>> it's hard to pull off a fake kidnapping, it just is. that's all for now. i'm lester holt. for all of us at nbc news, thanks for watching. so many young women missing. only one detective to find them. >> for me, there was always a story to them. >> there's a story to her, too. she's a young woman luck countr lucky to be alive. >> for a lot of people that would be the end of police work. >> i wasn't done. >> so she searched as the numbers grew -- >> another one there, another there. >> -- and families hurt. >> she says, i have some bad news for you. >> while under a desert sky a secret waited. >> the reality of, kind of like this isn't happening. >> missing women forgotten by almost everyone but her. >> i've just always felt that they were going to be together.

if you find one you're going to find them all. >> the search for "somebody's daughter." >> sometimes ida lopez simply can't wait for sunday. sometimes in the middle of her workweek, the albuquerque detective feels a pressing need for spiritual solace and divine guidance. the fall of 2005 was one of those times. it was a time when a sinister force seemed to be snatching women off the streets of new mexico's largest city and the devoutly religious detective knew she needed all the help she could get. >> i think somebody who is very organized. i think he's been preying on his victims, has a particular victim in mind. >> sticking up for victims comes naturally to ida lopez.

it's the same instinct that drew her to police work years ago when she was a kid growing up in albuquerque. >> i was about 9 years old. actually, it was my -- my grandfather raised me. he was outside. he was about in his 80s. i'm in the porch area and there's a foot chase. the guy goes toward him and he's tackled by police. i thought that was the coolest thing i had ever seen. so that curiosity, then the service part, helping people part of police work. >> after college, ida graduated from the police academy and joined the force as a uniformed officer. >> most of my areas i worked, especially in patrol, i was assigned to work with the prostitutes in the area.

>> so she learned about the lives of the women on the street, and it was here while posing as a decoy during prostitution sting operations that she learned the raw power of their addictions. >> i just learned the absolute dependence on the drug for the girls because there's no way in your right mind you're going to get into a car and do what this person just told you to do. there's no way. so that gave me an empathy for them on that part. i thought, wow, this has got to be powerful. >> over the years, ida's career blossomed. she made detective, married another cop, and started a family. her future seemed assured. but in 2004, while pregnant with her second child, doctors discovered a mass in ida's right kidney. >> it was growing, and i had kidney cancer. >> what did doctors tell you? >> they were shocked. they said it wasn't common in women and not women my age. i wouldn't say what the plans were because the only close person i knew had cancer and died. i thought, well, i need to make further plans. my husband's got young kids to take care of. >> flightening. >> then about a month and a half

after i was diagnosed i had my kidney removed. >> surgeons also removed ida's adrenal gland because it too had a mass on it. but because doctors caught the cancer early, ida required neither chemo nor radiation therapy. ida's return to work would have to be gradual, if it was going to happen at all. for a lot of people, that would be the end of police work. >> right. >> not for you. >> no. no. i wasn't done. >> and so in july 2005, after a few months of recuperation as a reserve officer, the department offered ida a 20-hour-a-week desk job working missing persons. >> missing persons kind of a backwater in a lot of departments. it's not exactly the premier detective job. >> right. right. it's where they needed somebody, and it worked out for me and for them.

missing persons, you know, was busy. the position was there, and it was i thought perfect timing. >> as you will soon see, timing, both perfect and not so perfect, will play a critical part in the story we're about to show you. within weeks of starting her new job, ida was handed two missing persons files. those two files would mark the beginning of the biggest case in her career and would turn into one of new mexico's most heinous crime stories. but at the time it was routine low-priority police work. >> how many other detectives in missing persons? >> i was the only detective in there at the time. >> both of the persons were attractive women in their 20s with arrest records for drugs and prostitution. both had seemingly vanished without a word to friends or relatives.

sad but common, especially for these dark streets where drug addiction and prostitution literally go hand in hand. ida went by the book. >> so what i do is go back to see what their arrest history is, what their lifestyle has been with drugs. do my full background on them. then a third one comes in. >> a third one. >> then as the months go by, research more and find there are maybe another one here, another one there that sort of thing. >> soon there were five missing women with eerily similar profiles on ida's list, all of them about the same age with a similar look. all were known to hang out in a section of albuquerque so full of crime, it was known as the war zone.

the easy part is she kept a list of the women. the hard part is many of them were missing for more than a year before ida had a chance to start looking. it's one of those timing issues we talked about earlier. lengthy delays reporting somebody missing as missing. >> like somebody has a year start in a race. i don't have phone records, a regular address. i don't have a school schedule, a work schedule. that sort of thing. >> and you don't have anybody who saw them yesterday. >> right. >> and can tell you what they were doing, what their state of mind was, who they were hanging around with. >> and the family knows them better than me, but they hadn't seen them. >> add to that fact that most of the missing women had supported their drug habit as street prostitutes who got into cars with strange men as often as 20 to 30 times a day.

and it's easy to see how another detective, one with a harder heart than the one beating inside ida lopez, might have given up.

every lifeis a mystery. not just because of ha happened but what might have been prevented, missed or altogether avoided. >> we're the coolest girls in the whole wide world. >> such was the mystery of the women on detective ida lopez's growing list of the lost. it's a mystery their families still struggle to understand. >> there's a dad who had a calendar. every time he saw her he marked the date down.

he gave her 20 bucks. maybe he knew where the money was going to go, but he saw his daughter. and that didn't take that part away that she was still somebody's little girl. >> i think they're trick candles. >> the name, the face belonged to michelle valdez, one of the first women on ida's list. dan valdez, her father, had reported michelle missing six months before ida got the case. he was the guy who kept the calendar. >> the xs indicating no knowledge of her, disappeared, nothing, no word. >> the fact is, dan valdez had been recording his daughter's comings and goings for years. >> this is michelle. how old are you, michelle? >> 5. >> i took it upon myself to tape them, tape every event, every chance i had, i had the videotape there. >> you taping me, dad? >> the michelle valdez that

appears in these home videos with her little sisters is a far cry from the thin, drug-wasted young woman police would later come to know and fingerprint. >> daddy, can i have something to eat now? >> yeah. >> this michelle, along with her sister camille and half-sister kendra, was a cutup, a clown. whether in costume for a play, dressed for her first communion or showing a budding interest in boys, this michelle, according to her sister camille, was an all-american girl with a future as bright as the new mexico sun. >> i looked up to her for many things, you know. i was always the tagalong with her and her friends. >> she didn't mind? >> no, not at all. not at all. >> then came the teen years when life started coming at michelle valdez fast and furious. by then, dan and michelle's

mother were divorced and dan was raising michelle and camille alone, while working days at the juvenile detention center and nights and weekends playing steel guitar with his country band cimmaron. dan tried to keep a watchful eye on his girls and even took them to work with him at the juvenile detention center to show them where careless mistakes can lead. some of it seemed to take. some of it didn't. at 13, michelle became pregnant. >> i was devastated. but what can you do? you can't be with them 24/7. all you can do is bring them up, nurture them, show them love, attention, appreciation. >> and sometimes they make a mistake. >> and sometimes they make the wrong turn or a mistake. >> shortly after her 14th birthday, michelle valdez gave birth to a baby girl she named angelica. so you were being a father all over again.

>> father all over again. >> i was only 8 years old and becoming an aunt, you know. it was tough, but once, you know, we had that bond, me and angelica, it was nice. i enjoyed it. >> at 14, most kids rightfully think their best years are ahead of them. high school, college, career. that was not the track michelle valdez was on. though dan continued to tape all the usual family functions, michelle's little girl angelica was now the center of attention. but in the periphery in off-hand moments, dan's camera also caught something else, the look and the unspoken despair that signaled the death of a young girl's dreams. >> mom, mom! >> she struggled to hold it all together, but michelle eventually dropped out of school. for a while she tried to support

herself and angelica with a series of minimum-wage jobs but couldn't make ends meet. after three years, angelica was sent to live with dan's mother who lived nearby and michelle took to living with a series of people she called friends. by 2002, the wear and tear is written all over her face. ♪ happy birthday that september, angelica celebrated her sixth birthday. michelle had just turned 20, a milestone that was not lost on mother or child. >> mommy's not a grown-up anymore. i mean, teenager anymore. >> never was. >> no. in a sense, michelle never was a teenager. and now, on the cusp of young adulthood, michelle looked gaunt, her face bore the kind of sores that suggested she had been hitting the crack pipe. when did you notice things were going wrong? i'm guessing you noticed before

anybody else. >> yeah. i noticed when she started seeing one of her boyfriends. you know, he opened up the door for all the wrong things. >> like? >> the drugs. the drugs, definitely. >> dan knew about the drugs and twice got her to agree to enter rehab. but michelle never showed up. increasingly, there were run-ins with the law. michelle had already been busted for receiving and transporting stolen property, drug possession, and car theft. dan knew about some of the arrests. most he didn't. when a stolen car rap in arizona landed michelle in jail, dan says he bailed her out and pleaded with her to change her ways. >> on the way back from arizona to here, she promised, i'm not going to hang out with the same people. i'm going to do things different and you're going to be proud of me again. then she bails two hours after

she's home. >> the toll of michelle's addiction on her younger sister camille is also evident in dan's videos. as camille becomes a teenager she no longer seems to want to acknowledge michelle or even have her around. >> we were always bumping heads. we weren't as close because of the drugs. she would come over and steal my things or, you know, i would see how upset it would make my dad so i would tell her, you know, mean things. >> before long, michelle valdez stopped showing up in her father's videos. sometimes because she avoided the camera, other times because she simply didn't show up. >> she knew there was events at the house because she would call and ask if she could borrow $25. she was hungry or whatever. she was at a hurting spot. so i gave her the money.

>> even though you knew -- >> even though i knew that it could be going for drugs. it was my gateway to making contact with her and seeing her in person. >> dan may have had the patience of job, but by 2004 camille, the tagalong little sister, had had enough. when michelle asked dan if she could move back home for a while, camille put her foot down. >> he was going to let her stay with us, and i remember telling him no. if she comes and stays, i am going to leave. i couldn't handle it. >> i remember that. >> i didn't -- i didn't even want to be around it anymore. i was so tired of it. tired of seeing him hurt. >> so you told michelle she couldn't come home? >> i told michelle she couldn't come over. i took her to a friend's house and dropped her off there. i know in my heart i didn't do the right thing, but i knew that common sense in my brain said that i had to. i had to take that avenue.

>> they call it tough love. but, for dan valdez, it was pure torture. every night he knew she was out there, and every time the phone rang his heart stopped, hoping that hers had not. if yor crohn's symptoms are holding you back, and your current treatment hasn't worked well enough, it may be time for a change. ask your doctor about entyvio, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn's. entyvio works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract and is clinically proven to help

many patients achieve both symptom relief and remission. infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. entyvio may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. pml, a rare, serious, potentially fatal brain infection caused by a virus may be possible. this condition has not been reported with entyvio. tell your doctor if you have an infection, experience frequent infections or have flu-like symptoms or sores. liver problems can occur with entyvio. if your uc or crohn's treatment isn't working for you, ask your gastroenterologist about entyvio. entyvio. relief and remission within reach.

we that's why at xfinityic. we've been working hard to simplify your experiences with us. now with instant text and email updates

you'll always be up to date. you can easily add premium channels so you don't miss your favorite show. and with just a single word, find all the answers you're looking for. because getting what you need should be simple, fast, and easy. download the xfinity my account app or go online today. by the fall of 2004, dan

valdez's calendar was beginning to fill with xs. each x marking another day without word from his oldest daughter michelle. when was the last time you saw her? >> it was in september of 2004. >> how did she look? >> thin, wired-out, strung-out maybe. had spots on her face. looked bad. >> did you see her then? >> honestly i don't remember the last time i seen her. i don't remember the last words we spoke. >> you don't remember the last thing you said to her? >> no. >> but it might not have been a nice thing? >> no. >> but as erratic as michelle had become in recent years, she had always managed to show up for the moments that mattered most to her daughter angelica.

that changed when michelle failed to show up for angelica's seventh birthday party. that day it felt a 15-year-old camille to fill in for michelle and act as mom. that christmas angelica opened her presents alone with no sign of her mother michelle. >> i thought maybe she would turn up a few days later, a few weeks or she'd call us. >> it was breaking angelica's heart that day when she wasn't there. >> in february, five months after michelle was last seen, dan went down to the albuquerque police station and formally reported his daughter missing. detective ida lopez, who would later make it her mission to find michelle and the other missing women, was on medical leave at the time. so, in ida's absence, the valdez family was at the mercy of the police department's bureaucracy. what did the police tell you? >> she didn't want to be found. >> and i can understand that ap doesn't just deal with missing persons. they deal with all kinds. >> for a long time, the news would be full of stories about girls who were missing and

everybody was looking for them. and one of the things those girls all had in common was that they were all attractive and blonde and white and didn't have any criminal record and i guess i just kind of wonder whether police and everybody else would have sort of stepped up their game a little bit if that had been the case here. >> yeah, that did cross my mind numerous times. but, you know, you have to have faith in your law enforcement. if you don't have faith in your law enforcement to treat everybody equal, then what do you have? >> what you have in dan valdez's case is a search you do yourself. as spring turned to summer that year, dan, his ex-wife, and his daughters plastered flyers with michelle's picture all over central avenue, asking anyone who had seen her to call the albuquerque police department. at night, dan drove through the

war zone, sometimes into the wee hours of the morning, looking for michelle. >> it was real hard because, you know, i'd be circing the block, see somebody that may appear to be the size of michelle, a small person, and go around the block two or three times and me wondering who they were as well as them wondering who i was. >> it had to be brutally difficult to think of michelle living that kind of life. >> definitely. definitely. it was not the way that her mother and i raised her. >> those were long nights filled with bittersweet memories of michelle the way she used to be, before the drugs took over. and thoughts of rare moments together before she went missing. >> she came over to the house one day and i'd given her a few dollars and she stood up, said, dad, i'm going to run, okay? i said, all right. and she said -- she went up to

put her arms around me and i hugged her. she said, no, dad. squeeze me tight. squeeze me like you've never squeezed me before. and i got her and i gave her the biggest hug a father could ever give his daughter. >> remembered moments like that sustained dan and drove him to continue his lonely search for michelle. then, in july 2005, about five months after dan had first reported michelle missing, he got a call from a detective who had only recently been assigned michelle's case, a detective named ida lopez. >> i thought ida for being a police officer was awfully small. she was a short lady. other than that, it seemed that she was on the up and up and she was doing what she could in her power and the time that she had to go out to the streets.

>> it would become a close working relationship based on frequent phone calls and mutual admiration. >> dan is a strong, quiet man. this is a man who absolutely loved his daughter no matter what. he didn't see her with the track marks. he didn't see her strung out. >> and he had no idea she had been arrested that many times. >> well, he did see her that way, but that's not -- that's not what he saw in his eyes or his heart. >> dan continued to cruise the war zone, willing himself to believe that his daughter was still out there. >> i thought she was alive and well and doing good but just didn't want to have any contact with the family. maybe i did something wrong. maybe it was me not letting her come back to the house. maybe it was camille saying no or whatever. >> but in 2006, more than a year after dan had last seen

michelle, the phone rang at the valdez home. the caller had heard something shocking. >> we had gotten a call from a family friend of ours that i grew up with. i pick up the phone and she's, like, oh, my gosh, i'm sorry about your sister. and i said, you know, what are you talking about? she said, michelle. michelle and cinnamon were stabbed and buried on the west mesa. >> did you know who cinnamon was? >> no. no. never heard of her before. >> did you ask her where she heard that? >> yeah. her aunt ran the streets, knew michelle, knew certain people, and they had heard it from her aunt. >> dan immediately called detective ida lopez with the tip, but she was unable to find the aunt or to pin down the source of the rumor. it was all just unverifiable street talk, the kind ida lopez had heard before. except for one tantalizing tidbit. cinnamon was a name on ida's list.

cinnamon elks, missing since august of 2004. but even if those rumors were true and human remains were with cooling in the desert night on albuquerque's west mesa, the detective knew it would take a miracle to find them. coming up -- was a serial killer stalking the women working the war zone? >> i've just always felt that they were going to be together. >> in death as in life? >> if you find one, you're going to find them all. happy thanks for giving! thanks for giving lien the strength to outrun her brother. thanks for giving victor the energy to be the rowdiest fan. and joseph, the ability to see monsters. when you choose walgreens, you choose to make a difference... like how every vitamin and flu shot you get at walgreens helps give life-changing vitamins and vaccines... to children in need around the world and here at home.

so, really... happy thanks for giving! walgreens. at the corner of happy and healthy. whstuff happens. old shut down cold symptoms fast with maximum strength alka seltzer plus liquid gels. my shoulders carry some i deserve others i don't but in the end only one name really matters because shoulders were made for greatness, not dandruff

every morning the sun rises over the sandia mountains east of albuquerque and begins baking one of the most celebrated roads in the united states, route 66, the highway famous for carrying dust bowl refugees and beat generation oddballs west to california.

the mother road's glory days are behind her now. in albuquerque where the old highway becomes central avenue, the city's decidedly downscaled drug and prostitution trade flourishes. >> used to be a motel here. i used to live actually behind there when i was in college and they'd go through the alley, do their tricks in the alley. >> cops call this section of central avenue the war zone and the women who work its shadows prostitutes. but ever since her early days in uniformed patrol, ida lopez has called them her girls. >> i got to know a lot of them, you know. okay, we could chase them out, but for me there was always a story to them. >> ida says the stories she heard back then were heartbreaking tales of abuse and neglect that almost always had drugs at their core. >> these are hurting women. i mean, you'll see some out here that they need that fix. you know, it's not what you see in vegas. it's not the call girl. it's not the "pretty woman." >> by the end of 2005, ida had five women on her list that were roughly the same age with similar backgrounds, young hispanic women with arrest records for drugs or prostitution.

>> i go out there and start talking to the girls. at first some of them were hesitant. i said, look, i'm not running you. i just want to know when was the last time you saw her? did you know her? what can you tell me? what's going on out here? >> how much of your time is this taking? >> it's taking all my time. >> working alone, the detective distributed flyers with the women's pictures at truck stops, convenience stores, even the new mexico state fair. but she kept coming up empty. >> i went to some drug rehab places who were not willing to help me. i sat in many waiting rooms, i said, i don't want to know what their sessions were about. all i want to know is a time line. >> some of the women were missing so long ida began comparing notes with a detective in the cold case unit. eventually ida and the cold case department were able to convince the department to form a task force where once a month they met with other agencies

including the fbi to discuss leads on missing persons, on cold cases, on sexual predators, and on unidentified remains. >> so we were able to communicate with each other. anything that came up, any trucker initiatives or murderers that the fbi sent us we posted on the wall. our girls we posted on the wall. >> are truckers a particular problem? >> yeah, they can be. they travel interstate. they pick up a lot of girls. we know a few who have murdered girls who frequent the truck stops. >> at one point you're looking at truckers. >> looking at everybody. >> by the end of that year, ida's list had grown to more than a dozen women. ida knew the odds of finding any of the missing women alive were not good. but that's not what she told the families when they called in looking to hear something encouraging.

>> i would tell them every single day, we're one day closer to finding your daughter. yes, i pray that they're okay and hopefully living in a commune in some mountainous town or in a rehab center or a jail or with friends that they're actually doing okay. >> did you believe any of that? >> i held on to the hope and possibility. >> reality, however, demanded that the detective do more than just hope for a happy ending. so, with the tact of a parish priest, ida lopez began making the rounds. >> michelle -- >> asking family members such as dan valdez for dental records and dna swabs. >> when you go to some family that's got a missing daughter or sister and say, i need some familial dna and i need your child's dental records, you're essentially saying to that family, i do not expect to find her alive.

>> right. and i also think that they knew the lifestyle which puts them in harm's way, and so nobody denied the dangers that their daughters were in. >> out in the war zone where the human urge toward self-destruction is strongest, death is just another occupational hazard. >> i asked, how many cars a day would you get into? up to 20, 30 cars a day. how many guys is that? but they know. they know the dangers out there. >> rumors that albuquerque might have its own jack the ripper who was snatching prostitutes off the streets was still common currency among the women working the war zone. >> there was a handful of urban legends, cuban drug dealers, a cop from california. i mean, a number of things. they heard some of the girls had been chopped up in pieces and dumped in another county south of here. >> chilling, if true.

but, in the light-spangled darkness of albuquerque's war zone where women sell themselves for as little as $20 a trick, truth and rumor are interchangeable commodities. still, in her quieter moments, ida allowed herself to fear the worst. >> i've just always felt that they were going to be together. >> in death as in life? >> yeah. i just -- you know, there was nothing that led me factually to believe that. i just always felt that if you find one you're going to find them all. unfortunately, ida's theory would soon be put to the test. >> one of our violent crimes detectives said, oh, they found a bone.

the moment you realize you have enough food for your guests but not enough fridge. at lowe's, we have more appliances to choose from. so, you can get the right one, at the right price, right now. black friday deals are still happening at lowe's like up to 40% off select appliance special values. shatters the competition. hydrating skin better than prestige creams costing over $100, $200,

and even $400. for skin that looks younger than it should. fact check this ad in good housekeeping. olay regenerist. ageless.

excuse me? >> for four years, ida lopez tended her list of missing women as she would a garden plot. >> did you notice when the girls went missing? >> mostly she just watched it grow, but occasionally she was able to do some pruning whenever a lost soul was found. >> i find a girl with the same background, but guess what, i'd find her months later. i get to call the dad and say, we found her. she's been arrested. >> kind of weird to be able to call a family and say, great

news. >> oh, yeah. >> your daughter is a prostitute and she's alive. >> right. but i get to say, this is where she's at. >> the families of the 18 women now on ida's list prayed for happy endings like that one. but most of the women who worked albuquerque's war zone, fellow travelers who might have helped ida find the missing, were too drug addeled to help with leads. some passed on grisly rumors to ida, that the missing women were dead and had been dumped in the desert west of town. >> like a hidden dark evil city out here. >> desiree gonzalez says she used to hang out on these streets and says she knew several of the missing women and had also heard those same rumors. >> i came out here looking for my cousin and i bumped into cinnamon. she had told me that the girls were getting their heads cut off and taken to the mesa. that was the last time i seen cinnamon. i got scared. you know, it seems like they knew or something. >> ida didn't completely disbelieve what her girls were telling her. but the mesa, a vast expanse of

desert west of town, where people frequently dump things they no longer have any use for, was simply too big an area to launch a search based on just a rumor. and so this case was going nowhere until late in the afternoon on february 2, 2009, when christine ross decided to take her dog ruka for a walk. >> okay. >> they strolled out of her new subdivision, one of many that had recently sprouted up on the desert west of albuquerque, and then over to an abandoned construction site where christine let ruka off the leash to run. >> she ran up ahead of me and she was messing with something on the ground, and then she left it. we came upon it, and it appeared to be a bone. didn't look like the normal animal bone you find out here so i took a picture of the bone, i sent it to my sister who is a

nurse. she confirmed that that looked like a femur bone and i should call the authorities. >> finding a bone, even a human bone, is not unusual out here on albuquerque's west mesa. this is storied territory where native american tribes, conquistadors and cowboys once roamed. the bone could have easily belonged to one of them. but the police who arrived at the scene shortly after nightfall soon determined that this was no ancient artifact. this bone belonged to someone who had died in the not-too-distant past. >> february 2nd is when one of our violent crimes detectives said, oh, they found a bone on the mesa. i'll let you know. >> tonight they say the search is far from over. >> i saw it on tv on february 2nd when christine ross and her dog ruka was reported on the local station as finding a femur bone.

>> i was on a ski trip, and when i came home i had seen it on the news. and i told my boyfriend, i said, you know, what if that's michelle? >> when you heard it, what did you think? >> hoping, again, the old parental feeling, hoping that it wasn't. >> dan valdez was not alone. there were other homes across albuquerque that night that were suddenly filled with a similar stew of hope and dread. over the next few days, investigators would find more bones scattered over a 30-yard swath of that abandoned construction site. one mystery was ending. another was just beginning. when it's time to move to underwear

toddlers see things a bit differently thanks to pampers easy ups

while they see their first underwear you see an easy way to potty train pampers easy ups our first and only training underwear with an all around stretchy waistband and pampers superior protection so you'll see fewer leaks and they'll see their first underwear pampers easy ups, an easy way to underwear pampers you give us comfort. and we give you bare feet, backsweat, and gordo's... everything. i love you, but sometimes you stink. soft surfaces trap odors. febreze fabric refresher cleans them away for good. because the things you love the most can stink. and plug in febreze to keep your whole room fresh for up to 45 days. breathe happy with febreze.

for five years, dan valdez prayed at the end of each day that the next sunrise would bring news of his daughter michelle. >> police have set up a tip line. >> then in february 2009 came unsettling news. a thigh bone had been found out on albuquerque's west mesa. within days, evidence of one body had become evidence of two and then three, then four, then five, then six. >> six sets of remains were found within 20 yards of each other. >> dan valdez, who had been wondering for years where his daughter was, saw his most cherished hopes and his most dreaded fears placed on a collision course. >> when they found the second, third, and fourth sets, i said to myself, i have to realistically look at this, that michelle i'm sure probably is out there. >> at times detective ida lopez was out there, too, along with

practically every other member of the albuquerque police department and forensic experts from the fbi, digging, scraping, sifting. >> the reality of it was kind of like, god, this is not happening. it's stuff you read about. >> then came seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. it turned out all were women and all with the same name, jane doe. and ida lopez couldn't help but wonder if these dry bones were the women she had been looking for. >> you know, i just didn't know with so much going through my mind. >> over the years, ida's list of the lost had become two dozen women that fit the same profile, young drug-addicted hispanic women who were known to roam the streets of albuquerque's war zone. for ida, walking through this boneyard felt as if she were watching a horror movie unfold in realtime.

>> you're watching this and i've carried this flyer in my pocket and in my car for the last, you know, four years. >> within weeks, ida's early work of collecting dental records of the moising women and dna samples from their families began to pay off. bones started to get names. >> the only body that has been identified so far, victim victoria chavez. >> she was on your list. >> she was on my list. >> and you thought, this is it. >> i thought, this could be it, yeah. >> but there was more. something that surprised even veteran crime scene investigators. in the grave of jane doe number 8, investigators found a tiny second set of bones. it was a fetus. jane doe number 8 was four months pregnant at the time of her death. >> they would say, we found a

skull. it had a lot of hair and she was pregnant. >> michelle valdez. after years of having only her rap sheet and her father's bittersweet memories to go on, ida lopez was now sure she knew where michelle valdez was. did you know michelle was pregnant when she disappeared? >> i did. >> a few days later, lab work confirmed ida's hunch. jane doe number 8 was michelle valdez. >> i had to tell dan. the hardest part of this whole

thing is having to go to somebody's house and say, we found her, and she's not alive. >> i see her pull up out front and i go out and stand on the sidewalk. she gets out of her car and comes up to me, and ida says, dan, she says, i have some bad news for you. >> dan, she was i.d.'d, and it was her they found -- you know, she was pregnant -- and the baby. it was just very difficult. >> i looked at her in disbelief but knew it was reality. i just could feel all the strength in my body just kind of drain all of a sudden. and i kind of was wobbling a little bit, and ida consoled me a little bit and said, it's okay. it's okay, you know. then she says, is there anything that we can do? do you need anything? i said, no. i just said, the information you gave me was plenty. >> of course, there was more dan needed to do that evening. he would have to tell michelle's 12-year-old daughter angelica. >> and i said, angelica,

detective lopez just told us that your mother has been positively i.d.'d as one of the west mesa women. and that's when angelica looked at me and started crying. she said, no, don't tell me that, you're lying to me. don't lie to me. i said, honey, i'm not. i'm telling you the truth. >> it was a scene that no doubt had played out earlier at the family home of victoria chavez. but for the families of the other women on ida's list, the waiting and wondering would go on for months. for ida lopez, there was the fear that her nightmare prediction was coming true. >> i just always felt that if you find one you're going to find them all. >> and for albuquerque's homicide detectives, there was the most pressing question of all --

who was responsible for turning the west mesa into an unmarked cemetery? and was he still at work? coming up -- searching for clues in a crime scene big enough to be seen from space. >> it's kind of eerie looking at those satellite photos. >> when "dateline" continues.