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