg Park to continue their push for justice and honor their loved ones during the second annual Farmington rally for National Day of...

www.tricityrecordnm.com

 

[Caring1]

4 Unidentified Person Exclusions

 

[heartanium]

Photo of Melissa from the previous article posted:

I've emailed Namus to hopefully get her photo added.

I've also submitted her as a possible match to UP102022 to Namus and OMI.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

She said that Melissa broke up with her boyfriend just days before she disappeared. The family believes he may have been abusive.

"It was the St. Patrick's Day dance. And I remember they hadn't opened the dance up to the public yet. And so she stopped to visit with me. And we talked for probably a good hour and a half before she left to go to the dance. So I was one of the last people to speak with her," Melody said.

Darlene Gomez has been working on the case for 23 years and may have recently found a clue about where Melissa might be.

"I received an email from a woman who was looking for her loved one who went missing from California. So she came across the NamUs record stating that bones and a skull had been found in Dulcie, New Mexico. And they were a female that was between 30 and 60 years of age and Native American. And so she did her own research. And she found that there was only three women missing from the area, and Melissa Montoya was one of them," Darlene Gomez said.

Those bones were entered into a database, discovered in 2020.

Darlene is now fighting to get those remains tested to see if it could be Melissa.

"The Office of the medical investigator did tell me that there are no funds available to test these bones," Darlene Gomez said. @othram

So she reached out to the Jicarilla Apache Police Department to actively work the case. Claiming that investigators are now reaching out to family members for DNA testing.

"It was really hard when my grandmother was alive. She would say quite often that she hoped that Melissa would be found, you know, that Lisa, something would come of her disappearance before she passed away. And it was sad that when my grandmother died, she didn't know what happened to Lisa," Melody Gomez said.

While the family doesn't know exactly what happened to Melissa, they suspect her ex-boyfriend might have had some details.

"Maybe three or four months after she went missing. I believe he committed suicide. So I believe that his body was found just, you know, a couple of miles down the road into Colorado, at the ranch home that they shared together," Melody Gomez said.

The family told KOAT that the ranch he lived on with Melissa was set on fire a few days later.

"I saw the flames. When I was getting closer, I rolled down the window to try to see more and the heat was so extensive that you couldn't even really roll down your window," Melody Gomez said.

"It'll be three years ago that my mom passed away, and she had dementia. And she kept asking me about Melissa. 'Que Paso?' Where is she? And so I kind of felt like maybe she had this premonition that if I worked on MMIW more and kept Melissa's name in the media that, you know, she would be found, or we would get answers," Darlene Gomez said.

Human bones found in New Mexico

"That person was someone. Loved by someone. Loved by family. We don't know the circumstances of whoever remains those are, but hopefully, it'll bring closure and maybe even justice for someone who was lost."

www.koat.com

 

[citizen_sleuth]

Dulce family receives disappointing news in missing Indigenous woman case

Bones found in the Dulce area were tested and determined not to belong to missing woman Melissa Montoya.

www.koat.com

<snipped & BBM>
Bones found in the Dulce area were tested and determined not to belong to missing woman Melissa Montoya, leaving her family still searching for answers.

"She had a lot of family, a large family, but I think he kept a lot of people who were close to her at a distance for a reason," Melody Gomez, Montoya's cousin, said.

[...]

The bones had been sitting in a law enforcement room untested until Darlene Gomez, an advocate and attorney for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples (MMIP), fought to get the evidence tested.

"So the update is really sad. Currently, we were told that the bones belonged to a male," Darlene Gomez said. "We were extremely hopeful that the remains would be Melissa Montoya's, and they're not."

 

[truthfinder2019]

The Disappearance of Melissa Montoya - Disappeared

42-year-old Melissa Montoya was last seen in Dulce, New Mexico on March 9, 2001. She disappeared after going to a St. Patrick's Day

disappearedblog.com

 

[mlhenn]

Melissa Ann Montoya – The Charley Project

Melissa Ann Montoya​

• 

Montoya, circa 2001

Details of Disappearance​

Montoya was last seen on March 9, 2001, after attending a St. Patrick's Day party at the Jicarilla Apache House of Spirits, a local bar also known as "The Zoo". The bar, now defunct, was located in the 13600 block of Highway 64 in Dulce, New Mexico, on the Jicarilla Apache Reservation bordering northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.

While at the party, Montoya had a conversation with her cousin and indicated she was "newly single." Her live-in boyfriend was, according to her family, controlling, abusive and violent, and Montoya had been afraid to leave him, although her family offered to let her stay with them.

Later that same night, Montoya was talking with a female friend when they were approached by a man, believed to be Montoya's boyfriend. They argued and Montoya told him to leave and give her some space. She continued spending time with her friend, and about an hour later the man approached again and told her it was time to go. She was later seen leaving the bar, followed closely by the man.

She has never been heard from again. Her boyfriend later said he knew nothing about her disappearance and was never at the bar that night, although multiple witnesses reported seeing him there. The boyfriend died shortly thereafter, and the home her shared with Montoya in Colorado burned down; authorities searched the property but found no sign of Montoya.

Montoya's boyfriend remains the only suspect in her disappearance. Her case remains unsolved.

 

[Pennysmom1]

Melissa Montoya, Missing from New Mexico since 2001.

A blog about the many missing, murdered, and unidentified Native/Indigenous/Aboriginal women of the United States and Canada. Say Their Names!

www.justicefornativepeople.com

DOB: Not Available. Circa 1968.
Description: Melissa has black hair and brown eyes. She wears contact lenses. She was 5'7 and 155-165 pounds at the time of her disappearance. She was last seen wearing blue jeans and brown boots. Her DNA and dental information are available.


Oct 29, 2024

Indigenous families with missing or murdered loved ones struggle for justice • Source New Mexico

Families spoke about longstanding challenges including victim blaming and minimal communication by law enforcement.

sourcenm.com

<<Her friend Melissa Ann Montoya has been missing since 2001. Montoya, a member of the Jicarilla Apache Nation, was last seen in Dulce but had been living just across the state border in Colorado, and various agencies wasted valuable time trying to decide who had jurisdiction, Gomez said. Montoya was in an abusive relationship at the time she went missing, Gomez said, and there weren’t any resources to help her safely leave.

“She was a tough woman, but she loved the wrong men,” she said>>

 

[PommyMommy]

NOV 4, 2024

Search conducted in Archuleta County, Colorado, for Dulce, New Mexico, woman who disappeared in 2001

Authorities brought out canines on Sunday, November 3 to search a property they believe to be connected to the March 2001 disappearance of Melissa Montoya.

www.nbcnews.com

On Sunday, November 3, 2024, officials took canines out to search a property in Archuleta County ...

... “Out of the three dogs, we didn’t get any positive identification for anything,” Le Roux said. “We believe we’ve exhausted that particular property for now.”

The sheriff notes two impediments to success on Sunday, the first being the fire that destroyed the home. “There is potential, you know, for that to compromise the search,” he said. Plus, other buildings have been put up on the property in the intervening years. “Where there wasn’t anything, we now have residences there, which would, you know, to an extent, affect the ability to search below that.”

 

[mlhenn]

A woman disappeared without trace 23 years ago. A new tip is giving her friends hope

Melissa Montoya disappeared after a night out in Dulce, New Mexico on March 9, 2001. For 23 years, there was no movement in the case but Darlene Gomez, an advocate for MMIW cases, never gave up the search for her friend. She tells Andrea Cavallier how a new tip could be the key to finding her

www.independent.co.uk

But what happened the next day has given them fresh hope. New tips have trickled in, including one that was called into police after the person spotted a Dateline NBC article about the search on social media.

“It appears to be significant,” Darlene Gomez, a friend and cousin of Melissa’s, told The Independent a few days later. “And I know that the police are looking into the tip.”

 

[Pennysmom1]

Jan 2, 2025

Attorney dedicates career to missing and murdered Native Americans

A friend's disappearance set Gomez on a journey, not only to find her, but to bring justice to other Native American family's with missing loved ones.

www.abqjournal.com