Up next...
An innocent young woman
meets a brutal end.
It was very violent.
There was blood
all over the place.
You could tell Elizabeth
fought hard to get away.
Small town neighbors fear
a k*ller lives among them.
It was awful.
It was tragic.
It kind of rocked
the whole community.
I was scared.
At first, a few prints
in the dirt are the only evidence.
Without the tire impressions
and the shoe impressions,
we had nothing.
And that lack of clues
has police bracing
for another m*rder.
He was on this path to
being a serial k*ller.
Located on a high plain
just over the border with West Texas,
the city of Hobbs is known as
the "oil capital of New Mexico."
Oil and gas has been
a big part of the economy here
for as long as Hobbs
has been here.
It's probably what put Hobbs
on the map.
More than 8,000 people...
nearly 20% of the city's
population...
work in energy production.
It's really like a small town.
The population
has grown primarily
due to the oil and gas industry.
On a January afternoon in 2002,
two men were driving
on a dirt road
a few miles out of town
when they came across
the body of a young woman.
She was laying on her back.
Her sweatshirt was
up around her neck.
Her throat was cut.
She had stabs in her abdomen,
her chest, her head,
her arms, her back.
Some of the blows
to this victim were so forceful
they'd broken bones.
She'd been dead for hours.
It's such a violent scene.
It tends to connect
that you would think
that she knew who she was with.
Investigators
got an early break.
Since at least part
of the m*rder happened
on a dirt road,
some evidence became
apparent immediately.
We saw tire tracks.
And it looked like the vehicle
had pulled up off the main road,
and stopped.
Right outside where
the passenger's front door
would've been,
we located a clump of hair.
Evidence in the dirt
showed the victim
had been dragged
from the passenger's seat
to where she was
ultimately k*lled.
She had been scratching,
trying to get away,
and close to those scratch marks
would be pools of blood.
She was clearly trying to
get away from her attacker,
and fought for her life
out there.
Since the victim
was fully clothed,
detectives couldn't determine
on sight
if this was a sexually
motivated crime.
The question now was,
who was she?
A tattoo on her stomach
helped provide the answer.
Her name was Elizabeth Garcia,
a 26 year-old single mother.
Elizabeth Garcia
was a young woman
who was really trying to make
a better life for herself.
She had been married,
and had three kids.
And she was
going back to school,
attending classes at
New Mexico Junior College.
But she had to work.
And that meant working nights
at a convenience store
called Allsup's
so she could go to school
during the day.
This created a possible
connection to the m*rder.
Elizabeth was working
her shift, at night,
at the Allsup's,
and her boyfriend
had to go to work early.
He had to be at work
at 3:00 a.m.
And he was gonna stop by,
and just see her for, you know,
a couple minutes on his way.
But when Elizabeth's
boyfriend, Jaime Pachecho,
got to the convenience store,
Elizabeth was gone.
In fact, the store
was wide open,
and apparently abandoned.
He could not find Elizabeth.
Her car was in the parking lot,
but she was nowhere to be found.
Police were called to the store.
Elizabeth was found,
brutally m*rder*d,
on the outskirts of town.
How were the store
and crime scene connected?
Or were they connected?
At first, police had no idea,
and turned to impressions
in the dirt for answers.
Following the breakup
of Elizabeth Garcia's
first marriage,
the single mother was determined
to make a better life
for herself
and her three young children.
Elizabeth got pregnant
in high school,
and then had two other children
to follow.
And so, she was a devoted mom,
but it definitely
changed her path
for probably
what her plans were.
Detectives at the
store from where Elizabeth disappeared
were immediately dealt
a bad break.
There were surveillance cameras,
but they weren't working
at the time.
There was no sign
of a struggle in the store.
It looked as if Elizabeth
either left voluntarily
or was forced out
with some kind of w*apon.
It was as if
she just disappeared.
Her car was there, her books
were there on the countertop,
her coat was there in the store.
There was no money
in the cash register,
but there was a potential clue.
The last transaction
was at 2:24 a.m.
Elizabeth had written down
on a piece of paper
that whoever had came in
at that particular time
didn't have enough money to pay
for what they were trying
to purchase.
She wrote down on the receipt
that it was a rude customer,
or a mad customer.
And that's the last contact
they had showing her,
was at 2:24 a.m.
With no surveillance
video and no witnesses,
there wasn't a way to identify
this customer.
Detectives now turned to
tire tracks and impressions
from two different shoes
at the scene of the m*rder.
One of those impressions
matched back
to Elizabeth Garcia's shoes.
The other shoe prints,
and the tire tracks,
were presumably from the k*ller
and his vehicle.
But analysts had to work fast.
Dirt roads do not
hold shoe impressions well.
They don't hold
tire impressions well.
The wind blows here a lot.
Analysts used dental stone...
the material used to create
permanent casts of patient's
teeth and dentures...
to make casts of the impressions
in the dirt.
This produced
high-quality casts,
but detectives were unable
to definitively identify
the brand of tires or shoes.
There are many, many treads
on shoes, as we found out.
Tires are the same way.
So, it was hard to
narrow it down.
However, if detectives
could identify a suspect,
and could get their hands
on their tires and shoes,
the casts could be matched
to a particular brand,
and then back to their suspect.
Detectives were looking at
the boyfriend of Elizabeth
as a potential suspect.
He left after talking to
law enforcement,
went on to work,
knowing she was missing.
And so, for law enforcement,
that was a lot of red flags.
But Jaime's story held up.
He was seen at work,
by numerous co-workers,
around the period
when Elizabeth had been k*lled.
There was not enough
time for him to k*ll her,
and then be at his job
by three o'clock.
Elizabeth's autopsy showed
she'd been stabbed 56 times,
and was sexually assaulted.
DNA recovered from her clothing
was tested,
but, in 2002, this took time.
With Elizabeth's boyfriend
apparently eliminated
as a suspect, detectives turned
to her ex-husband,
Jesus Mendoza.
He wasn't paying child support.
He wasn't supporting her
in any way.
So, there was tension between
Elizabeth and her ex-husband.
Their relationship
had fallen apart.
Obviously, when you've got
children with someone,
there's always a chance that,
somehow, something has come up,
and something has triggered
some of that reactive v*olence
that happens.
Mendoza, who did not have
an airtight alibi
for the time of the m*rder,
was brought in for questioning.
And his behavior did nothing
to allay detectives' suspicions.
I thought he was
probably our guy.
He made several statements
that just didn't sound right.
He told me, at one time,
"You guys don't have
enough yet."
He goes, "I know you're gonna be
looking at me for this."
So, early on, I thought he was
probably gonna be our guy.
Police arrested Mendoza
on an unrelated charge,
and, in a jailhouse phone call,
he appeared to implicate himself
in his ex-wife's m*rder.
We were monitoring
his phone calls.
He called a friend,
and asked them
to get rid of some of
his clothing and his cellphone.
And clearly,
we thought we had him...
"We're gonna find
the bloody clothes.
We're gonna find the shoes.
We're gonna find the tires.
We're gonna find everything
we need to solve this case."
And that's not what happened.
The unusual level of
v*olence in Elizabeth Garcia's m*rder
had investigators convinced
she knew her k*ller.
And Jesus Mendoza...
her ex-husband...
was acting like
he might be involved.
When they talked to him,
instead of him just being,
"I'm devastated
by this happening.
I can't believe she's gone.
What can I do to help?"
He was giving them odd replies,
and saying things like,
"I know they probably
think I did it."
You know, "You're probably
gonna find a way
to put my DNA
at the scene."
A search of Mendoza's
home turned up no shoes
that matched the impressions
from the crime scene.
The same held true
for his car tires.
While detectives waited to see
if his DNA matched DNA
from the crime scene,
they got a fresh tip,
about a man named
Stephen DeMoss.
Steven DeMoss and another
person had been claiming
they were gonna rob
an Allsup's store.
They needed money.
They were both on methamphetamine.
Police combed Hobbs
City, and the surrounding area,
and couldn't find Demoss.
They contacted his,
Shelley Lovett.
She and her husband, Paul,
were once quite close
to Stephen.
I remember them
coming to my house,
and them asking me
about my brother,
you know, that, possibly,
they needed to question him
regarding this.
And of course, I just felt like,
"There's no way.
Not my brother.
He couldn't have possibly
had something to do with this."
Shelley told
detectives she had no idea
where her brother was,
but was convinced
he had a serious drug problem.
I do remember, he would stay
up for maybe two or three days.
So, there were plenty
of signs of it.
I did suspect it pretty early,
and I knew.
And now, police
learned of a weird connection
between Demoss
and Elizabeth Garcia.
Demoss' father, randy,
was apparently infatuated
with Elizabeth.
While trying to
understand Elizabeth Garcia,
and who she was,
we learned that she worked at
a parts store for a while,
and that a man had sent her
roses, or some flowers.
And that man was Randy DeMoss.
Detectives
tracked down Randy Demoss.
While he admitted an infatuation
with Elizabeth,
he denied any involvement
in her m*rder.
And he had an alibi
to back it up.
But the more police learned
about his son, Stephen,
the more concerned they became.
Stephen DeMoss, I don't know
if he would be called
a "collector" of knives,
but he had knives.
He'd had some odd behavior.
He had shaved his head
somewhere after,
they believe,
that the offense had happened...
somewhere around that night.
When Demoss was finally
tracked down,
he was not cooperative.
He would twist
the questions around.
You could tell he was
toying with us,
and trying to be evasive
at the same time.
He said they may have
talked about
robbing an Allsup's store,
but they didn't do it.
He said he knew Elizabeth,
said his dad knew
who Elizabeth was,
but he said he didn't do it.
Detectives took
Stephen Demoss' DNA,
and searched his home and car.
Once again, no shoes or tires
matched the casts
taken from the crime scene.
Even worse for the
investigation, the DNA results
on all the potential suspects
finally came in...
and none of the suspects matched.
They couldn't connect
any of those individuals to her
or to this crime.
It was absolutely devastating.
We've still got somebody out
there that k*lled this woman,
and we have no idea who it is.
Police and the general public
feared an arrest
would never be made.
Then, 16 months
after Elizabeth's m*rder,
there was an odd development...
one that turned out to have a
surprise connection to the case.
Two guys are driving down
West County Road, here in Hobbs,
and they see a guy
walking down the road,
at the edge of the road.
He's got a lot of scratches
on him, got some blood on him.
And they pull over,
to ask the guy, "Hey, you okay?"
He goes, "You know, I got in
an altercation last night,
I woke up in a ditch."
He said, "I got b*at up
pretty bad.
Can you take me home?"
In the spring of 2003,
another woman from Hobbs,
New Mexico... 35-year-old
Patty Simon...
was found brutally m*rder*d
and sexually assaulted
on the outskirts of the city.
She was found
laying on her back,
with her legs open,
and there was a shirt
covering her face.
She had injuries to her face,
and her head,
and her throat
had also been cut.
Very bloody,
very gruesome crime scene,
much like Elizabeth Garcia's
crime scene.
Patty Simon and Elizabeth
Garcia did not know each other,
but there was a connection
between the cases.
It concerned a story
about a videotape,
allegedly made by
Elizabeth's k*ller,
just after her m*rder.
Rumor got around,
through the meth community,
that there was a videotape.
People swore they saw
the videotape
of the m*rder
of Elizabeth Garcia.
They could never give it
to the police,
but they swore they saw it.
Ultimately, this video
was supposed to have ended up
in the possession
of Patty Simon.
On the morning Patty's body
was found, a man...
shirtless and bloody...
was walking along
a remote highway
when two oil workers drove by,
and stopped to talk to him.
The man said he got beaten up
after defending a woman
at a nearby bowling alley
the night before.
He said he staggered away,
and woke up in a ditch.
The men who found him
dropped him off at his house.
A short time later, they heard
of the Patty Simon m*rder,
and called the sheriff,
who rushed to get this man
in custody.
They go to his house.
At that time,
when they get there,
he's running the bath water,
but he hadn't showered yet.
He's scratched up,
he's sunburned,
he's got blood on his pants.
And they say, "You're not
getting into the bathtub."
They detain him, take him
to the sheriff's office,
and began interviewing him.
The man was
Detectives investigating
the Garcia m*rder
had seen him before.
He was the husband
of Shelley Lovett,
sister of one-time suspect
Stephen Demoss.
Paul Lovett made a distinct
impression on detectives
the night they interviewed
his wife
while trying to find
who k*lled Elizabeth Garcia.
I remember myself
and the other detective
were there, in Shelley's house.
Paul Lovett, he sat on
the couch, kept his head down,
didn't say anything.
I thought, "You know,
this guy understands
how bad
this situation is."
Lovett said he didn't even know
Elizabeth Garcia,
and didn't m*rder Patty Simon...
who, he said, was a friend.
His story was that he was
driving around with Patty,
and she let a man she knew,
but he'd never seen,
into the car, and that
this stranger was her k*ller.
Lovett's wife, Shelley,
said her marriage to Paul
had been falling apart,
and he left her shortly
after the Garcia m*rder.
He stopped at the house
one night,
and told me, "I'm leaving.
I'm moving to Alabama."
He got in the car
with some girl,
and her baby, and left.
A search of the Lovetts'
home revealed no shoes or tires
that matched
the Garcia crime scene.
Detectives asked
Paul's wife, Shelley,
if she had any photographs
of Paul
from around the time
Elizabeth Garcia was k*lled.
We happened to have some photos
of a recent family event
that we had had,
and the way that he was sitting,
part of the bottom of his shoe,
you could see it in the photo.
So, from that, they were
able to find out a shoe model,
a shoe brand...
Nike Air Integrity.
It was the same kind of
Nike shoe
that was consistent with
the tracks
that was found at the scene
of the Garcia homicide.
As for the tires,
Shelley Lovett told police
Paul's car had been sold.
But she still had the receipt
for tires purchased
months before the m*rder.
And now, analysts finally had
had another brand
to check against
their crime scene.
And it was the same brand.
This combination of evidence
tied Paul Lovett
to the Garcia m*rder.
There is no evidence
he knew her.
Investigators don't know
how he got her into his car.
But the evidence indicates that,
once he got her out of town,
he sexually assaulted her, and
then dragged her out of the car.
A vicious fight followed,
with Elizabeth dying
after dozens of s*ab wounds.
Unknown to Lovett, he left
shoe prints, tire impressions,
and his DNA at the scene.
He did know Patty Simon
through their connection
with local
methamphetamine users.
There was no truth to the rumor
there was any videotape
of the Garcia m*rder.
Why Paul Lovett k*lled
Patty Simon no one knows.
But prosecutors say
her blood on his clothing,
and his on hers,
leaves no doubt
that he was responsible.
Paul Lovett was ultimately
found guilty of both murders,
and is serving life
without parole.
I was just shocked.
It was embarrassing to me,
that that was part of my past,
that I was married to him.
Someone that can commit
the crimes that he committed
is evil.
That's a monster.
Investigators think
Lovett could've been
a serial k*ller in the making,
and say he might have k*lled
again if not for the forensics
that finally took him
off the streets.
I think,
after he k*lled Elizabeth,
he didn't have any problems
with k*lling Patty Simon.
My opinion is,
he would have kept k*lling
if we wouldn't have caught him.
Thank God that they caught
him before there was another victim,
and that, hopefully,
these two were the only two.
Hobbs has a lot of murders,
but they don't have
a lot of murders like this.
It happened on my watch,
and I took it very personal.
And it stands out because
it was through the forensics...
the DNA, the shoe impressions,
and the tire impressions.
That's what made the case.