Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Culverts combed for missing woman

Gerald Garner Jr. El Defensor Chieftain Editor

For the second time in less than a week, water flow was halted to a network of ditches as law enforcement officials continued their search for a Socorro County woman missing since April 15.

Socorro County Sheriff's deputies and employees of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District combed ditch banks, and scoured a trio of expansive ditch culverts on Monday, April 27, in a fruitless effort to locate Lilly Lopez, 33.

Lopez, who was last seen April 15, was reported missing four days later by her boyfriend, Michael Quintana, age unknown.

Quintana told investigators that he last saw Lopez when he headed to town with a friend after drinking on the night of April 15. Quintana said the couple had been fighting and he thought Lopez had left for Albuquerque to be with friends and family.

An April 19 call from Lopez' daughter, however, revealed that Lopez was not in Albuquerque and prompted Quintana to call authorities and begin searching the ditches near the couple's Polvadera home.

One of Lopez' shoes was found on the ditch bank and sparked last week's search among the network of irrigation channels between Polvadera and Socorro.

Searching the Levees

Last week's efforts saw deputies — aided by a team of bloodhounds — focus their search efforts on the miles of ditches that deliver water to area farms. Monday's search included another sweep of the banks as well as a focused search of the Lemitar and Socorro ditch culverts and the north Socorro Flood Control project.

Getting into those structures proved a challenge for the assembled team.

"We shut off the water (to the ditches) Sunday to allow time for the ditches to dry," said Middle Rio Grand Conservancy District senior ditch rider Lorenzo Benavidez. "Then we diked off the outlets to the culverts so water wouldn't flow back into the pipes."

With the aid of a backhoe, crews lowered a water pump and large hoses to the culverts and cleared enough water to allow MRGCD's Cole Benjamin and two other co-workers to carefully navigate their way from the inlet to the outlet sides of each of the three siphon pipe flood control devices.

"If someone was going to get hung up in these ditches, it would be in one of the three structures we searched today," Benavidez said.

In all, 13 people — some on foot, some on bikes and some on all-terrain vehicles — assisted in Monday's search.

Although Monday's search efforts yielded no clues, Socorro County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Preciliano "Shorty" Vaiza said the investigation into Lopez' whereabouts continues in earnest.

"While we were out in the field, Joe Tafoya and Eddie Padilla handled the other end of things for us," Vaiza said Tuesday, April 28.

That included following up on a host of leads and tips that came in after the search began.

Adjutant to the Sheriff Les Torres said the investigation, which is still being treated as a missing persons case, will continue until all avenues have been exhausted.

"We're doing everything we can to track Ms. Lopez down," Torres said. "We're following up every lead we get."

Anyone with information regarding Lopez' whereabouts is asked to call the Socorro County Sheriff's Department at 575-835-0941.

ggarner@dchieftain.com

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