In 1952, 27-year-old Inez Garcia went missing, leaving behind a husband and four young children. After gaining permission to inspect her old home, possible human remains were discovered.
According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, Detective Robert Garcia Jr., unrelated to the victim, received permission from the current tenant of Inez’s last home to search the property with a dog trained to sniff out human remains. “The dog responded almost immediately and began pawing at the ground in two separate locations in the garage,” Garcia said, adding that he found pieces of bone almost immediately.
The Albequerque Journal reports that the bones are to be identified as human or animal in a Texas lab. If they are human the DNA will be compared to the DNA of Inez’s daughter to determine whether or not the bones belong to the missing woman.
The Santa Fe reports that Inez Garcia’s husband, Juan Andres Jose Garcia, was the main suspect until his death in the mid-1990s. His story, concerning the last time he saw his wife, changed over time. First he told the police that she had been drinking early the morning before she disappeared and that she went bar-hopping with her sister until a man speaking English lead her from the bar, at which point Garcia’s sister lost contact with her, then he said that he had taken Inez to a bar before she “jumped out of the car, walked away, and never returned.”
Police spokeswoman, Celina Westervelt, said, “Santa Fe Police would sincerely like to bring closure to Inez Garcia’s family.”