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Valasca

Death, horror, torture
It's a cold case that's haunted a local family for eight years. This week, investigators announced they found human remains at the El Malpais National Monument, which is the last place 46-year-old James Chatman and his 20-year-old daughter Crystal Tuggle were spotted.

The Tuggle family was watching Eyewitness News 4 when a story came on, saying 2 sets of human remains had been found. While the medical investigator still hasn't confirmed if the two bodies found this week are those of James Chatman and Crystal Tuggle, their family said today they believe that is.

"And then I heard the location and then my sister's picture popped up and then my ten-year-old said, 'Look, mom," said Jennifer Tuggle. Her little sister and stepfather vanished eight years ago.

"They went out to do their birthday celebration Father's Day and they discovered they were missing and they brought in the dogs," she said.

But cadaver dogs didn't find any answers, leaving the Tuggle family with a haunting cold case.

"Crystal was really wonderful. She was young, but she was very mature at heart. She would help anybody that needed helping. And I hope that they didn't try and help somebody and something happened to them," Tuggle said.

The Tuggles say the bond between James Chatman and Crystal Tuggle was very strong, saying James lived for his family.

"He absolutely adored her. He was very protective about what he allowed her to do," said Crystal's grandmother, Marilyn Pitney.

The father-daughter duo was last seen in a parking lot. The skeletal remains found this week were located about six miles away from that lot, along with an ID, credit cards and some clothing. While the Tuggles wait on official word from the medical examiner, they say their pain and agony is mounting.

"Everything is resurrected as if it just happened last week. We're all very sad," Pitney said.

The family tells Eyewitness News 4 they have been in touch with Crystal Tuggle's church about making funeral arrangements. They say they need to lay the two to rest properly, so they can heal.
http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S1758816.shtml?cat=504
 
Strange and sad. I lost my dog over a year ago, and the 'not knowing' is the worst! I can't imagine how it would feel to never know what happened to my husband and daughter. How awful! :dong:
 
The father-daughter duo was last seen in a parking lot. The skeletal remains found this week were located about six miles away from that lot
That part would kill me. I'd always ask myself "what if" and "how did no one find/see them?!"
 
This is going to sound terrible, but when my 21 year old daughter shot and killed herself I made the pain in my heart ease by telling myself that it could have been worse, she could have just disappeared and left me not knowing what ever happened to her, or some stranger could have killed her and justice never procured.
I really feel for these people and I'm sure in my heart that these are their loved ones remains. I hope there are some forensics left so that they can find what happened to their family.
 
APNewsBreak: Remains identified as missing NM pair

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN (AP) – 1 day ago

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A New Mexico family finally has a small bit of closure with confirmation that skeletal remains found at El Malpais National Monument were their loved ones, but mystery lingers over how they died on a day hike among the rugged lava beds where five other people have gone missing in recent years.

James Chatman, 46, and his daughter, Crystal Tuggle, 20, vanished eight years ago while on an annual trip to mark his birthday and Father's Day. The remains were found in a remote area of El Malpais — Spanish for the Badlands — along with tattered pieces of clothing and weathered credit cards. Officials say there's no sign of foul play.

Positive identification of the remains came Friday from the Office of the Medical Investigator. The family said that would help bring some closure, but they still have many questions.

"It just doesn't make sense to me. There's too many what-ifs — where they were found, the time frame. You can't even comprehend," Tuggle's older sister, Jennifer Tuggle, told The Associated Press in an interview Friday.

El Malpais is 160 square miles of jumbled lava flows, caves and tunnels mixed with sand, cactus and yucca plants. Since the father and daughter disappeared, monument spokeswoman Leslie DeLong said at least five more people have gone missing in the same general area.

"It's not what I would consider a typical hiking environment. It's a place where you're in very rugged terrain, where it's easy to become disoriented," she said.

Chatman and Tuggle had an annual ritual of taking on an outdoors activity every year, said Tuggle's grandmother, Marilyn Pitney of Santa Fe.

"It was Father's Day and birthday time, so they went on a hike together, which was pretty normal for them," Pitney said.

They had gone whitewater rafting in 2001 and had planned to go to Spirit Mountain in Arizona the next year, then wildfires put a kink in their plans. They hiked instead into El Malpais south of Grants on June 20, 2002. It was their first visit to that part of northwestern New Mexico.

A National Park Service archaeological team saw them late that afternoon just before they set off on a half-mile walk from a parking lot to an attraction called Big Tubes, 17 miles of tunnels and troughs created by the lava. DeLong said the team remembered they had a water bottle but no hiking boots or backpack.

Their disappearance set off a massive ground-and-air search involving 250 people and teams of sniffer dogs. They found nothing.

A natural resources survey crew finally came across the remains Tuesday. The bones were scattered in a rough part of the monument about five miles from where the pair went missing, DeLong said.

"We don't know exactly how they got to where they were. There's still a lot that is being investigated at this point," she said.

DeLong said the remains will be sent to a forensic lab in Texas in an effort to find out more about how the pair died.

A search crew set out Wednesday at dawn to retrieve the remains. They moved carefully, with thunderstorms bringing heavy rain and lightning to much of the state that day, and the jagged basalt beds that make up the monument are known for attracting lightning, though there are no indications that bad weather played a role in the disappearance.

Jennifer Tuggle said she couldn't believe it when pictures of the two were flashed on the evening news as authorities first announced they had found remains at El Malpais. A rollercoaster of emotions has followed for the family.

"My mom is in a lot of shock right now, grief, heartache," she said. "This is kind of like going through it all over again."

With little evidence left, the family may never know what happened to the pair.

"We just can't make sense out of it so that's our struggle as a family. We accept that it happened, but we can't make sense of it," Pitney said.

"I have to tell you, this is terrible. I could spin you some awful scenarios and so could her mother and sister," she continued. "We don't know, so here we are not knowing again."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hm5ffgoVPtMzy_uAVBRyqsSmlnywD9IEJO100
 
Let's see, 5 other people go missing in the same area. 250 people plus sniffer dogs go looking for these people and their remains are found within 5 miles of where they were last seen and they don't think it's foul play? I know I will sleep sounder tonight.
 
Yeah, it kind of sounds like the New Mexico 'Bermuda Triangle' doesn't it?
Wierdness,

I'm really sorry about your daughter.
 

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