Maria “Mary Faye” Mendez (Wild Card, Texas)

Summary

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Podcast Summary

The Deck – Maria “Mary Faye” Mendez (Wild Card, Texas)

Host: Ashley Flowers
Episode Release: August 20, 2025

Brief Overview

This episode of The Deck focuses on the disappearance and eventual identification of Maria “Mary Faye” Mendez, a mother of three from Odessa, Texas, who vanished in 1984. For nearly 40 years, Mary’s case was overlooked—possibly due to misplaced files and systemic oversights—until cold case Detective Lauren Gonzalez unearthed her records and linked them to a long-unidentified skull in nearby Crane County. The episode explores Mary’s tumultuous personal life, the family’s suspicions around her second husband, and the modern investigative effort that finally brought answers—if not resolution—to Mary’s surviving relatives.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Rediscovering a Lost Case: Detective Gonzalez’s Investigation

• Detective Lauren Gonzalez found Mary’s case while searching through misfiled 1984 homicide cases for connections to another serial assault case.
  • [03:20] “As I'm going through the box for murders in 1984... there's a file... written in Sharpie on the front... Missing person.” — Det. Lauren Gonzalez
• The file was thin and missing major updates—no proof that Mary had ever been located, contrary to what Gonzalez expected for such old cases.
• The missing persons profile for Mary was abruptly canceled in 1986 without documented reason.
• Gonzalez’s instinct led her to dig deeper, contacting family members to confirm Mary was still missing and kickstarting the investigation anew.

2. Mary’s Troubled Marriages and Family Dynamics

• Mary’s Life and Relationships:
  • Raised in a close-knit but complex Mexican-American family in Odessa.
  • Her first husband, Alcario, was allegedly abusive; Mary’s sister Elva said, “He beat her up every second.” [09:37]
  • Alcario was even charged with attempted murder after ramming another man with a car when Mary was dating that man.
  • Mary’s second marriage to Arnoldo (aka Carlos)—again marked by significant domestic violence, according to Elva and Dalia.
    • [10:39] “Ed Nundo was the same way. He would beat her up... she’d come to my mama’s house all bloodied up, black eyed.” — Elva
• The two marriages intertwined the families. Elva was married to Alcario’s brother, and lived nearby.

3. The Day Mary Disappeared (August 2, 1984)

• Events Recorded and Family Accounts:

  • Mary and Arnoldo argued—Dalia, her sister-in-law, heard the fight through the shared wall of their duplex.
    • [15:02] “We could hear things like that through the wall... when they'd hit the wall, or that she'd throw something or he would throw something.” — Dalia
  • After the fight, Arnoldo left in his van; Mary left her daughter Virginia with Dalia, saying she’d be back that night but never returned.
  • Initially, her disappearance wasn’t entirely alarming—Mary sometimes stayed out for a day or two.
  • Dalia and others checked the local bars when worry set in—some reported sightings, but these leads were lost to time.

• Suspicious Behavior and Evidence:

  • Soon after Mary vanished, Arnoldo was seen washing blood out of the back of his van and offered a suspect story about transporting pigs for a barbecue; Elva and Dalia found this unlikely.
    • [18:02] “My brother came out... washing off blood off the van... he said, well, I had some pigs back there.” — Elva
  • Mary’s distinctive necklace was found broken in the van—a piece of jewelry she reportedly never removed.

• Arnoldo's Subsequent Actions:

  • Within weeks, Arnoldo left town, later returning to collect Virginia and move her to California. He showed little concern for Mary’s disappearance.

4. The Family’s Decades-Long Uncertainty

• Was Mary Missing or Dead?
  • Mary had been vocally unhappy, and some relatives (and her son Joe) recalled she’d said she might disappear to escape abuse and start anew.
    • [22:27] “His mother told him she wanted to move and start a new life and if he loved her, to not look for her.” — Det. Lauren Gonzalez, about Joe’s account
  • However, the circumstances—no contact, her necklace left behind—made the family increasingly fear she was dead, likely at Arnoldo’s hands.

5. The DNA Breakthrough and Jane Doe Identification

• In 2023, DNA from Mary’s relatives matched a skull found in Crane County oil fields in 1990—just 6 years after her vanishing.
  • [29:01] “It was notification that the Crane County skull was in fact the mother of Joe and Irma and the sister of Elva... positively identified as Mary Mendez.” — Det. Lauren Gonzalez
• The skull—no other bone remains were ever found—had been previously linked to other missing Odessa women but never definitively matched to Mary due to investigational gaps and racial assumptions.
• Detective Gonzalez points out systemic investigative neglect for victims of color:
  • [34:13] “None of the investigations were up to standard... but definitely not in the case of someone like Mary... even more scant when the victim is a minority.” — Det. Gonzalez

6. Revisiting Arnoldo and Alternative Theories

• Detective Gonzalez traveled to California to notify Arnoldo (Mary’s husband) and daughter Virginia about the DNA identification and interviewed them.

  • Arnoldo denied involvement, repeated his old story, and seemed “genuinely” moved when shown a photograph of Mary.
    • [39:15] “His eyes lit up and his smile seemed very genuine. ... I mean, if he did something to her, he is a master psychopath or something.” — Det. Gonzalez

• However, much evidence (like the van) proved untraceable. Old police work had failed to collect or preserve records or potential forensic leads.

  • [38:58] “That is something we can never get back.” — Det. Gonzalez on missing records/utilities.

• Possible alternative: Odessa was particularly violent during the oil boom era; Mary may have been victimized by a stranger. Yet most family members remain suspicious of Arnoldo or her ex-husband Alcario, given both men’s demonstrated violence.

7. Family Grieving and Lingering Questions

• A funeral for Mary was finally held, 39 years later. The family’s reunion was emotional, especially for Dalia and Virginia.
  • [43:11] “She came up behind me... I turned around, looked at her and she looked at me and smiled. ... I remember everything you did for me and my Theo.” — Dalia recounting reunion with Virginia
• Arnoldo declined to attend, citing health.
• Family members wonder if truth will come in time for them to have “rest.”
  • [46:18] “Until you find who did it. There's still no rest ... and I hope I live long enough to find out.” — Elva

8. Closing Reflections and Hopes for Justice

• Detective Gonzalez remains committed, inspired by a fortune cookie that read “truth seeks and finds the light of day” taped to her computer.
  • [46:40] “I think it's pretty amazing she was found at all. So who knows what the future holds on this case?” — Det. Gonzalez
  • [47:30] “It is okay to get lost in the weeds sometimes because you never know what you’re going to find. You may find a whole person.” — Det. Gonzalez

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [03:38] “She's told me that their family would often talk about her aunt, wondering what happened to her.” — Det. Gonzalez, on Mary’s niece
• [11:09] “He beat on her all the time. One day... she walked in. She had a black eye, her mouth was busted and she said, look what he did to me just now.” — Elva
• [18:02] “Arnoldo was in the front yard with a van open, and he was washing off blood off the van in the back... He said, well, I had some pigs back there that I had bought.” — Elva
• [20:10] “He would always say, you know, if I want to get rid of somebody, I can jump up in a hole in the oil field.” — Dalia, recalling Arnoldo’s “jokes”
• [22:45] “I mean, I've seen him choker and [threaten to] kill her, but I personally seen his hands around my neck. I'm telling you, take the mouth on him, I'll kill you.” — Joe (Mary’s son), about Arnoldo
• [29:31] “I was so excited, I didn't even know what to do with myself. ... Like it was her the whole time.” — Det. Gonzalez on the DNA match
• [34:13] “None of the investigations were up to standard... definitely not in the case of someone like Mary... the investigations are even more scant when the victim is a minority.” — Det. Gonzalez

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:20] — Discovery of Mary’s misfiled case by Detective Gonzalez
• [07:44] — Detective Gonzalez reflects on choosing which cold case to pursue
• [09:37] — Elva recounts Mary’s abuse at hands of first husband
• [11:09] — Elva and Dalia describe further domestic violence by Arnoldo
• [15:02 – 16:07] — Night of Mary’s disappearance
• [18:02, 18:43] — Blood in the van and the broken necklace found
• [20:10] — Arnoldo’s dark jokes about disposing of someone in oil fields
• [22:45] — Joe’s account of domestic violence and Mary’s fears
• [28:11–29:01] — DNA breakthrough and identification of the Crane County skull
• [34:13] — Commentary on systemic bias in old investigations
• [39:15] — Arnoldo's interview and Detective Gonzalez’s reflections
• [43:11] — Funeral and the family’s emotional reckoning
• [46:18] — Elva on the family’s ongoing search for closure
• [46:40, 47:30] — Detective Gonzalez’s reflections on persistence and lost files

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Conclusion

Mary “Mary Faye” Mendez’s case is a lesson in the tragic costs of investigative oversights but also the potential for justice and closure, even after decades, through dogged detective work and modern forensics. While the identification of Mary’s remains ended one chapter for her family, the truth of what happened—and who was responsible—remains elusive. Detective Gonzalez’s efforts highlight the importance of tenacity, empathy, and the willingness to “get lost in the weeds” for the sake of long-forgotten victims and their families.

If you have any information about Mary Mendez’s case, contact Detective Gonzalez at 432-335-4926 or submit an anonymous tip via Odessa Crimestoppers.

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Transcript

[Narrator]

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[Detective Lauren Gonzalez]

As I'm going through the box for murders in 1984, there's a file, and it's written in Sharpie on the front of the file. Missing person. And I pulled it out because it was misfiled. Missing persons don't go in these boxes, those go in different boxes.

[Narrator]

Detective Gonzalez skimmed the folder. It was for a 39 year old woman named Maria Mendez who went by Mary Faye, or Mary mostly, which is what her family called her. So we will too. She was a mom of three living in Odessa who'd been reported missing by her mother in August of 1984.

[Detective Lauren Gonzalez]

I'd never heard of her before. And so just looking at the front page, there's a part of the report on the bottom that says disposition. And this is where they would put recovered missing person and the date, things like that. But it was empty, it was blank. And I see nothing in the file about her being ever located.

[Narrator]

Detective Gonzalez figured the case had to have been solved long ago and the file was just put in the wrong place. But just to be sure, she ran Mary's name through the National Crime Information center and the Texas Crime Information center systems. She learned there had once been a missing persons profile for Mary, but it had been canceled in July 1986 with no explanation as to why. And this might be where some detectives leave it. Let this be confirmation of their original assumptions. Oh, she must have been found, but not Lauren Gonzalez. Something about Mary's small case file gripped her, but it didn't hold much information. It said Mary left home at around 8pm on Aug. 2, 1984, heading toward a nearby bar. She was reported missing two days later. And several days after that, her sister called police to say that their mother thought Mary's husband may have done something to Mary. Now, Mary's husband's legal name, according to his passport, is Carlos Mendez. But Mary's family knew him as Arnoldo, so that's how we'll refer to him. It's not clear why he was using that name, but Mary's family says he was known to use a few different aliases. Investigators first and only documented contact with Arnoldo was more than six months after Mary vanished. And in that seemingly brief interaction, he told police that he just didn't know where his wife was. And investigators wrote the word suspect next to his name. But it seems there was no follow up on that. The only other things in the thin file on Mary's case were a bunch of scribbled notes, a couple of family photos and a few documents, including a police report from a time Mary was arrested for public intoxication in the 1970s. They also had Arnaldo's passport and a vehicle registration receipt for a 1972 three door flag. There were some notes about a call with Mary's mother. Maria, who gave them some identifying information on Mary. Should they even find her? Like the fact that Mary's two front teeth had been replaced with false ones. It seems that after their conversation with Arnoldo, the investigation, if you can call it one, stalled or more likely was forgotten. But that wasn't going to be the case on Detective Gonzalez's work watch. She likes to keep digging until she finds the answers. That determination is how she ended up on the cold case beat. I mean, she made detective about seven years ago, when she was just 24, at a time when only about 12% of officers were female in towns the size of Odessa. And before long, she was put in charge of the 60 plus cold cases in the West Texas town known for oil rigs and a dedication to high school football so fierce that it inspired Friday Night Lights. I know you've gotten glimpses of Detective Gonzalez through the work she's done on other cases we've featured, but I bet you didn't know that she decorated her new office with a hot pink Taylor Swift flag and twinkling moon shaped string lights, and of course, floor to ceiling cabinets she filled with case files. She was one of Odessa's first full time cold case investigators, so she didn't exactly have a framework for where to start. So when she did, she asked her captain for advice.

[Detective Lauren Gonzalez]

We talked about how overwhelming it can be to have so many unsolved cases and how do you choose one? How do you decide what to work on?

[Narrator]

He suggested she chip away at them little by little and never get to lost in the weeds. But that's not really her style. So when she found Mary's file, into the weeds she went. Detective Gonzalez quickly tracked down Mary's niece Veronica, and got her first answer. In this case, Mary was still missing.

[Detective Lauren Gonzalez]

She's told me that their family would often talk about her aunt wondering what happened to her.

[Narrator]

Veronica put her in touch with her mom, Elva, who was Mary's sister, and she was eager to help. She shared more details about Mary's life, telling the detective that before she disappeared, Mary had been living in a duplex filled with family. On one side was Mary Arnoldo and their daughter Virginia, and on the other side was their mother Maria, their brother Leo, and his wife. Detective Gonzalez already knew Mary was married to Arnoldo when she vanished. But Elva told her that Mary had been married before to a man named Alcario Pitino, and she had her first two children with him. They divorced, but Alcario stayed in the picture because Elva is married to his brother. So that's two sisters who were married to two brothers. In fact, that's actually how Elva and her husband met. They were introduced after Mary and Alcario began dating. They started writing love letters to one another and have been married for 57 years. But while theirs is a story of soulmates, Elva told our reporters that Mary in Alcario's was far from it a bad marriage.

[Elva (Mary's sister)]

He beat her up every second.

[Narrator]

While there are no hospital or police records documenting the domestic violence in Mary's case file, Elva said that it was bad enough that Mary eventually left Elcario, though that didn't make it stop when our reporters Taylor Harts and Courtney Stewart sat down with Elva, her husband Jose and Veronica in Odessa. Veronica pulled up old newspaper clippings from the Odessa American as evidence of this. According to that article and Mary's family, Elcario was charged with attempted murder after he drove his car into a man Mary was dating in September 1975. Elcario allegedly rammed into the man and his vehicle, partially severing his leg while Mary and her seven year old daughter were in the man's car. The paper reported that even though the man was badly injured, the charges were reduced and Alcario was only sentenced to a few years of probation. And unfortunately, Mary's new marriage wasn't any better.

[Elva (Mary's sister)]

Ed Nundo was the same way. He would beat her up because she'd come to my mama's house all bloodied up, black eyed.

[Narrator]

Arnoldo was a Mexican immigrant working in the Odessa oil fields. And Elva's description of their marriage may help explain why the word suspect appeared next to his name in the original case file. There were never any police reports made documenting domestic violence in this marriage either, but Elva said that their family saw evidence of it.

[Elva (Mary's sister)]

He beat on her all the time. One day I was at my mom's house and she walked in. She had a black eye, her mouth was busted and she said, look what he did to me just now.

[Narrator]

Elvis said that the fighting escalated when Mary and Arnoldo drank and it seemed like they were always drinking. Elvis said that her sister struggled with a substance use disorder during her previous marriage and it only intensified when she was with Arnoldo. She drank nearly every day, either in the house or at a collection of local dive bars. Elvis said that she and Jose weren't partiers, so they tried to stay away from Mary and Arnoldo when they were drinking. And because of that, she didn't know everything about her sister's life. But there was someone who couldn't escape it that knew a whole lot more.

[Elva (Mary's sister)]

Here's Joseph I still say that the only person that knows everything about Lym for the last two years before she got missing is Delia.

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[Narrator]

Mary and Elva's late Brother Leo and his wife Dalia shared a duplex with Mary at the time of her disappearance, meaning that they were just on the other side of a paper thin wall and they heard everything. And not only were they neighbors, but Leo and Dalia were part of the party crowd that hung out with Mary and Arnoldo most nights, drinking at home and at the bars. Dalia told our team that she recalled a lot of partying and said that their group shared a lot of laughs. And she remembers how much Mary doted on her daughter Virginia, and how much she loved Spanish music, country music, and salsa dancing. But she also remembers a whole lot of fighting.

[Dalia (Mary's sister-in-law)]

We could hear things like that through the wall when they'd hit the wall, or that she'd throw something or he would throw something.

[Narrator]

Dalia was going through treatment for cancer at the time of our interview and said that her memory wasn't as sharp as she'd like it to be. But she said she remembers hearing a fight the day that Mary disappeared. And she saw Mary right after that fight.

[Dalia (Mary's sister-in-law)]

I can't tell you what it was about. We just heard yelling through the wall. I don't know if it was about money or they wanted to go somewhere or what it was about. But he left. It was still daylight when he left.

[Narrator]

Once the shouting stopped, Dalia said Mary came to talk to her.

[Dalia (Mary's sister-in-law)]

She came and asked me if I would watch Virginia, their daughter, which I told her, yes. I said, yeah. I said, where are you going? She goes, I'm going out. I said, okay. She goes, I'll be back tonight. She turned around and went to the house and brought me some clothes for her. So when she brought me some clothes, to me, that was overnight. But she never made it home.

[Narrator]

Virginia stayed with Dalia that night, and then the next day. Dalia said this wasn't too unusual. Sometimes when Mary went out, she wouldn't come home for a day or two. But the more time that passed, the more worried Dalia got. She and the family began checking local bars that they knew Mary liked, including a place called Beachcomber and one called Blue Moon, where some people said that they'd seen her the same night she'd had that fight with Arnoldo. All these years later, though, Dalia couldn't remember the names of the people who saw her there, which means our reporting team couldn't track them down and ask them more questions ourselves. Now, Arnoldo had taken off in his beige van, but Dahlia had watched Mary leave on foot, meaning that she likely couldn't have gone very far. And While she and Maria pounded the pavement looking for Mary, Arnoldo didn't seem to share their concern.

[Dalia (Mary's sister-in-law)]

He didn't care. You know, he said, oh, she's out there just drinking and partying.

[Narrator]

Even though Mary was missing and their daughter, who was about five years old, was dealing with her mom being gone, Dalia said he bragged and laughed about passing a lie detector test. And within weeks, he announced that he was leaving to go look for work in Dallas. If that whole thing about him talking and passing a lie detector test is true, there's no record of it in the case file, and there's no record of when he moved out of Odessa. But Dalia said that she knows that that fight was on August 2nd, and it was she and her husband who enrolled Virginia in kindergarten at the start of the school year, with no idea if her dad was coming back. And as if this behavior wasn't enough to. To set off alarm bells, his van sure was. Now, it wasn't Elva who saw it after her sister went missing. Her late brother Leo did. When Arnoldo was washing it out before his move, and Leo told her it looked like a crime scene.

[Elva (Mary's sister)]

My brother came out, and Arnoldo was in the front yard with a van open, and he was washing off blood off the van in the back. And he asked him, what is that blood? Why is there blood inside your van? And he said, well, I had some pigs back there. I think he said, three pigs were back there that I had bought. I can't imagine anybody buying three pigs for any kind of barbecue or anything like that. That's a lot, unless you're having 1,000 people over for a wedding or something.

[Narrator]

Soon after this concerning car wash, Elvis says her mom went through that van looking for clues.

[Elva (Mary's sister)]

My mom was a very sneaky person. She wanted to get into everything and know everything. She found her necklace, her little chain necklace in the van, and she would never take off that necklace. So she had it on all the time, and it was like it was broken off from somebody's neck. It was broken, and it was thrown inside. I guess it must have felt in between the seats or something. And my mom found it.

[Narrator]

Dalia said she saw Arnoldo washing the van out with her own eyes through the window. And she recalls that necklace well, and she remembers seeing it around Mary's neck the night she disappeared. But it's worth noting that it appears Mary did sometimes take the necklace off. When our reporters visited Dahlia, they literally took a magnifying glass to faded old photos of Mary, and they could See the necklace in a number of pictures, but not all of them. And actually we posted those pictures on the blog post for this episode, so you can take a look for yourself. Dalia also showed our reporters photos of her, Mary, Leo and Arnoldo on trips that they took around Texas. And while Dalia was looking at those pictures, she remembered a trip to a local tourist attraction, a meteor crater in Odessa, and some chilling comments she'd heard Arnoldo make.

[Dalia (Mary's sister-in-law)]

He would always say, you know, if I want to get rid of somebody, I can jump up in a hole in the oil field. There's meat or crater. He would just out of the blue, you know, we'd be sitting around drinking and partying and it would just pop up, whatever conversation was going on. If he wanted to get rid of somebody, he could get rid of them in the oil fields, throw them down the hole, and he'd be laughing about it.

[Narrator]

Dalia didn't understand at the time why he'd make so called jokes like that. But his remarks seemed more ominous after Mary disappeared and Arnoldo left town.

[Dalia (Mary's sister-in-law)]

I don't understand why he would go all the way to Dallas or get out of Odessa to go look for work when there was work here. My thinking is that he left because he went to sell that van and get rid of it.

[Narrator]

And Dalia said that theory tracked when, many months later, he showed back up at the duplex without the van and with another woman. Arnoldo said that he was there to get Virginia and take her to California. Now, she doesn't remember exactly when this was. Maybe February 1985, which would have been the same time that Arnoldo gave his only documented police interview. But she does remember he picked Virginia up in a hurry. He didn't even take her clothes, just said that he was going to buy new ones and they were off. At this point, Arnoldo had risen to the top of the family's suspect list. They still had suspicions about her first husband. Mind you, no one who had a past history of violence with her was crossed off the list just yet. But it was hard to know where to point the finger. After all, they didn't even know what happened to Mary. They couldn't even fully rule out the possibility that she was still alive.

[Detective Lauren Gonzalez]

Several of the family members recalled she was getting closer to turning 40 and she was crying about it and crying about getting old. And she had expressed that one day she would disappear and start a new life. And so that's what they thought that she had done.

[Narrator]

That's what Mary's son Joe thought too, at least at first. He was 19 when his mom vanished, and he told Detective Gonzalez his mom had talked about disappearing.

[Detective Lauren Gonzalez]

His mother told him she wanted to move and start a new life and if he loved her, to not look for her.

[Narrator]

But Joe told our reporters why his mom wanted to disappear. And it was because of Arnoldo's abuse, which he had witnessed from firsthand.

[Joe (Mary's son)]

I mean, I've seen him choker and threat to killer, but I personally seen his hands around my neck. I'm telling you, take the mouth on him, I'll kill you.

[Narrator]

According to Joe, Mary had been trying to leave Arnoldo. And he said that they had actually been split up at the time Mary vanished. Joe said Arnoldo had been sleeping in his van outside the duplex. And he said his mother believed that starting over somewhere new, where she and Virginia could be safe, might be her only option. She even considered reaching out to a domestic violence organization for help once he.

[Joe (Mary's son)]

Got the courage to walk away from him. That's when it got worse, because he wasn't there to control her. And he would show up demanding that he wanted to take my little sister. I'll take her from her. I'm going to take her from you. And if you try to stop me, I'm going to kill you.

[Narrator]

When his mom disappeared, Joe said he held onto the belief that she had found somewhere safe. But one thing made him fear the worst. That necklace. And he'd heard an even more disturbing story about it than what Delia and Elva had described. Joe said that his grandmother Maria told him that Arnoldo had come up to her after Mary disappeared. Clutching the broken necklace in his fist and kind of taunting her with it. He told her that he took it off Mary. According to Joe, Maria said that she felt like she was having a heart attack. In that moment, she told him she was shaking and crying because to her, the message was clear. Mary was never coming back. Detective Gonzalez said that necklace is not in evidence, and there's no mention of it in the original case file. No one in the family knows what became of it either, making it just one of the many clues that have been lost to time. Like Maria, Detective Gonzalez didn't buy that Mary willingly left her life and her children behind. She suspected foul play. She knew it would be highly unusual for a person to vanish without a trace, especially on foot with just the clothes on their back. But she also knew that if there had been any trace of Mary over the years, it might not have been recorded because her missing persons report had been inexplicably. Canceled. And that meant that there was no official record that anyone was looking for Mary. But now someone was a very determined detective who was ready to make up for lost time. And she would soon come to learn that she was right. Mary hadn't vanished without a trace. She had been right there the whole time, just waiting to be found. Whether you're lounging poolside, hitting the beach, or relaxing at home, Rosetta Stone makes it easy to fit in a few minutes of language learning for me, it is my 40 minute commute to and from work. Me time is hard to get as a working mom, but I can squeeze in language learning on the go with Rosetta Stone. Rosetta Stone is the trusted leader in language learning for over 30 years. Their immersive, intuitive method helps you naturally absorb and retain your new language on desktop or mobile, whenever and wherever it fits your summer schedule. Don't wait. Unlock your language learning potential now. The Deck listeners can grab Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off. That's unlimited access to 25 language courses for life. Visit RosettaStone.com DECC to get started and claim your 50% off today. Don't miss out. Go to Rosetta Stone.com deck and start learning today. This message is sponsored by Greenlight. Remember summertime as a kid? The freedom of nature, opportunities born from boredom, rites of passages like riding a bike, setting up a lemonade stand, and even learning to earn and manage a buck. With school out, summer is the perfect time to teach your kids real world bunny skills they'll use for forever. Greenlight is the easy, convenient way for parents to raise financially smart kids and families to navigate life together. Maybe that's why millions of parents trust Greenlight and kids love learning about money on Greenlight, the number one family finance and safety app. My best friend Britt, crime junkie. You may know her. She used Greenlight for her son. And you better believe when my daughter graduates from her fake Disney Princess credit card, she's getting green light. Don't wait to teach your kids real world money skills. Start your risk free Greenlight trial [e-mail] the deck. That's greenlight.com the deck to get started greenlight.com thedeck the very first time Detective Gonzalez met with Elva and Mary's older children, Irma and Joe, in September 2022, she collected DNA samples and sent them out to the lab at a Texas university. She wanted their DNA on file right away in case Mary's remains were found. And it turns out she didn't have to wait long. Detective Gonzalez sat down at her desk early one Monday in January 2023, and checked her inbox. Catching up like we all do after a weekend off.

[Detective Lauren Gonzalez]

I got the shock of my life when I opened an email that morning from the University of North Texas.

[Narrator]

The subject line was just a case number, but the message had a report attached, one that drew a link between Mary's family's DNA and another case.

[Detective Lauren Gonzalez]

I almost couldn't believe what I was reading. It's like, wait, what? Like you guys have a report. This is not a notification you get every day or even, like, in your career. It's a big deal.

[Narrator]

The report said Mary's family's DNA matched DNA in a long forgotten Jane Doe case, one where a skull had been found in nearby Crane county in 1990, just six years after Mary disappeared.

[Detective Lauren Gonzalez]

It was notification that the Crane county skull was in fact the mother of Joe and Irma and the sister of Elva. And so it was positively identified as Mary Mendez. I was so excited, I didn't even know what to do with myself. I just remember saying, oh, my God. Oh my God. Like, are you kidding me? Like it was her the whole time.

[Narrator]

Detective Gonzalez had read about the Crain county skull long before she found Mary's file. It had been mentioned in the file for another missing woman from Odessa whose name might sound familiar. Jeanette Javitsky. We covered Jeannette's case on an episode of the Deck last August. She is the 8 of diamonds from Texas. Jeanette was a 19 year old woman who said goodbye to her husband and infant daughter on September 13, 1982, and then went to visit friends at the club where she'd been a dancer before going on maternity leave. But she never came home. Detective Gonzalez knew that DNA from the skull was in codis, but she never drew a connection between that case and Mary's. But after learning that the DNA was a match, she went back and reviewed police reports from when the skull was discovered and learned that it had been found by a crew working in an oil field. They'd located it on Elise Road, which is an unmarked road connected to a web of other unmarked roads, really more like dirt paths that form this web of oil drilling sites in the desolate terrain outside Odessa. These roads are rented temporarily by companies that are drilling there and are really only used by oil field workers like the Chevron crew that was out there in 1990.

[Detective Lauren Gonzalez]

They're in the oil field working, and they just see it on the ground out there. It was picked up by the person who found it. They then put it back on the ground and went and told the rest of the crew what he had found. The crew then dug holes in the immediate area around it. The context I'm getting is that they are looking for more bones themselves.

[Narrator]

They didn't find any other bones, just the skull, which deputies from the Crane County Sheriff's Department collected from the scene. The upper jaw was attached, but most of the teeth were missing, which would have made dental comparisons more difficult. To Detective Gonzalez's surprise, someone once had drawn a connection between Mary and this skull. Mary's name was mentioned in one of the initial police reports about the skull. Jeannette's name was in there, too. An investigator had noted that the skull should be compared to both women, but it seems like no one took that recommendation. In fact, it took over two years for anything to really happen with this skull. It was sent to a forensic anthropologist along with information about Jeannette, but nothing about Mary, who it seems by that point had been forgotten. Again, Detective Gonzalez said that she thinks the info about Jeannette may have influenced the anthropologist toward making findings that lined up with Jeannette's description.

[Detective Lauren Gonzalez]

They're documenting here that that doctor stated that the skull was of a white female in her early 20s, which is a description of Jeanette Javitsky.

[Narrator]

Though the description lined up, there wasn't enough to make a definitive ID and further attempts to do that seemed sporadic. Investigators collected DNA from Jeannette's family in 2003, but no comparison was ever done to the skull. Ten years went by before new investigators took over. They searched for more remains, but they didn't find anything and consulted a second anthropologist, who also estimated the skull belonged to someone around Jeannette's age, which was again, two decades younger than Mary. And while it seems investigators all but concluded this was likely Jeannette's skull, there were clues to contradict that. Like one of the anthropologists noted that their Jane Doe had lost two teeth before she died. Investigators had information that Mary was missing two front teeth, but it seems that no one made the connection. In 2014, Texas Rangers created a composite sketch of their Jane Doe, and it looked nothing like Jeannette. It did, however, look a whole lot like Mary. And then in 2013, a DNA profile from the skull was finally entered into CODIS, and it was not. Not a match to Jeannette's family's DNA. You'd think @ that point, investigators might have compared the skull to Mary's case, but they didn't. Detective Gonzalez said the sketch the Rangers did wasn't even In Odessa, Pedy's record until her investigation linked the two cases. In hindsight, maybe these departments could have communicated better. Maybe detectives should have tapped into the local media for help identifying this Jane Doe. Detective Gonzalez said that there are a lot of things in this case that she would have done differently today that should have been done differently. Even back then.

[Detective Lauren Gonzalez]

None of the investigations were up to standard, like modern standards today, but definitely not in the case of someone like Mary. In my experience as a cold case investigator, the investigations are even more scant when the victim is a minority. And that's what we have in this case. There are a hundred things missing from the Jeanette Javitsky investigation, but there's about 300 missing. Mary Mendez's investigation, but the only way.

[Narrator]

To move is forward. And now, with the DNA match, she had new leads and new information for Mary's family.

[Detective Lauren Gonzalez]

I was so happy. Like, I couldn't believe I was going to be able to tell people, like, we found your mom. You know, we found your sister.

[Narrator]

But before she could tell any of them, she had to notify Mary's legal next of kin. And that person was Arnoldo, who was technically still her husband. No one from Odessa PD had spoken to him or Virginia or. Or Arnoldo's longtime girlfriend. After they left Texas, Detective Gonzalez had wanted to talk to them, but she wanted to be careful about when and how she heard. Virginia was living in California. So she contacted police there and let them know that she was trying to find them, but to, like, keep it on the DL, but I didn't want.

[Detective Lauren Gonzalez]

Them to know we were looking for them. So everything was kept very secret.

[Narrator]

Local police were able to narrow down the search to a few likely addresses. So two weeks after the DNA match came in, Detective Gonzalez, a Texas Ranger, and another detective took a trip.

[Detective Lauren Gonzalez]

We all went out there together and spent a really long time just watching the houses. We got an idea of when the times people were coming and going. It was important to us that there would be no time in between any notifications that. That anyone would have time to speak to anyone and get their story straight.

[Narrator]

Detective Gonzalez approached Virginia in her front yard, and after some back and forth about whether her dad was home, she agreed to go get him. Detective Gonzalez broke the news that they had found Mary's remains, and both Virginia and Arnoldo agreed to be interviewed at the local pd. Virginia didn't know much about her mother's disappearance because she was so young. And Arnoldo said the same thing. He said back in 1984 that he had no idea what happened to his wife. He said that on the day Mary went missing, they were fighting about him working on his van instead of getting ready for a family barbecue. After the fight, he went to a bar with his cousin, and he claimed he didn't see Mary there or at home when he got back at around 11pm or midnight. And his mention of a barbecue brings back that story about the bloody pig or pigs in the back of his van that, remember, were supposedly for a barbecue. Dalia says she doesn't remember their family having a barbecue planned for any time the next week. Now, Arnoldo did have family in Odessa, so maybe it was something that his side was planning. But Detective Gonzalez didn't ask him about it while she was there because she hadn't heard that story yet. Elva hadn't mentioned it in their first interview, and Detective Gonzalez didn't speak to Dahlia for the first time until after she got back from the trip. She had heard, though, about the broken necklace. So she asked him about it. And he said he didn't even remember his wife having a necklace she regularly wore or any jewelry that was special to her. Obviously, that differs pretty significantly from what Mary's family said. And so did some other things, like the timeline of when Arnoldo left Odessa. He said he didn't leave right away like Dalia claimed. But all these years later, it's hard for Detective Gonzalez to verify that or any part of his story. There was that vehicle registration receipt in the case file for a three door Ford, which Detective Gonzalez thinks could have been Arnoldo's van. But there's no record that investigators at the time ever examined the van. Detective Gonzalez could have, even all these years later. Specifically, she could have tested it for evidence of human or pig blood. But when she ran the VIN number printed on that receipt, there was no record of the vehicle, meaning it's not legally registered today, and there's no way to find it. Detective Gonzalez also could have used other records like rental agreements and utility bills to confirm when Arnoldo left Odessa and where he went. But none of that is possible now because original investigators didn't gather those records.

[Detective Lauren Gonzalez]

That is something that should have been done and it just wasn't. And that is something we can never get back.

[Narrator]

Despite the family's suspicions, Detective Gonzalez said Arnoldo seemed genuine during her interview with him. Especially in one particular moment.

[Detective Lauren Gonzalez]

I said, hey, you know, I have this photo of her that I think is a recent picture before she disappeared. And so I handed him the photo and I watched his face very closely. I wanted to see his reaction and to be completely honest, like, his eyes lit up and his smile seemed very genuine. And he said, yeah, this is her. He gave the picture back to me, and I put it on the table next to us. And he could not stop looking at the picture and could not stop smiling. And he said, I want a copy of that. Like, I've never seen that photo before. So I gave it to him. I said, you know, I have other copies. Like, you can have this one. And he said quietly, I don't see her for years. He was so happy to see a photo of her. It seemed like really genuine reaction to me. I mean, if he did something to her, he is a master psychopath or something, because he was not nervous or worried or anything. No sign of that at all. No sign of any sort of guilt or remorse, anything like that. Maybe he feels safe because so much time had passed. Or he didn't do it. And maybe she was a woman alone at night in a dangerous town, and something happened to her. Someone did something to her.

[Narrator]

As we've mentioned in our coverage of other cases on this show, like our episode on Augustin Chacon, odessa in the 80s was a violent place. The oil boom had brought in a lot of workers who moved to the area for temporary jobs. They'd work a lot, get into trouble, and then move away without leaving much of a trace. In fact, Odessa had the highest per capita murder rate in the country around this time. According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, Mary could have been hurt by someone who didn't have close ties to her or Odessa. Mary's son Joe said that his mom would usually take a taxi to and from the bars. But if she went out alone the night she vanished, she might have gone bar hopping and then maybe just ran into the wrong person. That's what Detective Gonzalez has to figure out now that she has the first few pieces of this puzzle. Puzzle, because Mary's case now does belong in the box she first found it in. It is an open homicide investigation with a lot of unanswered questions. She has been able to give Mary's loved ones answers to at least some questions, though. When she got back from California, she gathered Mary's relatives and let them know that the DNA was a match to the Crane county skull. That Mary's not out there alive somewhere. As they'd wondered for all those years, they'd finally found her. She interviewed some of Mary's loved ones she hadn't talked to yet, like Dalia, who shared her account of the blood in the van. But Detective Gonzalez hasn't interviewed Arnoldo again to ask him about that, and she doesn't have plans to unless new evidence comes to light. But that doesn't mean she's ruled him out as a suspect. We asked her what she's done to investigate Mary's first husband, Alcario, and she said she can't comment on that just yet. When our reporters tried to call him, the phone numbers we had for him were out of service or belonged to someone else. Joe said that he passed a message on to his father for us, but we haven't heard from him yet. Mary's family still has so many questions, but at least now they know where she is. Detective Gonzalez was able to return Mary's remains to them, and in 2023, 39 years after Mary was last seen, they finally held a funeral. At the service, Dalia got to see Virginia for the first time in years, the niece that she took in as she searched for the girl's mother.

[Dalia (Mary's sister-in-law)]

I was sitting in the church, and she came up behind me and tapped me on the stool. I didn't know who she was. I turned around, looked at her, and she looked at me and smiled. So I smiled back. And she goes, tia. And I looked at her, virginia, you know, and I got up and I just squeezed her. She squeezed me, and she sat down because, she says, she told me, she goes, I remember everything you did for me and my Theo deal. You took care of me.

[Narrator]

Dalia and Virginia sat together at the service, surrounded by people from Mary's life. Except Arnul. He didn't come. Virginia didn't want to be recorded for this episode, but she did speak with us. She said her dad didn't come to the funeral because he'd had a double knee replacement that makes it hard to travel. And she said she has few memories of her childhood or her mother. She always thought that her mom just went on to live a new life somewhere, and she had always hoped that she was out there, happy. She said her dad has always been a steady rock in her life, and she still lives with him, but they never talk much about Mary. At our request, Virginia asked her father about the pig blood in the van, and she said that he told her that had happened before Mary disappeared. She also said he uses his real name, Carlos, now, and that Arnoldo was his brother's name, and she didn't know why he'd used that name back then. We tried unsuccessfully to reach Arnoldo directly through Virginia. He declined an interview. Virginia said that he feels like everyone has already passed judgment on him and what he says won't make a difference. While Arnoldo wouldn't speak with our reporters, there was someone he did want to talk to. Dalia. She said that he called her out of the blue from Virginia's phone after our reporters reached out to Virginia.

[Dalia (Mary's sister-in-law)]

And he says, it's me, Soyo. Soyo know who the hell you are, you know? And he goes, arnold. Arnold who? You know, cuz I like. I said, I ain't talked to him or nothing. I didn't. I wasn't even thinking. Virginia's dad. Oh. I said, well, what? What do you want? No. Virginia told me you had cancer, and I was just calling to see how you were doing. I said, I'm doing fine. I said, you know, I ain't talked to you in over 40 years. What the hell are you doing calling me?

[Narrator]

She said she found the timing of the call, after so many years, very suspicious. She doesn't think that he called to check on how she was feeling after decades of radio silence, but maybe to try and get on her good side. After hearing our reporters were asking questions, Arnuldo called Dalia a few more times. She declined those calls, but said if she decides to talk to him one day, she'd be pretty blunt.

[Dalia (Mary's sister-in-law)]

I would just ask him, did you kill Mary? And why don't you tell us? Don't take it to your grave. Let us know.

[Narrator]

Elva, who is also in treatment for cancer, wants to know who killed Mary, too.

[Elva (Mary's sister)]

Until you find who did it. There's still no rest until then, and I hope I live long enough to find out.

[Narrator]

Detective Gonzalez hopes to speak with anyone who saw Mary the night she disappeared or anyone who knows anything about what happened to her. She is still hopeful that they can find the answers.

[Detective Lauren Gonzalez]

I mean, I think it's pretty amazing she was found at all. So who knows what the future holds on this case?

[Narrator]

She told us a story that she thinks about as she continues investigating Mary's death.

[Detective Lauren Gonzalez]

A few weeks before, I had found Mary's file, I had gone to a local Chinese restaurant with my husband, and I got a fortune cookie. It said, truth seeks and finds the light of day. And I was working cold case, and so I really liked that. I was like, yeah, like, I hope so. You know, I hope that's true. And so I taped it to my computer, and then I found her file a few weeks later. Mary wanted to be found.

[Narrator]

She also remembers that advice that her captain gave her and how she didn't follow it.

[Detective Lauren Gonzalez]

He said to me, well, the thing about cold cases is you can't get lost in the weeds. And it was not very long after that that I got lost in some weeds and I found Mary's file. And ever since then, then I have tried to tell myself over and over again it is okay to get lost in the weeds sometimes because you don't never know what you're going to find. You may find a whole person.

[Narrator]

If you know anything about the death of Mary Mendez, contact Detective Gonzalez at 432-335-4926 or detective submit a tip anonymously through odessa Crimestoppers. Call 432-333-8477 or you can visit333tips.org and reference case number 847980 the deck is an Audio Chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com I think Chuck would approve.

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