Las Cruces Bowling Alley Massacre /// Part 2 /// 411 | Forensic Files

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Captain we went through the case and much of the details of the case and covered it pretty well yesterday what I
want to get to today is we have several things to give yourself a pat on the pack oh you're welcome you know you're
welcome we really did a great job well there are several things that I want to get through today and get your
opinion on and kind of dissect them a little bit because there are a lot of question marks in this case
and this still unsolved case when we went through the details one thing that we were talking about is how fast the
gunman moved and all the actions that they took to get in there get whatever they were looking for or presumably get
the cash that they were seeking out flee the area afterward one thing I've often wondered about this case were the
gunmen waiting for 9 A.M to make their way into the bowling alley we know that we have employees inside of the bowling
alley and they're active and they're working at 8 am but the bowling alley was not scheduled
to open until 9 A.M I wonder with the short amount of time and given how close we were to 9 A.M
were the gunman outside waiting for that nine o'clock hour to hit and as soon as
those doors were to be unlocked make their way inside No I say I say nay I say these individuals knew what time the
employees arrived and this crime happening in 1990 I would guess if this happened today what you could do simply
is go back through your surveillance footage for the last couple weeks because I believe these individuals
would have been there would have been around that area would have been casing this bowling alley for quite some time
to have this information yeah I think a couple of possibilities could be likely here and of course we
there's no way to know for sure until we bust these guys until these guys are apprehended we may not know why they did
what they did or exactly how they planned what they did but what I think we see here is
what we talked about yesterday it appears that they already decided on the plan because they're moving very fast
Through the Motions to get back out and to flee the area the thing that I think that we we might be looking at some
possibilities you know often when these businesses are hit a lot of times you want to hit them when they're closed
because you don't want to have the added risk factor of additional people being inside the building customers so often
what these offenders will do is they will hang around outside of a place and they will wait for things that will
cause the doors to be open or unlocked you know deliveries or employees coming and going from the building to a car
often what an offender or robber will do is wait for someone simply to take out the trash
jump them stick a gun in their side out in the parking lot and walk back into the establishment with them take the
money that they're looking for and then flee the area right right I think we could have one of two
things either yes maybe they were waiting for 9 A.M seems like they arrived a little early to just be
standing around a place that you are going to eventually Rob right but if they were standing there waiting around
to rob the joint maybe they saw Steve Scenic enter and then exit the building both times without having to use a key
or locking the door behind him right and thought you know what as soon as this dude pulls away we're gonna walk in to
the place and take it over or maybe it was as simple as they were going to walk up and knock on the door and if the
person opened up shove a gun in their face and work their way in to me if it were me trying to pull this thing off
I would want to avoid that 9 A.M when there could be additional people coming in in and out of the building with the
customers and the doors being opened in the business being in operation at that time well maybe not so much if it was a
Monday or Tuesday but this is a Saturday this is going to be a lot busier of a day for the bowling alley
that's why I think the level of sophistication of these criminals is very high I would I'd even look into
somebody that had some military background I'd also like to know if there was a set schedule of who open
because we know that the Donner opened up so I'm assuming some days the daughter opened up and some days the
father would open up or possibly her brother which again if you're two men with a gun
it's less likely of a risk that somebody's going to fight back if they're female right or if they did
fight back you have a better chance of controlling the situation so did these perpetrators know that there was a
schedule there was a system and and that's again that would be little things that I think you could
find out if they had the surveillance footage of this bowling alley right and just to throw a little tidbit of
information in there on what you were talking about one thing that's interesting is the owner
he Ronald Cenac at the time he was living in the bowling alley but he was not there that weekend he was
in I believe he was in Arizona on a golf trip that weekend well I'm thinking about
this they're they're possibly are people that could connect these individuals to the owner or to the bowling alley or
to other people that they knew but but they're dead so we we don't have that evidence again
that would be more motive of why did they they didn't have to kill these individuals but if you were connected to
the owner you're connected to the bowling alley if these people could identify you any way shape or form then
that that's motive to get rid of all of them right and then speaking to that you
know you have two suspects according to the survivors and what we know about the
case and eyewitnesses and such these suspects did not wear masks or gloves right when I look at this case I
go why wouldn't you just put on a freaking mask and some gloves and go in there Rob
The Joint make off with whatever money you can and not hurt anybody yeah but which eyewitnesses are saying that they
didn't wear gloves the survivors in the bowling alley that were robbed and shot by these two guys
and we also have Steve Scenic outside who says you know I didn't they weren't in masker gloves when he saw them either
well no I buy the fact that they're not again in mask because again maybe you know that these eyewitnesses are going
to be able to identify you whether you're wearing a mask or not the glove part doesn't make a lot of sense to me
you'd think how militant they were that they would wear some protections because
that's identifying factor is your fingerprint well that also leads us back to a big question that we've been
circling around for a portion of yesterday is could this have been some type of inside
job okay if these guys either one of them had worked at this place before they would
have been busted by now so nobody's speculating that you know because that's typically what you get with some of
these robberies where it's a former employee and they know the daily routines and operations of that business
right here what I mean is did we have somebody feeding them some kind of information because it does seem like
you pointed out that the two gunmen knew some stuff about the Saturday operations
of the bowling alley right it appears to me judging by what the set of events that we have during the commission of
that robbery and the murders it appears to me based off what the survivors are saying and how things went
down that these guys knew the general location of the employees well let me run something by you that kind of stuck
up to me but maybe I'm crazy well we know I'm crazy but so we have a situation where we have the
employees at the bowling alley they're all female until the brother shows up so the brother shows up but then he
leaves I wonder if these individuals knew that all the all these women are going to come in to start the day
and that we have a technician that's going to come in and he's male so once they see that this male entered
the building now all the people that are going to be there before it opens are now in the building so then they get out
to start approaching the building and he comes walking out they go well now now this is a lot easier because we knew
that the technician coming in was mail so there I'm guessing that these uh perpetrators believe that that was the
technician but now he's leaving okay well that's easier for us let's walk in why they didn't lock the door behind
them I don't know but again I'm assuming that they believe that everybody was now
in the building but they just saw that guy leave and drive off and then that's why they would have been surprised by
the technician showing up yeah that's a good question why wouldn't they have just flipped the lock
themselves but they but that's my belief is they they believe that uh the brother was the
the technician and he already left so we don't have to worry about him now well my other guest though too would be that
you need a key regardless on what side of the door that you're on yeah to lock the door because you don't want some
jackass kid going up there and locking your door in the middle of business so um or some non-jackass kid for that
matter yeah he was just trying to be safe you're calling him names I'm sorry yeah
jackass kid but so the thing that really kind of upset me here was the the location of the employees right how
quickly they move inside the gunman and then very quickly one of them knows to go into the kitchen immediately like
they knew before they got in the building to expect an employee to be inside that kitchen working right and
that's very troubling to me and and where I took that a step further and just really speculating and being
suspicious of everyone was I was like [ __ ] man this Steve Scenic he provides a
description of this really kind of weird story right he described he describes the two gunmen
or the people he believes could be the gunman and then we never find these guys so I wondered for a while like
was he somehow involved if this was an inside job did he pull up in the parking lot that day to one make sure that the
guys that were hired by whomever were there and then he's like oh maybe he found the door locked went in
grabbed his book bag and purposely left it unlocked on his way out then the he pulls off the gunman make their way in
I was very highly suspicious of the scenic family and Steve Scenic and the owner Ronald Scenic was he did he just
happen to be out of town on the weekend that the murders took place or was he conveniently out of town yeah
then we have the issue of Ida okay she was the one working in the kitchen she gives a description that is very similar
to what Steve gave and she survived the attack from the inside and was shot several times
I don't think that it's convenient I don't think that Steve put himself there to unlock the door for these gunmen I
think that that whole horrible weird coincidence of the door being unlocked was just one of those weird freak things
that took place and these gunmen were going to do whatever they set out to do anyway regardless of the the state of
the lock on that door yeah well because if he would have just went out to his car again and just put his book bag back
in his car and went back in these these murderers they're coming in no matter what whether
Steve's there or not again I think they knew how many people were supposed to be there and whether
they're whether or not they're supposed to be male or female well the thing too is let's say they did have some prior
knowledge because if if they did have prior knowledge they could have been working under the
assumption that there was only going to be two employees there right we would have the manager the day
manager would be there regardless their duty is to open up the bowling alley for
the day it sounds to me like some form of kitchen employee or kitchen staff member is going to be there on a busy
Saturday prepping regardless if it's Ida a woman a man whomever so now we got two people inside the
building before nine I think where it gets a little iffy if you did have some Intel about
what would be going on that Saturday morning is Ron Scenic the owner being gone out of town that might be
unforeseeable to whomever provided that information also we have the two girls who were with
Stephanie Scenic in the office that morning I would bet you there's a good chance
that these guys may not have anticipated one or both of those girls being there now we do know that they were there to
work that day they were going to run the daycare center at the bowling alley that
day we could also presume that if they expected to be out before the mechanic arrived
his his shift may not have started till nine maybe he shows up early that day I don't know but but the other thing is we
they wouldn't anticipate him showing up with two daughters with him they're not scheduled to work obviously they're
little kids right so they might have been surprised by how many people were at the bowling alley I
think that they were I mean this is seven victims here no no I think they were surprised by the technician but
again the the other thing that hurts us in this case is 1990 it's a bowling alley most of the transactions at that
time would have been cash cash money you know I used to go bowling all the time a
couple times a week and it was cash right and most people would use cash in 1990 these these individuals they I
believe wholeheartedly they knew all the ins and outs they knew this was going to
take them 10 to 15 minutes and we just have to be very um a matter of fact about it and I think
they were surprised by the technician and the fact that he brought his two daughters because because they knew that
there was a technician I just believe they they thought Steve was the technician these individuals probably
went bowling the Saturday the before so they would have known also that there was a daycare open but were they
expecting for there to be two children with the technician I think they were surprised by that
yeah and that but see that's the terrifying thing to me is that I don't feel like
I can't look at anything in this case and go okay that's the thing that set these guys off and then they decided to
shoot all these people now that was premeditated right it's like they went in there going no matter what happens
we're shooting them yeah you know like we we covered the Lane Bryant case and you can point to oh
the the perpetrator of that caught somebody on the phone with 9-1-1 we don't know for certain if that shooter
would have shot them or not but what we do know is there was a 9-1-1 call that took place and then
the shooting started right we have no situation like that in this case and we also don't have any eyewitnesses or any
survivors saying that there was any discussion right between these these guys there's no all two guys huddled in
the corner going now what do we do there's seven people that's what I'm saying this is this is a level of
sophistication these are these guys aren't dummies that's also another reason why the case
is not solved these guys aren't dummies they knew like I said it's step by step by step
right and it didn't matter that now you have again I think um less level of sophistication less
like again military somebody that has killed before once those children are involved that's a whole another level
but as as far as sick and and twisted and level a piece of [ __ ] that you have to be so that's another level but they
didn't hesitate all now there's children here get in the office by the way we're
shooting you off and we're setting the goddamn place on fire and they're setting the office on fire not the whole
building they're we're our the purpose of the fire is to get rid of the evidence and the awarenesses yeah yeah
to get get rid of the evidence of the men being in that office and to to confuse and convolute the whole mess
already messy situation and the thing that drives me nuts is this seems so familiar on so many levels
to like the yogurt shop murders begin a situation where we have all female workers we're going to we're
going to get into that bit of it here in a minute and I'm glad that you brought that up but one thing I want to make
sure that I point out before we move on too far and I forget about it is Ida one
of our survivors the the lady working in the kitchen that morning she says and there are a couple other
people too and I couldn't find people by name you know reference by name having said this but what I found was Ida and
others have said this that they think that they have seen these two men in the bowling alley before
and that they weren't there bowling they weren't there shooting pool they weren't
really interacting with anybody they were just kind of sitting there looking around now that would explain some of
the things because you don't have to have Insider information from somebody that works there owns the place or
previously worked there to get an idea of the daily operations right you can you can go in there and you can sit
around and you can go you know what all right I see employees coming in and out of this room over here at this location
that must be like some kind of office or something oh and over there by the bar or by the tables I see employees coming
in and out of that room that must be a kitchen oh we got this huge bowling alley 32 lanes and that's really where I
see the majority of the workers congregating right those are our two places to be concerned
with once we come in here when there's no customers right and it's just like the guitar store I used to work at like
we opened up every day at 10. so all you have to do is show up a couple times when we open
but chances are you would have seen if you got there 10 minutes early the lights didn't even turn on until five
minutes before we opened meaning these employees haven't been there for the last hour sitting in the dark so if
you're going to rob a place like that you you wait till it opens at 10. and you also know that there's not a bunch
of customers at 10 o'clock especially like on a Monday or Tuesday but in this case
they're there 45 minutes roughly 45 minutes to 30 minutes earlier than the doors were supposed to open
so I mean this is this is again maybe it's not that they're getting their uh Intel from Insider Scoops but it's them
casing The Joint right and you know what you could case The Joint to figure out where the employees are spending most of
their time to to have areas to focus on once you enter the building you don't have to even go in on a Friday night to
know that they're busy you can drive by the parking lot and see how many cars are in the thing to know that hey
they're busy they make a lot of money on Friday nights now the difficult thing here is to know that the money that the
cash from the night before is going to be in the building the morning after that's the difficult thing because not
every business operates that way some businesses do night deposits after the business closes you could follow
employees after a Friday night shift and go all right not a single one of them went to the bank so they're not
depositing the money but that makes it more difficult when the owner lives at the balloon alley right that I don't
know if there would be any way for them to know that you know if they were a former employee
correct and again I I really believe if they were former employees this case would be solved yeah unless there was
something that the owner did that these guys had something on him and this was like a way of them showing him hey we're
we're serious guys that you don't want to mess with yeah but they shot his granddaughter and his daughter and his
daughter even though she survived years later she died from the injuries from that attack yeah so it's like I I mean
what do you have on the guy that that he doesn't go screw it I don't care what these guys
have on me I'm telling the cops everything I know because they they tried to kill my family
yeah and they killed little kids of people that I know so it you know I I don't really and look
here's here's the thing Ronald Scenic and there's people out there that know this case really well
and they're going to go Ronald Cenex is suspicious dude he's look he's not a likable guy I'm not going to sit here
and pretend like he's a likable guy who's your favorite and you know we have people that in
interviews say he's not a likable guy the police didn't like him the police said you know this guy was out talking
to everybody after the after the case took place after the shootings took place he's out telling them stuff that
isn't true they looked into Ron Scenic and whether you like the guy or not at the end of
the day what we have is we have detectives saying we looked at this dude super hardcore we put him under a
microscope looked at every aspect of his business dealings in his life yeah we spread his cheeks we looked inside and
we couldn't find any illegal activity you know the guy was not a smart businessman he had a successful bowling
alley that he ended up losing it in an auction in a court-ordered auction I believe less than a year or maybe one
full year after the shooting but he was not a smart business guy he was not a likable guy but if I really
believe dude if he was anyhow involved in this or looking for some kind of insurance
scam or whatever that I think they would have found this because they really honed in on him
something pretty good [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] cheers mates Cheers Cheers Cheers I can't stop
looking at this picture of the suspects these these uh composite drawings and just thinking Sherman Sherman Sherman
all right Captain well I want to discuss how did these two suspects make such a clean getaway they were basically
undetected yes they were seen fleeing on foot by one person but I've often wondered were they
running to a vehicle or were they running to a nearby house or building to kind of hide out for a little bit
one thing that we talked about when we discussed the I5 killer and it's weird to go into the story and
say I5 killer but for those that don't know the story the I5 killer was also a robber and he was a very experienced
robber in fact sometimes he would go in and rob a place and not kill anybody but one thing that he learned along the
way in his robbery career was that a vehicle is a really good way to get detected to get identified and get
picked up and arrested for these robberies and in his case the killings so he learned very early on that it was
not wise for him to park his vehicle near the place he was robbing so he would often park at blocks and blocks
away because this dude was pretty athletic the I5 killer he would Rob the place sometimes kill the person and then
he would flee on foot and then get to his vehicle and then drive off I thought maybe that might be what these
dudes were doing maybe they want to flee on foot and then make a dash for the Border
but then we we have a very big difference between these two different people the the I5 killer and the unknown
gunman at Las Cruces the I5 killer was wearing a mask and gloves when he committed his crimes so
he did not want to be detected or identified where the Las Cruces gunman they're not wearing mask or gloves then
you have to take it a step further and go well how much do they really care if their vehicle is spotted right but see
again that almost makes me think maybe they didn't have a vehicle to to run to right but I I also wonder if my theory
is correct that these guys case the joint for a while that they would have thought the brother
was the technician and that got and then maybe thinking that the technician doesn't show up
everybody else shows up around 8 o'clock technician shows up about 8 30. well we have an individual showing up in
between that time so he would have been early if he was the technician did that startle them so
they weren't able to put on their mask or their gloves they went oh there's a technician we gotta go Oh you mean for
the purpose of fleeing no I mean that they startled them at the beginning so before they entered the building they
didn't put on their mask or gloves yeah I I don't know I would think if they brought masking gloves with them they
would have put them on regardless of the situation we do have a statement by the LCPD they
have stated in the past and this is pure speculation on their part as well that they believe that the two gunmen
may have had some type of help that someone may have sheltered the two of them shortly after so they could lay low
and then maybe flee the area at another time I have a hard time believing that they
just kind of hung around Las Cruces for the next 30 years because as said their pictures were plastered everywhere and
we have Steve Scenic saying that is exactly what you drew looks exactly like the two guys that I saw and then we have
Ida backing that up we have the other witness that says hey people that look like that I saw them running from the
area what's interesting is that kind of plays a part into this next portion where a woman named Irma tiarina
comes forward at some point and says hey I think that the two gunmen were staying
with me when they committed the crimes she says that there were two guys and I believe they were involved in some kind
of illegal drug activity at the time that we're staying with her and when the helicopters were flying around looking
for the two gunmen who fled the bowling alley she says one of them said to the other one we're right under their noses
and they don't even know it this is a little weird this is a really weird portion of the story for me
Captain because this Irma this Irma Tia Arena she passes a polygraph but at some
point the police like she recance her statement saying that she was just looking to
I'm a little confused by her statement it it implied that she was looking for a way to score some drugs I don't know if
that meant that she was looking to provide false information to the police and hoping to collect some of the reward
money but the short of it is she had her demons she was involved with drugs and it seems like quite a bit especially
around this time I have in my notes here that she passed away in 2001 from a drug
overdose what I do know is that at some point the police seem to be not interested in talking to this woman
anymore yeah it could be I mean we've seen this in a lot of cases where somebody comes forward with supposed
information and then you find out nobody was even staying with her right these guys didn't even exist they just existed
in our head or some of the things that she's telling them they were probably able to prove or not true right and so
they're like well we we can't uh we can't let her steer our investigation because it's uh nonsense
one of the things though too that is often mentioned in this case is that the locals the local rumor always seems to
have been that there were drugs involved or suspected drugs involved in this case and that
eventually the two gunmen fled to Mexico and I think there could be some truth to
both of those portions of the story but a lot of that I think stems from the idea that Ida says that she believes
from the gunman's actions that they were looking for something else in the office
that day not just the money in the safe and the way that this portion of the story goes down is that once they're
aware of where the safe is or they have access to the safe that they still continue to look through
filing cabinet drawers and desk drawers like they were all they were looking for
something else not just the money in the safe well again this kind of goes to the
idea of what if the owner was doing something shady and these guys were like Hey we're going to come collect
from you he happens then be out of town and then these guys again looking they get the money because maybe the owner
owes them money and maybe or maybe he was going to traffic some drugs for them and so the drugs are gone but he's never
paid them the money so they go in there steal the money look for any extra drugs
or these guys just hear a rumor a bad rumor that's not true that the place is full of drugs
right I mean that that does happen a lot I mean we got the the whole clutter family was murdered because they thought
ten thousand dollars was somewhere in that house and there was no money in that house yeah or they're looking for
money but they're looking for something else that a value that isn't drugs but again a rumor by somebody well that's
where I bring in RJ Scenic he's another son of Ron Scenic and he's a known drug user in fact he passed away from a drug
overdose as well and I believe this was in 1997 or 1999 seems to stick out but it was in the
late 90s he was a known drug user and I believe he was he was known to have maybe even
dealt drugs he worked at the bowling alley in some form or fashion most Reports say state that he was a
bartender now obviously he was not working on that day on that Saturday when the place was robbed and these poor
people were shot but then you have to take it a step further is that does that become the
Genesis of this bad rumor or is RJ out there telling people on the streets stuff that's not true
or was he did somebody know that he was actually running drugs out of there selling drugs at the bar and then they
go in there looking for said drugs and this money from the safe then I want to go to what you referenced
earlier here Captain the Austin yogurt shop murders we covered those in episodes 81 and 82 in 2017. when we
covered this I was amazed at how many people told me they have always wondered if these two
cases these two absolutely horrific crimes if they were possibly connected the yogurt shop murders is an open
homicide case in Austin Texas this took place on a Friday December 6 1991 so less than two years later a very similar
crime and what do I mean by similar crime at a yogurt shop in Austin Texas the store was robbed
the girls there were four of them present were brutally attacked and the building was set on fire afterwards all
four killed again it's a no one spared situation one of the big difference though was they were robbed at night
right and this was robbed in the morning correct and we also have the I mean they they
were subjected to rape and all kinds of attacks yeah where the Las Cruces situation is much different where the
guys the robbers killers were in and out rather quickly but wasn't there a eyewitness that saw some guys
in the yogurt shop earlier that night that possibly had Army fatigues or well that's the thing
we really did our best to try to lock in on two very who who we believe might have been the suspects and they were two
individuals that were spotted in the yogurt shop just before closing time that have never been identified
everybody else that entered the yogurt shop that night as far as we know that were seen by other customers have been
identified to this date except for these two guys the description of these two guys would make them significantly
younger than both of our suspects here in Las Cruces [Music] and this case took place as said after
Las Cruces so that doesn't really track but one thing I wanted to look at real quick was the hold back information now
what is hold back information hold back information is what the police will hold
back so that the public doesn't know about this in case they get false confessions or if they get people that
they think are serious suspects information that they can try to pull out of them to make them even stronger
suspects things that only the perpetrators would know about the crime and the yogurt shop they held back 13
bits of information now we know what this is because eventually this did go to trial that whole thing is a mess long
story short it's still an unsolved case but let's go through this real quick because I wanted to compare it to Las
Cruces here are the items that they held back at the yogurt shop one how and where the
fire was started well we know that in Las Cruces Bowl the key to the front door that's
interesting because I would think that the detectives would want to have held back the information that the gunman
found the door unlocked at the bowling alley mm-hmm that wouldn't have been people in the public wouldn't expect the
door to be unlocked it was closed the business wasn't open yet right how much money was taken I think that what we
have here at Las Cruces that they have held that information back all the reports State 4 000 or 5 000 or
somewhere between four and five thousand dollars was stolen from Las Cruces and I'm guessing that they're getting that
number from what they think the business probably would have made the night before but we have no way of knowing how
much business how much cash the business left on hand or how much cash that the owner stored
of his own cash in in the cell safe because that's where he was living well we have the day
manager there they're doing the books had she already gone through everything from the night before and counted all
the money right they would know how much was missing now the rumor has always been that they didn't take all of the
money and which has always been weird because sometimes it's reported that they left some of the money in the safe
they didn't take all the money from the safe or they didn't take all the money from the bowling alley which again maybe
they already loaded one of the registers and they just didn't check the register
before they left regarding all of the money in the safe one thing I've always wondered about
that Captain because people will point out well that is proof that they were looking for something else I do believe
they were looking for something else I don't think if they left money in the safe it's proof of such especially if
the one portion of the story is true where the girls where they put the victims in charge of loading up the
briefcases made out maybe just out of fear or Panic they forgot one of the areas that there's cash yeah exactly or
they were startled by Stephen Tehran who came in unexpectedly yeah possibly or it's a situation I mean look I know it's
Hollywood but you watch the town you watch Point Break sometimes those guys have timers after
this timer goes off now we're moving on to the next thing no matter where we're at and in the process right
there are several items on this list of 13 that may not pertain to what we have here at Las Cruces a lot of
the help hold back information at yogurt shop had to do with the Bindings that were used to tie up the girls and also
some of the injuries sustained to the victims but we don't ha as far as we know the
victims here weren't tied up and it doesn't appear that they Unleashed any kind of violence on these victims before
shooting them so that may not have any relevance in this case unless they did and that is part of the hold back
information in Las Cruces but we also have one interesting thing here there were two different caliber of
guns used in yogurt shop and it's believed that there were two guns used in Las Cruces Bowl as well we have
reports that one of them was likely a 22 but never any reports of the other caliber of guns so maybe that's a
portion that has been held back there's also a couple of references here out of the 13 items in Austin yogurt shop of
additional items that was taken from the shop that that was not money so you have to wonder was there anything
else taken from the bowling alley that has been held back from the general public well as fascinating as I find
this case and as fascinating as I find the Austin yogurt shop murders and if you haven't listened to those
episodes you should check those out I really think it's that there's a control here in this one
and is it possible that these individuals Rob multiple places and started losing
control as they went on because this happened and then in 1990 yoga shop I believe was 91
so did they lose control as they went um I I just I I view them as different things I really feel like the yogurt
shop murders it was a lot more chaotic perpetrated by different kind of monsters yeah with different agendas but
that doesn't mean that but to me somebody that has this much control is capable of doing this time and time
again without almost any fear of being caught yeah so one article that I found that I
thought was really intriguing Captain this was from the Associated Press in December of 1990 in fact it was December
19th of 1990 where they were talking to Fred Rubio he's the Las Cruces Police Captain the head of the Department's
detectives at the time and he's talking about you know hey I would hate to leave
this profession without being here when they saw this I love the optimism of when they saw this and he says this case
still haunts us now at this time we're talking it's only 10 months old but he says we're not used to having Unsolved
Mysteries here in this city and that is intriguing because not only is he referencing that hey the case was
covered on Unsolved Mysteries but remember in 1989 they only had two homicides and I didn't go through the
entire year of 1990 to figure out how many homicides Las Cruces had in that entire year but what I did find was two
interesting things by February 16th of 1990 Las Cruces the city of Las Cruces had
seven homicides by February 16th where the year before two for the entire year now of course we know that four
unfortunately four died on February 10th of 1990 right that leaves three other homicides we actually mentioned one of
the other ones earlier in our coverage of this case there was a man that was stabbed and he was found at 2 30 in the
afternoon the same day as the shootings they solved that they found the guy that
did that so there's one that's down there was a stabbing that took place on February 16th where unfortunately a
victim died they located the perpetrator of that murder very quickly and apprehended them what we have here is
almost at the end of 1990 on the 19th of December Fred Rubio says we only have two homicide cases
for the entire year of 1990 that remained unsolved that is the Las Cruces bowling alley Massacre and a gas station
robbery that took place in January well what's that case cotton all right Captain let me run this by you and you
let me know your feelings here this is from an old Crime Stoppers article it says that they are looking for
information leading to the arrest and prosecution of the persons involved in the Robbery Homicide that occurred on
January 14 1990 at Ray's Shell station located at 2417 West Picasso in Las Cruces
the Las Cruces Police Department was called to the scene at approximately 1004 a.m where they found the attendant
Salvador Lozano lying face down in the office area further investigation revealed that the victim had been shot
one time in the back of the head the victim's hands were tied behind his back the caliber or type of firearm used has
not yet been determined investigators believe there was more than one person involved in this robbery murder
investigating officers have been able to determine that a robbery did take place
prior to the victim being shot and I'm going to go off of article here for a second I did some further snooping and
found that it's believed that approximately 500 was stolen from the gas station before this man was murdered
and then they go on to say anyone with information please call The Crime Stoppers or call the New Mexico State uh
police so what I'm going where I'm getting at here Captain is that 30 years ago these two crimes took place less than a
month apart in time the distance between these two businesses both located in Las
Cruces is 3.2 miles from one another they both took place on a weekend day in the morning this was on a Sunday at 10
A.M well they found the victim at 10 A.M this could have taken place at 8 30 or 9
A.M but we have Las Cruces bowl that took place on a Saturday and we know that the murders were committed before 8
30 on that day there seems to be a lot of similarities here where they're shooting unnecessarily shooting the
person who is attending the business that they are robbing shot in the back of the head more than one offender both
still unsolved after 30 years not just the two unsolved homicide cases from 1990. well definitely in some very
interesting some similarities in those cases you almost have to wonder if either
police have reason to believe that they're not connected proof that they're not connected and we
just don't know about this or is this a situation where the gas station was not that big of a score five hundred dollars
roughly and you have to wonder were they looking for a much bigger score and thought that Las Cruces Bowl could be
what they were after not just the money in the safe but maybe some kind of drugs
or a large quantity of Narcotics are on scene as well and then this horrific crime multiple murders on the same day
and now it's just to the the heat has been turned up they got to get out of Dodge it's it's a tricky situation
because you want both of these crimes to be solved and then you sit here and wonder
is it the same perpetrators and that's why neither of them have been solved for 30 years
well again with the evidence being destroyed with the fire [Music] these individuals what we do know is how
vicious they are and you would think they're so vicious over even such small amounts of money
that they would eventually get caught yeah you yes or and yeah end up in prison for some other offense or even
some other murder mm-hmm we do have some new information that came out recently and this is very interesting and I and I
hope and pray that this goes somewhere somehow because we still have people that are hurting very bad and here's the
other thing you got to keep in mind too when we talk about there is no real closure in these cases
and that is absolutely true and victims and family members of victims will tell you there is no real closure in these
cases but one thing that I think is important to bring up here when you have a situation
like this where you have multiple people multiple victims some of them did not survive that day
some of them did unfortunately the ones that were lucky enough if you want to call it that lucky
enough to survive that day they live in fear for the rest of their lives because they know that these two
gunmen are still out there somewhere or could be out there yeah could be out there somewhere so when we talk about no
real closure that might be some pretty significant form of closure for our surviving victims well we hear a lot
that that the family serves answers and answers doesn't always mean closure but answers are important knowing what
happened and why it happened is important even if they're never going to get closure yeah because you can't bring
people back and that's the that's the sad sad truth but we've had the 30-year anniversary I guess if you want to call
it that it's been 30 years since these murders took place and that was of course in February of 2020 and we wanted
to cover this ideally we would have covered this right around the anniversary but we were busy doing our Shaker
Heights project at that time and it couldn't couldn't be put off any longer so here we are now captain and I'm kind
of glad that we waited a little bit because we wouldn't have had this little tidbit of information had we done this
case back in February so what happened was on the 30-year marker we have Las Cruces Crime Stoppers upped
the reward for information on the ID of the possible suspects this is to thirty thousand dollars
and around the same time we have ABC 7 anchor her name is Stephanie Vale she said that around the 30-year
anniversary she received a call from a woman originally from Las Cruces who gave her the name of a man
the tipster is certain is the younger of the two attackers the younger gunman right
she claims that his family knew or had a decent idea that he committed the crime but remained quiet
about it all of these years this man that she is implicating killed himself in 1997.
we will see if this comes to be what comes of this information I'm sure we'll find out here hopefully sooner rather
than later the Las Cruces Police Department still urges anyone with any kind of information at all no matter how
seemingly insignificant to please please call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 [Music]
foreign [Music] thanks for for joining us in the garage Colonel do we have any recommended
reading this week Captain I am very excited to recommend to the good garage people an incredible book this is one of
if not the best True Crime book of 2020 so far the book is called the Garden State Parkway murders a Cold Case
Mystery by Christian Barth the Garden State Parkway murders is the true story of two College friends who were brutally
knifed to death and their bodies left off the parkway the author identifies several suspects including Infamous
serial killers Ted Bundy and Gerald stano this wonderful book is the result of nine years of nose to the Grind
investigative research and it's out of wild blue press a premier publisher of True Crime books so
you know it's good check out the Garden State Parkway murders and other titles on our recommended page at truecrime
garage.com yeah I'm with the holiday next week we will be off we have we'll still have off the Record
but we have something very exciting for you so make sure you're following us on Twitter or
Instagram or Facebook because next week there'll be some very exciting things happening with the garage we are going
to be hot and heavy as they say hot in the hot tub if you're not following True Crime garage make sure you get that
started today you don't want to miss out on next week everybody have a great safe
and wonderful Fourth of July until next time be good be kind and don't let it [Music]
thank you foreign

Las Cruces Bowling Alley Massacre /// Part 2 /// 411

Part 2 of 2 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

This week Nic & the Captain go through the details, updates and speculation of a horrific mass shooting. The Las Cruces Bowl shooting of 1990 is one of the most well known unsolved cases of the Southwest, but there is still hope. Investigators believe that after 30 years of searching this case is still very much solvable. Join the conversation and find out if the Garage agrees. Beer of the Week - Aztec Death Whistle Garage Grade - 4 and a half bottle caps out of 5 Thank you to this week’s sponsors! Save some CA$H with our promo codes!

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Brief Summary

The episode discusses the unsolved Las Cruces bowling alley massacre, examining suspects, motives, and eyewitness accounts.

Key points

Cheers to Our Amazing Garage Army. Shoutouts to listeners from various locations, celebrating community engagement.
The Case Analysis Begins. Delving into the details of an unsolved case with many question marks.
Inside Job Speculation. Discussing the possibility of inside knowledge about the bowling alley's operations.
Sophistication of the Criminals. Analyzing the level of planning and execution by the perpetrators.
Witness Irma Tiarina's Confession. A woman claims the suspects stayed with her, but later recants her statement.
The Case of the Bowling Alley. A robbery leads to a tragic shooting, raising questions about the suspects' motives.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

These individuals knew what time the employees arrived.

Discussion about the timing of the crime.

4:37WatchNov 13, 2022

Tension

70/ 100High tension

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