Syllannia Terene Edwards, 15, female, African American, was a runaway from Lawton, Oklahoma whose path led her to the high desert edges of Albuquerque, where the city fades into scrub and sand. She vanished on August 17, 2003, and by May 2004 witnesses saw the teenager on Denver's East Colfax Avenue in the company of women working the stroll, sometimes answering to “Mimi” or “Chocolate.” Years later—on February 2, 2009—a passerby's dog uncovered a bone on Albuquerque's West Mesa.
Excavations revealed a clandestine cemetery holding eleven women and a fetus; among them was the youngest of the group, Syllannia Edwards. She was the only victim from out of state. Her remains were identified on November 13, 2009. Investigators believe she was killed sometime between 2004 and 2005 and buried near 118th Street SW on the city's far west side.
The discovery pointed to a single killer—or group—police and the public came to call the West Mesa Bone Collector. The women were buried during the early-to-mid 2000s, with patterns that suggested the perpetrator hunted among vulnerable communities and returned to the arroyo again and again. Syllannia Edwards, 15, female, was an outlier in several ways: younger than most, not from Albuquerque, and—uniquely—African American, a detail that sharpened the picture of a predator who was opportunistic rather than narrowly fixated. The case drew national attention but resisted closure; tire tracks and disturbed soil in satellite photos hinted at repeated visits to the site, and the building boom that followed nearly paved over the graves before the 2008 housing crash stalled development and allowed the desert to give up its dead.
No one has ever been arrested for the murder of Syllannia Edwards, 15, female. Detectives have publicized a reward—up to $100,000—for information and emphasized that the suspect or suspects remain unknown. Over the years, several men have drawn scrutiny. Lorenzo Montoya, who lived a few miles from the burial ground and had a violent history with sex workers, strangled a 19-year-old in December 2006 and was shot dead in the aftermath; the West Mesa killings appear to have stopped after his death, though he was never charged in the case.
