Patricia Platero, 49, a Native American woman from Albuquerque, was discovered on July 2, 2015, when a passerby noticed a human hand protruding from beneath a poured concrete slab in a field on the city's West Side near Coors Boulevard and Central. Police and a mobile crime lab converged on the dusty lot off Bluewater Road, where crews broke up the slab and unearthed a body.
Investigators immediately treated the scene as a suspicious death, cordoning off the area as the summer heat deepened the smell first noticed by the witness.
Days later, the Office of the Medical Investigator identified the remains as Platero. Family members told reporters she had last been seen on April 16 in To'hajiilee, west of Albuquerque, and was reported missing on May 20. The identification brought grieving relatives some answers but few clues; the stark image of a hand under concrete lingered as investigators appealed for information while withholding details about how she died.
Authorities never announced an arrest, and no suspect has been publicly named. Local coverage at the time underscored Platero's ties to the Navajo Nation and the anguish of a family waiting for justice, but official updates stopped after the identification, leaving the case open and unresolved in public records.
