Family of missing Pueblo woman calls for murder investigation

BERNALILLO, NM (KRQE) – When the body of a missing Jemez Pueblo mother turned up in a ravine, her family was left with more questions than answers. They say New Mexico law enforcement botched a criminal case before it even began. Lynelle Tafoya’s family is now asking the government to step in.

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“Lynelle had a sense of humor,” Brenda Tafoya recalled of her daughter Lynelle. “She was funny, always cracking jokes, making us laugh and was loving to her children.”

Brenda knows her daughter is more than just a statistic, but it was still a tough message to deliver when the 34-year-old mother of four disappeared from her Jemez Pueblo home in August 2021.

“She told me, ‘I’ll be back, Mom,'” Tafoya recalled. “She left and that was it. She never came back.”

More than a week had passed when Brenda got a call from a Pueblo police officer telling her to come to the station. “{He} told me they found her. Her body in Santa Ana,” Tafoya said. “And I just broke down,” she recalled. “He told me she had probably been in the canyon for a week. They didn’t really know.”

So what happened to Lynelle Tafoya between the Jemez Pueblo and where she was found in the town of Bernalillo, near Santa Ana? Tafoya’s mother has been searching for answers for more than two years.

“She didn’t do this alone,” Tafoya said. “Someone did something.”

Brenda Tafoya, Lynelle’s mother

One of the investigators in Tafoya’s case is Bernalillo police officer Jeramie Nevarez. He has since been fired from the department after being arrested last year on domestic violence charges that KRQE reported on. But on the day Tafoya’s daughter was found in the Ranchitos Ditch near I-40 in Bernalillo, Nevarez responded to the call and wrote the police report.

He noted that her “pants were hanging down around her ankles,” a cellphone was found “about 1,500 feet to the north,” and her backpack was found further down the trail on Santa Ana Pueblo property. Bernalillo and Sandoval County fire departments were called to recover the body.

But the officer writes: “So far, no signs of foul play have been observed or reported. End of report.” The case is registered as an “unattended death.”

Was the evidence mishandled?

“It’s extremely disturbing to see the evidence in this case,” said David Adams, Brenda Tafoya’s attorney. “I mean, I think the first signs of a crime were that she was naked in the ravine.”

Adams claims that authorities should have investigated the murder. He argues that possible evidence was mishandled and destroyed.

“{The police} gave me back her phone and her backpack and thought, you know, don’t you need these to find out what happened or to get into her phone or something?” Brenda Tafoya said.

Hoping another agency would dig deeper, Tafoya gave her daughter’s phone to the Santa Ana Pueblo Police Department. “And in the process, unfortunately, the contents of the phone were destroyed,” Adams told KRQE.

Tafoya’s attorney calls this case a “judicial nightmare” for law enforcement because it involves the Jemez Pueblo, the Santa Ana Pueblo, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Township of Bernalillo, which he says is a major reason for federal investigators to get involved.

“We have 22 tribal communities in New Mexico,” Adams explained. “And once someone leaves the reservation, they enter another jurisdiction.” He explained that the overlapping jurisdictions often lead to a lack of ownership and a general lack of communication during an investigation.

“This is an opportunity to raise awareness of how many cases are not properly investigated and to ensure they are investigated by the appropriate authorities,” Adams said.

Family now asks the government to intervene

Adams sent a letter summarizing Tafoya’s case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and urged them to open a murder investigation. “We have, you know, a very special relationship with our tribal partners and a responsibility to them and a unique ability to provide resources to solve problems,” said Alex Uballez, U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico.

Uballez declined to comment on Tafoya’s specific case, but the Justice Department’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) assistance program is a priority, he said.

“When communities, families and loved ones reach out to them, they have someone they can turn to,” Uballez explained.

“Trying to close that gap and get these different agencies to work together and communicate with each other is a big goal of the program,” said Eliot Neal, MMIP Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southwest Region.

Neal is the full-time MMIP coordinator with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. In cases like Tafoya’s, Neal works with federal law enforcement and tribal partners to get answers and, when possible, hold perpetrators accountable.

“Because we don’t have physical evidence, we rely more heavily on witness interviews and the like – circumstantial evidence and the like, which are just as valuable in court,” Neal explained.

The Tafoya coroner wrote: “This is a complicated case. Possible causes of death include the toxic effects of methamphetamine and drowning, or a combination of both.” The official cause of death is “undetermined.”

“Until a few years ago, New Mexico and the Department of Justice were putting together more and more task forces to combat what they themselves considered an epidemic,” Adams said.

Adams is determined to help in this case and points to an “unusual finding” in the young mother’s autopsy, which states: “The ends of her fingers were missing.”

“Signs that would have suggested further investigation,” said Adams. Tafoya’s mother Brenda, who now cares for her young grandchildren, just wants answers. “I’m the grandmother, yes. But no one can replace their mother,” said Brenda Tafoya.

KRQE asked Brenda Tafoya if she believed her daughter died unattended. “No,” Tafoya said. “I don’t want to blame anyone, but if that happens,” Brenda Tafoya continued, “then you have to speak up. I mean, that’s the only way they’re going to hear us.”

Adams believes at least one of the identified suspects is serving a sentence in a federal prison.
However, federal investigators would not confirm who exactly they are targeting in the Tafoya case, if anyone.