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The Butterfly Effect: Identifying the Does, one case at a time
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Every year over 4,000 unidentified bodies are recovered in the United States. 600,000 people are reported as missing, and thousands more go unreported. The Butterfly Effect is an investigative podcast that seeks to reunite the nameless with their...
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A vacation rental should come with support, not surprises. That's why VRBO comes with a VRBoCare guarantee and 24. 7 life support from real people. So if something goes sideways, VRBoCare can help. If the host cancels verbocare if the listing says heated pool, but there's actually no pool to heat. Definitely a verbocare thing.
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If my teenager starts calling me Leslie
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instead of mom, that's a family thing. Leslie.
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That makes sense.
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Sorry. Book with support, not surprises. Verbo Care and 24. 7 Life Support. If you know you're verbo terms apply.
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See.
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Hey guys, it's Josh and I am going to share with you a podcast, and this is not one that has been sent to me from a network. This is a podcast by a listener of true crime bullshit who has become a great friend. Maxine. I asked Maxine to send me a synopsis and this is what she wrote. I'm just an average true crime consumer and was looking for ways to make a meaningful impact on the cases I loved to listen to. I planned on gathering research for someone else, but the doe I stumbled upon already had a name, and her name basically changed everything I knew about the true part of true crime. I'm just a girl who likes podcasts, making my own podcast. And while that is adorable and humble and very much Maxine, the truth is, this show is so much more than that. Every year, over 4,000 unidentified bodies are recovered in the United States alone. 600,000 people are reported as missing, and thousands more go unreported. The Butterfly Effect. Maxine's show is an investigative podcast that seeks to reunite the nameless with their identities. And I can tell you, having known Maxine for about six years now, she is incredibly passionate about this case. And I've watched her go from being interested in this case, to investigating this case, to creating this podcast to. And it's a journey very similar to mine. She starts dipping her toe in and ends with some of the most incredible revelations. The work she's done in such a short period of time is amazing, and that's why you should check out the Butterfly Effect wherever you listen to podcasts. Here's the first episode. Listen to it now, and if you like what you hear, subscribe to the Butterfly Effect. I am floored by what Maxine has done with this investigation, and you will be too.
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A note to listeners. Various words have been inserted into quotes for clarity. This episode discusses potentially distressing topics, including drug use, suicide, sex work, and autopsies. If you or someone you know is struggling call or text 98 8. It's an unusually hot November morning in Albuquerque when I pass a run down motel on University Boulevard. The entire fall and winter season here had been warm, unseasonably so, and I want to roll down my car windows to let the breeze in. But I know better. Honestly, this isn't a rough area of town by far, but I pass the motel and keep on towards the University of New Mexico, knowing eventually I'll intersect the International District and that's where things tend to get, well, rough. As a New Mexican native, sometimes it feels like the walls of the safer parts of the city of Albuquerque are closing in, leaving pockets of gated communities and wealth funded by the national laboratories and Amazon. KOAT 7 reported in 2023 that Albuquerque ranked 17th most dangerous among 70 of the largest cities in the nation. Their reporting was based on trends for crimes like rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Even more unsettling, though, is the rise in homicide numbers. In 2021, the City of Albuquerque reported one hundred and six homicides. The next year, that number rose to 115, an 8% increase. Of course, it's not just the land of enchantment. Societal issues surrounding drug use, access to adequate healthcare, and rising costs of living have contributed to poverty in every state, and New Mexico has never been an exception. All this is to say, I expect to feel unsettled driving past the Seagull Select Motel as I make my way to an appointment down the road. After all, a woman died there in room 233 on a warm day just like this one. After weeks of preliminary research, I find myself knowing more than I could have imagined about a stranger who died years before I was born. But people die everywhere all the time. I suppose the feeling might be more prominent if I were to pass by the house that once belonged to the Watts family in Colorado, or the vacant lot where Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment building was torn down in Milwaukee. The woman who died in room 233 wasn't murdered, according to her official autopsy report performed by Dr. Ross Zumwalt of the Office of the medical examiner in 1991. Her cause of death was hanging, and her manner of death was ruled a suicide. Morbid but not uncommon. So why does it matter? Well, I have this mantra. Everyone is someone's someone. I didn't invent that, and I don't know where I read it first, but the words play in my head often. Podcasting has a pretty low barrier of entry, and though the true crime genre is now described as oversaturated. We've seen everyday people make real differences. Like other casual or rabid consumers, I followed up and vanished serial and you'd own backyard with fervor. Against my better judgment, I deeply internalized the pursuit of justice for Cal Poly student Kristen Smart. Plenty of podcasts I listen to end with a call to action. Not just if you have a tip, submit it here. But sharing missing persons posters, calling local representatives, and donating to causes that help victims. But after all of that, I still felt a pit in my stomach after hearing the closing music and Chris Lambert's soft exit of Next Time. Could I do more? So I began Googling. Hey Google, look up podcasts that focus on crime in New Mexico. The most prevalent search result was a podcast I already knew about, True Consequences, hosted by Eric Carter Landin. Eric's baby brother, Jacob was murdered in 1987, and if I had to summarize New Mexico's justice system in one sentence, I'd tell you that just a few years ago, New Mexico had a statute of limitations on murder. Enough said. As a survivor and an advocate, Eric has a unique connection to the stories he tells. And it's not just because he lives in New Mexico. I have no credentials, authority, or lived experience with violent crime and the idea of contacting a grieving family to what? Ask them to speak to me about the worst day of their life as content for a podcast nobody has ever heard of? To what end? In my avid listening, I heard time and time again about the effects of victim exploitation in this kind of storytelling, and I wanted no part in that. But there had to be something I could do, some niche I could fit myself into to help someone to tell stories the right way. More Googling. Hey Google, how many unidentified bodies are there in New Mexico? Spoiler alert. There's no quick AI overview to answer that question, but the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System can as of recording this episode, Namus has 23 unidentified persons listings for Albuquerque. At first, the number seemed alarmingly small, but NAMUS can only report what information it's fed by police. There's an unspoken understanding that crimes of all kinds here are never reported. I kept filtering, looking only at cases that weren't likely to have newer technologies being used to solve them. A 20 something amateur podcaster has nothing on DNA, usually, anyway, so before 1999. Then the number of listings dropped to nine. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Most of these colder cases didn't have much evidence at all, much less publicly attached to their NAMUS profile. I figure My best bet would be to pick a case with the most public available evidence and go from there. And after only a few minutes, I found one. A reconstruction, a few scene photos, evidence logs. I wrote down the number so I could refer back case 2926. I couldn't have predicted how this case would change my life. Truly, it all started with the NAMUS listing. Or more accurately, it started with a feeling of irritation. I'm not an idiot. Albuquerque and Bernalillo police departments were swamped, just like every other police force in America. And I've had my own experiences with them well before I started this journey. According to the city of Albuquerque's government website, response times for emergency calls are down to just seven and a half minutes for the Albuquerque metro as of 2024.
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It's a nice idea, but you can ask any local and they'll tell you it can sometimes take hours. And that's even if APD shows up at all. You can include me in that group of locals. Allegedly. Despite that knowledge, some naive part of me just assumed all the department would need is a little nudge on a case like this 1. Namus case up 2926. Per the listing on Namus.gov, a woman between the ages of 25 to 35 was found in a locked motel room by a motel security guard. End quote. She was hanging by a strap from a suitcase found in the room and had been there for days. Apparently, the body was too decomposed to make a positive ID and there was no ID in the wallet on the table instead, investigators found $500 bills, various amounts of beer bottles, and some photos. I'm obviously not a seasoned investigator, but I'd consumed enough true crime to guess my next steps. Huddled under a pile of blankets on my couch, I plugged in my laptop and began searching for media releases. The amount of recent videos and articles popping up when I typed in Woman Found Dead Motel Albuquerque Wasn't a Shock
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Albuquerque police are investigating a deadly shooting.
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Paramedics found her unresponsive in a hotel room just yesterday.
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APD is investigating a homicide that happened outside a Motel 6 near Corner and Ilif.
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I could have spent hours looking with that search alone, but when I narrowed down, things started to pique my interest. The first useful link was from a website called the Unidentified Wiki. It's sort of set up like Wikipedia, with information, photos and links to various sources. And there's one for my Jane Doe. The page mostly has the same information as NamUs, which is a good thing because that source is verified. But as I'm reading, I am noticing some things I haven't read before. According to the Wiki page quote Between 9:30pm and 11:00pm on June 3, 1991, a local truck driver named Eduardo Collin arrived at a Super 8 motel in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He rented a room for two people for one night and was expected to check out at 11am the following day. Eduardo provided legitimate information on the registration slip, except for a false vehicle license plate number. Eduardo was given room 233, end quote. Apparently no one saw another person with this Eduardo Collin guy, but he rented a room for two people. Let me back up here for a moment and give you some context. If you're not from Albuquerque, you probably won't know the significance of some of the locations. In this case, the city is a grid, and for the most part the streets are ordered easily enough to get even a visitor where they need to be. But there's a 3.9 square mile strip of road situated along Route 66 called Central Avenue. Back in the late 30s and early 40s, the city of Albuquerque experienced a major population boom and the area around Central filled up, bolstered by businesses that profited from Route 66. But all that changed in the 60s when Kirtland Air Force Base transitioned to on base housing and Route 66 lost its traffic to I40. After that, crime in the area seemed to skyrocket. A 1991 article from the Albuquerque Journal described East Central as, quote, a loose jointed carnival of sex, drugs and booze. End quote. It was around 2009 when the city attempted to rebrand the area and the neighborhood became known officially as the International district. But in 2017, the Albuquerque Journal reported that it was the most violent place in the city in the past three years. Just a year later, the Journal called the International District the worst neighborhood in New Mexico for the health and well being of young children. End quote. The government may refer to the area as the International District, but locals call it something else, the war zone. Finding people passed out on the sidewalk, unmoving on blistering hot summer days. A constant police presence that somehow never feels like enough addicts brandishing both invisible and very visible weapons. The crisis seems to be slowly expanding over the geographical walls that make up the International District. Honestly, I could read you statistics all day, but numbers being thrown into thin air wouldn't paint the true picture of this area and what it represents, the many ways society continues to let our most vulnerable citizens down. I'm not a professional podcaster, but I was an emergency medical technician for a short time, and I did my clinical rotations in ambulances crossing through these streets. The city is bursting at the seams with culture, with promise. But if my time in the Albuquerque EMS system has taught me anything, it's that you can have compassion for your fellow man and fear him at the same time. My drive past the Siegel Select Motel where Jane Doe was found takes me to the intersection of University Boulevard and Central Avenue. Albuquerque was a different place in 1991, sure, but the principle of trucker motels remains the same. Now that motel boasts a long term rate and extended stay options. But when Jane Doe died, the building was a Super 8. The address itself is situated between two points of the interstate and Central Avenue. I don't think I have to fill in the blanks here. For the past month, I'd been scrolling through Google and YouTube trying to find official sources of information on Jane Doe. One of the biggest clues was a widely distributed FBI ViCAP poster. ViCAP stands for violent Criminal Apprehension Program. Think America's Most Wanted. The posters are supposed to catch your attention, obviously, but there's something incredible about this case and the evidence attached to it. Within seconds of Googling Albuquerque Jane Doe, I find myself staring back at her. It's not a macabre postmortem autopsy photo. It's not the expressionless gray reconstruction posted with her unidentified wiki listing. It's her. A grainy, washed out picture of a woman with wild, permed orange tinted hair. She's mugging for the camera. Her eyes and mouth wide open like she's over exaggerating shock. The photo is one of two on her ViCAP poster with the caption photo of victim found with her possessions. Yeah, you heard that right. There's a photo of an unidentified woman in life found at the scene of her death. That photo was distributed through FBI channels all over America. Presumably in nearly 33 years, no one has come forward to identify her. How is that possible? There's got to be more to this story. So let's take it back one more time to the very beginning. A NAMUS listing, a vicap alert, a photo, and a true crime consumer attempting to tackle something so much bigger than myself. 33 years? Well, that seems far too long to be away from her family. I'm officially in full research mode searching Albuquerque Jane Doe brings up a variety of websites, but Reddit threads are the most prevalent. Until now, I'd never really used Reddit, but it's no surprise there would be threads similar to the unidentified wiki with information. And wouldn't you know it, the very first link was titled I've probably identified the Albuquerque Jane Doe, AKA Becca, Promising. The thread was a link to a missing person's case. I'll spare you the details because this obviously wasn't a match. Commenters disagreed with the arrogance of the poster and cited all the apparent differences in height and weight for reference. According to Namus, the Albuquerque Jane Doe would have been roughly 5, 7 and 140 pounds. What's more interesting is the way almost every post refers to Jane Doe by the name Becca. What did I miss? Sure enough, the ViCAP poster had a note. Based on a recent tip, investigators believe the woman's name is Becca. She was reportedly from the Los Angeles county area, possibly Reseda or Sylmar, California, and flew from either Los Angeles or Burbank to Albuquerque. This case was getting weirder by the minute. Reddit has quite a few threads on Becca, but I noticed quickly that the information on each post and each comment really contradicted the others. Some people even claimed to be in touch with law enforcement to confirm certain aspects of the investigation. A few scattered links to Google Docs with supposedly reputable information led nowhere. Albuquerque Jane Doe's Reddit presence is is like a game of telephone. Every time the info was passed on, it got a little jumbled until the narrative was nothing like the original source. If the misinformation is this rampant online, it's better to stick to the facts and work my way through the timeline. I need to get my hands on official documents. Here in New Mexico, the Office of the Medical Investigator is part of the UNM hospital system. After determining what paperwork needed to be sent where, I had to decide what exact records I should ask for. My research left me with more questions than answers about Jane Doe and the circumstances of that night in June on University Boulevard. If I wanted to solve this puzzle, I would need, well, everything. Criminal Investigating Division, how may I direct your call? The Bernalillo County Jane Doe was found in a Super 8 motel on 2500 University Drive Northeast in Albuquerque, New Mexico on June 5, 1991. She had strawberry blonde hair and hazel eyes. She was 5, 7 and approximately 140 pounds. She may have been called Rebecca or Becca and could have been living in Sylmar or Reseda in Los Angeles County, California. If you have any information about her and identity, call the Bernalillo County Sheriff's office at 505-242-2677 or contact the FBI's Albuquerque field office at 505-889-1300. The Butterfly Effect is independently produced by me Maxine with additional production and research assistance by Jordan Taylor Music, mixing by Ryan Delgobo Artwork and mixing by Buffy Case. Special thanks to Laura Norton, Jordan Taylor, Haley Gray, and Aislin o'. Neill. Thank you for listening. Please rate and review the show wherever you find your podcasts.