Speaker 1: Around.
Speaker 2: This is the seventy seven w ABC Mini cast Eddie
Speaker 2: Dragon a Dennison of New Mexico, Idaho, haunting the Great Southwest.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the other side of Midnight, Eddie Walter.
Speaker 1: I heard White Sounds earlier in the broadcast, and you
Speaker 1: know the stuff happening down south. I'm gonna go a
Speaker 1: little bit further down south than White Sands this evening.
Speaker 1: But that is an eerie thing that Ross Colhart had
Speaker 1: to talk about.
Speaker 2: Man, Ross is a very smart man.
Speaker 1: He certainly is, and certainly that's a spooky story. We're
Speaker 1: actually in between El Paso and White Sands, where, of course,
Speaker 1: the first atomic bomb went off. And this is one
Speaker 1: of the most egregious, horrible murders that you have ever
Speaker 1: heard that remains unsolved. And this goes back to nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety and this continues to you know, every year they
Speaker 1: bring it out, you know, about the same time every
Speaker 1: year in February, about the Lost Crusis, Bowling Alley murders
Speaker 1: and ladies and gentlemen. If you've never heard of this before,
Speaker 1: this is something of all of the innocent places and
Speaker 1: of all the innocence that was around it. You can't
Speaker 1: even believe that this actually happened. Los Crusis is named
Speaker 1: after the three crosses. That's the city. It's a very
Speaker 1: holy city, very dedicated Roman Catholic city, but also very
Speaker 1: near the border, about forty miles north of the border.
Speaker 1: And it was a Saturday morning back in Los Cruses,
Speaker 1: New Mexico, back in nineteen ninety. Families were just starting
Speaker 1: their weekend, you know, Saturday morning, hanging out businesses, opening
Speaker 1: their doors, and inside the Los Crusis Bowling Alley where
Speaker 1: I have been and still it shuddered to this day.
Speaker 1: After that day, it has never reopened. They didn't they didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, demolition it. They didn't take it down. The
Speaker 1: Los Crusoes Bowl on East Amador Avenue still stands to
Speaker 1: this day, still shuddered. And it's a crime that unfolded
Speaker 1: so cold, so ruthless, Walter that nearly four decades later,
Speaker 1: it still stands as New Mexico's most haunting, unsolved mass murder.
Speaker 1: Now two men entered the bowling alley that morning. Investigators
Speaker 1: believe the robbery was their initial objective. The amount stolen
Speaker 1: was believed to be less than five thousand dollars cash,
Speaker 1: personal checks, and what happened next was beyond a robbery
Speaker 1: because there were seven innocent people forced into a small
Speaker 1: office that morning, shot and left amid a deliberately sat fire,
Speaker 1: and you can hear the nine to one to one
Speaker 1: calls in all of this. There were three adults and
Speaker 1: four children who were moved into that room. The children
Speaker 1: were these ages thirteen, twelve, six, and can you believe
Speaker 1: at two years old, it's difficult to say those ages
Speaker 1: out loud and you think of a two year old
Speaker 1: or a six year old, because it makes all this
Speaker 1: brutality impossible to distance yourself from, because we all know children.
Speaker 1: These were not hard in criminals. These were just, you know,
Speaker 1: employees and parents and children who had just misfortune of
Speaker 1: being inside the bowling alley at the wrong morning on
Speaker 1: that Saturday morning. One of the survivors who actually made
Speaker 1: the nine one one call and you can hear is
Speaker 1: Melissa Repass, twelve years old. She was shot five times,
Speaker 1: one of them in the head, and still makes this
Speaker 1: phone call. She managed to make that nine to one
Speaker 1: one phone call about eight thirty that morning, and that
Speaker 1: call brought police and firefighters to the building where they
Speaker 1: found all the victims in that office her courage, despite
Speaker 1: being shot, saved those lives and ensure that the crime
Speaker 1: scene was discovered quickly. Three of them survived four deaths.
Speaker 1: Melissa survived, and even though the fire that they set
Speaker 1: upon leaving had already begun, destroying all of the evidence,
Speaker 1: and firefighters had to go in. Now, let's kind of
Speaker 1: be a little bit more exact about law enforcement on this,
Speaker 1: because this is a crime scene that got completely run over.
Speaker 1: Two men carried out the attack. Men were described as
Speaker 1: Hispanic possibly Mexican, dark complexions, both believed to be speaking
Speaker 1: fluent English. By the way, the surviving witness helped investigators
Speaker 1: develop descriptions. But descriptions are not names. They never have
Speaker 1: a name, even thirty six years later. The sketch not
Speaker 1: a fingerprint match. But we do have a good idea
Speaker 1: of what they look like. And back in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: the investigative world had nowhere near what we do today.
Speaker 1: As I talked about Brian Horberger yesterday, the DNA tools,
Speaker 1: you know, a Q tip, they didn't have anything. You
Speaker 1: didn't even have the databases, the digital records, no surveillance cameras, nothing,
Speaker 1: license plate readers, the flat cameras, cell phone tracking, that
Speaker 1: we have available to state, nothing, no pings, nothing. So
Speaker 1: the official theory is it's a robbery homicide. Two armed
Speaker 1: men came for money, murdered witnesses, set fire to erase evidence.
Speaker 1: And the evidence supporting that theory is pretty straightforward. Money
Speaker 1: checks were taken, victims were gathered in the office, the
Speaker 1: office was set a blaze, and that place was never
Speaker 1: to open again. But here's the question, why kill everyone,
Speaker 1: Why kill the children, Why shoot them? Why set the fire?
Speaker 1: And this is where all the theories begin, Walter, and
Speaker 1: we have to be responsible about distinguishing the theories from
Speaker 1: the proof. There's an entire movie about this one theory.
Speaker 1: The killers panicked, stuck them in there. The robbery spotted
Speaker 1: out of control. Maybe one of the gunmen I don't
Speaker 1: know recognized one of the employees, not that they were recognized.
Speaker 1: Maybe the criminals I don't know believed that they had
Speaker 1: been seen too clearly made the decision to eliminate witnesses
Speaker 1: one by one, I mean, three of them survived, and
Speaker 1: the fire supports the idea that they were trying to
Speaker 1: just erase their trail, But it also raises another question,
Speaker 1: and if they were organized enough to burn this evidence
Speaker 1: and set fire to this place. Why were they reckless
Speaker 1: enough to commit an attack that was guaranteed to trigger
Speaker 1: a massive police response that wasn't that organized? By the way. Also,
Speaker 1: another theory could have been more than a robbery, the violence,
Speaker 1: the egregious violence that they perpetrated on these children. I mean,
Speaker 1: if all this were true, the robbery could have been
Speaker 1: a camouflage, a way to make some type of killing
Speaker 1: appear like an ordinary hold up. And then there's another
Speaker 1: theory that the government were experienced criminals who disappeared into
Speaker 1: another jurisdiction, quite possibly Mexico, just forty miles south on
Speaker 1: that Texas border. Investigators have had to consider whether or
Speaker 1: not the killers were even local, regional, or just passing through.
Speaker 1: And if you think about this, prior to the digital
Speaker 1: area that we have now, those offenders could have crossed
Speaker 1: state lines. They would have been able to get through
Speaker 1: border patrol at that time US, you know, the US
Speaker 1: Mexico border that you have to stop and basically stay,
Speaker 1: which you are before you get to El Paso. Okay,
Speaker 1: so finally somebody knows that these murders took place, but
Speaker 1: it stayed silent all these years. And this is the
Speaker 1: most plausible explanation as to why that this case has
Speaker 1: lasted so long without a single name being detailed, without
Speaker 1: anybody brought in that the two men actually committed this atrocity.
Speaker 1: And they may brag or confess, and you know, may
Speaker 1: have been drunk at some point, but they may have
Speaker 1: confided in other people at some point. But yet to
Speaker 1: this day, thirty six years later, year, thirty six years later,
Speaker 1: nothing has actually come forth. I mean, despite the people aging,
Speaker 1: despite relationships changing, you know, why has this not been solved?
Speaker 1: The crime scene compromised, the killers left way before the
Speaker 1: police arrived, and even the investigators, despite possessing physical evidence
Speaker 1: and forensic science and all this on the DNA and
Speaker 1: the fingerprints, they never were able to come up with
Speaker 1: one single explanation as to who these people are thirty
Speaker 1: six years later, And you know, this is the point
Speaker 1: to remember tonight, Walter, this unsolved case in Los Cruses
Speaker 1: in southern New Mexico isn't a dead case. It still
Speaker 1: remains New Mexico's largest unsolved mass murder. And if you
Speaker 1: knew somebody in the New Mexico area and Los Cruises
Speaker 1: between Olpaso and Los Cruses, who had unexplained cash or checks,
Speaker 1: or injuries or weapon. They're still waiting for these people
Speaker 1: to come forward. And this isn't the only mass murder
Speaker 1: that has happened in New Mexico. We actually had something
Speaker 1: called the West Mason murders where twelve people individually, not
Speaker 1: all at one time, but individually that has yet to
Speaker 1: be solved. Just as well, New Mexico's a dark place.
Speaker 1: It is a place where you need a true detective.
Speaker 1: And you know, these mass murders that are uns they're
Speaker 1: not just in New York like last night, they're also
Speaker 1: here in New Mexico.
Speaker 2: Walter well now ed ed Arrogan ed Dragon. What there
Speaker 2: was no motive ever established for those murders.
Speaker 1: Right, robbery is the only thing they could actually come up.
Speaker 2: With was an office in a bowling alley. What kind
Speaker 2: of money could we be talking about.
Speaker 1: I don't know, to rent bowling shoes back in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety what was that two bucks to have a bowling game?
Speaker 1: Was that eight bucks? I mean, what would be there?
Speaker 1: It seemed to be you know, targeted. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've been bowling, Walter, but it's one
Speaker 1: of those places between the video games. I sort of
Speaker 1: grew up in the bowling alley because my parents were
Speaker 1: in a bowling league, like most parents back in the
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties, that was the thing. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot of money taking place there,
Speaker 1: so it really, you know, confuses I think the people
Speaker 1: of Las Cruses and the rest of the nation as
Speaker 1: to why seven people were shot. The woman who plays
Speaker 1: or the young lady, the twelve year old who plays
Speaker 1: that phone call. You could listen to the horror in
Speaker 1: her voice as she's calling that nine one one.
Speaker 2: And do we know where she is today?
Speaker 1: We don't. Actually I did try to find her. We
Speaker 1: don't know where she is as of today. No, but
Speaker 1: that bowling alley still has never been, never been reopened,
Speaker 1: never will reopen.
Speaker 2: Were your parents in a cash league?
Speaker 1: I don't know what that is. I've played a lot
Speaker 1: of pac Man and Defender and those we were put
Speaker 1: our quarters up on there. But I don't know what
Speaker 1: that means.
Speaker 2: No, I'll tell you what it means. It means that
Speaker 2: the there are bowling leagues, largely in Milwaukee that are
Speaker 2: manned by the largest people you've ever seen in your life,
Speaker 2: and they bowl for cash, and at the end of
Speaker 2: each season, like a school semester, the person with the
Speaker 2: highest points collects cash, second highest collect cash's third highest
Speaker 2: collect cash. They pool their money at the beginning of
Speaker 2: the season, put it in a pot, and then you
Speaker 2: can win the pot, or the second place in the pot,
Speaker 2: or the third place in the pot. But it's a
Speaker 2: cash league, and it can be significant money. It can
Speaker 2: be a couple thousand bucks. You can pay the rent,
Speaker 2: pay the food for a month. But they bowl to kill.
Speaker 2: I have seen these people bowl and they're not telling
Speaker 2: jokes to each other. They're giving each other the dirty eye.
Speaker 2: There's no beer being ordered. Maybe a kilbosi, maybe some
Speaker 2: big hot dogs, but there's no beer being ordered. They
Speaker 2: bowl to work. They bowl to make money, and it
Speaker 2: is a stunning thing to see, especially when you make
Speaker 2: a mistake like I did. I was in Milwaukee, I
Speaker 2: had time to kill. I go into a bowling alley
Speaker 2: because it's Milwaukee. You want to embrace the culture of
Speaker 2: wherever you are. I go into a bowling alley and
Speaker 2: I look at the guy, said, you know, I want
Speaker 2: to bowl. That is like three in the afternoon. The
Speaker 2: place is empty. One hundred lanes empty, and he looks
Speaker 2: at me and he goes The league starts at four.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, okay, I'm linking one hundred lanes should
Speaker 2: not be a problem. And I start to bowl and
Speaker 2: goof off, and at three point fifty five the doors
Speaker 2: slam open. Every door in that bowling alley slams open.
Speaker 2: The largest people I have ever seen descend upon the lanes,
Speaker 2: including mine, and they start to bowl. The minute their
Speaker 2: feet hit those alleys, they start to bowl, and it
Speaker 2: was it was terrifying. And now I know why he
Speaker 2: warned me. I had to get out of there or
Speaker 2: knives would have been drawn.
Speaker 1: The frenetic pace, I mean, the aggression that you just described.
Speaker 1: And then you know this prize league that they have
Speaker 1: with the sounds like lots of money, Walter, So maybe
Speaker 1: you inadvertently uncovered the motive behind the the the laws
Speaker 1: cruise bowling out Ali murders.
Speaker 2: With Hey you, Eddie, Eddie Aragon, Eddie Dragon, thanks so
Speaker 2: much for being on the other side of the minute.
Speaker 2: You're terrific.