During the Summer of 1987, the disappearances of girls and young women were stacking up in El Paso. Though the police seemed to think most were simply runaways, they changed their tune when the bodies of two missing females were found in the city’s Northeast desert on September 4th. When two more bodies were found a month and a half later, El Paso police acted fast and arrested their suspect – but he wasn’t charged with the murders, rather, he was charged with the rape of a woman who he had to let go. Eventually, David Leonard Wood was convicted of a total of six Northeast El Paso murders that occurred in the summer of 87 but three area females are still missing to this day. This episode of gone cold is the further story of the Desert Killer’s known victims and the third that is potentially his victim: Cheryl Lynn Vasquez-Dismukes.

If you have any information about the disappearances of Melissa Alaniz or Cheryl Vasquez Dismukes, please contact the El Paso Police at 915-832-4445.

If you have any information about the disappearances of Marjorie Alice Knox, please contact the Dona Ana County, New Mexico Sheriff’s Office at 575-526-0795.

Be sure to check out our pals over at the podcast Fort Worth Roots.

Please consider donating to the Fort Worth Cold Case Support Group, a non-profit set up in hopes to fund the testing needed to give the families of Fort Worth murder victims justice. You can make an incredible impact on these folks’ lives by donating. Please go to: https://haynow.appcapable.com/customerForm?paymentFormId=6169c6306671d56b5e215507&fbclid=IwAR2pnENlLwT7msIXDCF3Bot6fu0T4dLthEoMZOe4QFhDb8JClEv9KORAkv0

You can donate to law enforcement investigations that need funding or upload your DNA into a database used only for law enforcement investigations at DNAsolves.com

If you don’t have DNA data from a consumer testing site, you can get a kit at connect.DNAsolves.com

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The El Paso Times, The Austin Statesman, the article Memories of Angie on New Mexico State University’s website, and court appeal documents were used as sources for this episode.

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