The Vanishing of Melanie James

It's called the Four Corners region, the area where four southwestern states meet. Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. There's even a spot where you can stand in all four states at once. Historically, that same spot also marks the land boundary of two American Indian nations, the Navajo Nation, and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe Reservation. It's a rocky landscape, rich with indigenous culture and history.

I'm not going to give up on trying to look for her. Every little opportunity I have to put awareness out. there is what I'm going to do.

Leela Mailman has been looking for her daughter for more than 10 years. Unfortunately, where she lives is a place where people like her daughter go missing much too frequently. Melanie's disappearance has baffled the community there and become part of a rallying cry in a persistent crisis. No more missing relatives!

No more missing sisters! We just have had this ongoing system of failures when it comes to Native Americans.

It's been going on for centuries and centuries, but isn't it time to stop it?

No more missing sisters!

Melanie's family believes she is still alive and still out there somewhere. And they desperately want her back with them. That's where you come in.

It's just funny. Loved to dance. Her and Melissa loved to dance together and make routines. I'd come home from work, and I'd go, look, mom, I made this up. And they would start dancing and show me.

When I said, tell me about her, Lela, you smiled.

Just a lot of memories going through my mind. I could see her face right now. Come on, kid, you got this.

She was always making us laugh. Very caring person.

That's Melanie's sister, Melissa James. She says Melanie grew up deeply loved by her family. Then, as she reached her teen years, Melanie started spending time with new friends. And it made her sister worry.

She was hanging out with people that weren't really good for her. People that would just get her into substances and, you know, drinking.

That would eventually lead to some serious trouble with law enforcement. At 18, Melanie took part in a burglary and was arrested.

She was small, so the people put her in through the window because she was small enough to fit. And then, once they saw the cops, they all took off.

They were trying to, what, burglarize somebody else's house?

Yeah. They were trying to get some jewelry and some other stuff so they could sell it.

It definitely sounds like Melanie was running with the wrong crowd.

Yes.

And I'm also thinking that both of you, at different times, said to her, this is a bad idea. You're hanging out with the wrong people.

Yes, we did.

Melanie pleaded guilty to the burglary, served some jail time, and was released in November 2013.. Her family says when they would confront her about her behavior, Melanie's typical teenage response was queued up and ready.

I know what I'm doing. I know what I'm doing.

I got this.

Yep, I got this. I know what I'm doing and don't worry about me.

And that's what a lot of our arguments were about, because I didn't like her friends, her so-called friends. You know, they're only going to get you in trouble.

By April 2014,, Melanie's family believed she'd put that group of friends behind her.

She wanted to change her life, she wanted to upgrade her life and stop doing the stuff that she was doing.

She knew that life wasn't for her anymore.

Sort of time to grow up.

Yeah.

Melanie was about to turn 22, and for her, growing up meant getting a degree.

She was going up to the college to enroll in some classes, and then, coming back from the college, she was going to put job applications in.

Her school of choice, San Juan College in Farmington. What do you think she would have been studying?

Animals.

Yeah.

Veterinarian. She loved animals. That's where she was going.

It seemed Melanie was on that new path. At least that's what Melissa thought up until the last time she saw her sister, on April 20th, 2014..

I seen her on the way back from dropping off my son, and I stopped at this church, and I seen her walking and I yelled at her, I said, Mel, Mel, and she realized that it was me. So I pulled over, pulled into the church. It's like a big old empty parking lot.

Melissa says she knew most of her sister's friends, but when she saw her in that parking lot, Melanie was walking alongside a young man. Melissa had never met.

This was one that I did not recognize.

She says he was a slender African-American man, about six feet tall, with short hair and a beard. He was wearing a navy blue muscle shirt with faded black pants and black and white sneakers. Did Melanie tell you his name? Did she introduce you?

No, she did not. She just said that it was her friend, and he kind of just stood quiet by the driver's side.

Melanie told Melissa her new plan. She was headed to Albuquerque, three hours away.

She was just telling me about how she wanted to go to Albuquerque, because she just felt like she didn't really want to be here.

When Melissa did not hear anything from Melanie, she began to worry. Leila was not hearing from her either.

I just wanted her back home. I wanted to know where she was and how she was doing, and she just didn't call me at all or have any contact with me at all.

Leila says. eventually her anxiety became too great, and she started searching for Melanie herself.

I was out there looking for her, driving around, two, three o'clock in the morning.

This cost you a job at one point, didn't it?

Yes, it did.

Because you were spending all your time looking for Melanie.

Yes, it cost me a job, but that didn't matter. That was just a job, okay? I can always get another job. But my daughter cannot be replaced, and that was the only thing going through my head at the time. I have to find her.

With no sign of Melanie, Leila decided she needed to report her daughter's disappearance to Farmington Police. In that missing persons report, an officer noted that Leila Mailman told him, quote, Melanie has had trouble with alcohol, been in trouble and arrested in the past, as well as been gone for days at a time, but has never been gone this long, unquote. The timing of that report is one thing Leila and the department do not agree on. Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebby notes the family made that first report in June of 2014,, two months after Melanie vanished. Leila says it was much sooner.

Sandra showed me the footage and I ID'd her.

No question, that's Melanie.

No question. Yes, it was Melanie.

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I worked with Sandra, I worked with Goodwill, and so she knew Melanie.

Lila was at work when she got the call from Sandra, so she sent one of her sons to go check it out. Could Melanie really be alive and well? Unfortunately, by the time her son arrived at the store, Melanie was gone. Lila says she later asked to see the security footage of that day, and the store manager agreed.

Yes, definitely was her.

How'd she look?

Well, she looked healthy. She didn't look skinny or like somebody that was on the street, you know, doing drugs and everything. She was pretty well kept.

For Lila, those few seconds of security video were equal parts encouraging and ominous. Her missing daughter was alive and apparently healthy. At the same time, Lila says the camera shows Melanie buying a single lollipop and looking around as if someone might be watching her.

She liked lollipops, but the nervousness or the way she carried herself that day was definitely not her.

Melanie's sister. Melissa has her own theory about what's happening in that video.

She would only buy one item like that if she was nervous. There's a few times where some creepy people would just like try to follow us or whatever. So we would go inside of the nearest convenience store and we would just buy like one item, one thing. So to me, that was my signal, as somebody was definitely following her, because that is something that me and her used to do too. Okay, we'll just go in here.

But the cashier didn't say anything. The cashier never called police.

No.

So if your friend hadn't been there, you wouldn't know about that.

Yeah, I wouldn't have known at all.

That video would have been a great piece of evidence, except for one thing. Farmington police have never seen it. They say that by the time they found out about it, the video had been erased. Detectives interviewed Sandra and confirmed her account of seeing Melanie at the dollar store, but without video. It remains a tantalizing footnote.

At first, we didn't think it was abusive physically. It was more like he was controlling.

Melanie's family says that boyfriend's controlling behavior later took a turn for the uncontrollable.

I know there was a few times where he did get physically aggressive and grab her and maybe like toss her around the room.

She called me up one day and she said, mom, come, get me in Aztec.

Leila immediately made the half hour drive from Farmington to Aztec, New Mexico, to pick up her daughter.

She was, you know, kind of sobbing pretty hard. And I kept asking her what's wrong. And she goes, I'm just happy to see you. You know, she was hiding the whole thing. And he was standing right there.

After they left, Melanie told her mom she couldn't take it anymore and called police. On March 17th, 2014,, her ex was charged with false imprisonment and aggravated assault against a household member. She filed charges on him and he went to jail.

Yeah, he went to jail. But he continued to try to write letters to her.

It wasn't long before the clues and theories in Melanie's case dried up like a creek bed in this corner of New Mexico. Months turned to years as her case shuttled through a series of detectives, still with no answers. Through it all, Leila grew more and more frustrated, believing police were not giving her daughter's case adequate attention.

It seems to me the only time that we would get any response before was I had to constantly call. I had to keep bugging them, bugging them, bugging them before I could get an answer.

She says recently that began to change. In January 2024, Chief Hebby assigned Farmington Police Detective Davin Badoni to put some fresh eyes on the case.

I just need tips or people to come forward and give us statements.

Since then, Badoni has been reinvestigating, looking for clues that were missed. He quickly learned police did have some key evidence early on.

This is four days after the last time Melissa saw Melanie.

On April 24, 2014,, officers found a black duffel bag and a woman's purse, both belonging to Melanie James. Those were partially hidden in an alleyway behind a strip of businesses on 20th Street, not far from Farmington's public library and a movie theater.

The officer found the bag and found two cell phones in. there, called the last number that was called on there, and that was a guy named Brian. So Brian said Melanie had left his place the night prior.

Brian was a friend Melanie spent time with. At that point, police were not searching for Melanie as a missing person, so officers took a found property report and put Melanie's belongings in evidence for safekeeping. As he reinvestigated in May of 2024, Detective Badoni was able to track down Brian and ask about the last time he saw Melanie. Brian said he remembered Melanie was hanging out with him that night.

He was staying with family at a residence on 21st Street here in Farmington, which is a few blocks away from where her bags are found. So Brian recalled that Melanie was intoxicated and she was knocking on doors, on neighbors' doors, and police were called.

Brian says he told Melanie she was disturbing the neighbors and had to get out of the house, and she did.

Melanie grabbed her bags and left. So that was the same day, April 24th, about 1 o'clock in the morning.

Did police encounter her on that day?

No, no. So police ran two names. One of them was Brian and then another male, but no, they did not run. Melanie. I believe she was gone before police officers arrived.

Police think Melanie may have walked a few blocks to that spot in the alley, where they later found her purse and duffel. They also learned Melanie had been couchsurfing, staying with various friends here and there around Farmington. That meant she would sometimes stash her belongings in a safe place.

It was common for her to hide her bags in a nice area of town and then maybe come back for it later.

The detective says Brian's story about Melanie has remained consistent, but he notes Brian did reveal one new detail in an interview earlier this year.

The only thing that Brian added was that a week later, he received a phone call from Melanie, and she was in Albuquerque and it was asking him for money to return back to Farmington.

That new bit of information matches what Melanie told her sister, that she was headed to stay in Albuquerque for a while. It sounded as if she got there. So now the timeline's extended a little bit. You believe, Brian, that she was alive as of four days after her family saw her, and sounds as if she's not with anybody else and she's not under duress.

That is the perception they've given to us at this time, yeah. Sounds like she was in Albuquerque a week after April 24th, so that would put us in May of 2014..

Why would Melanie be headed to Albuquerque? Was she running away from something or someone? Melissa couldn't shake the thought that her sister had to be in danger, and her mind kept drifting back to Melanie's ex.

I knew she was scared of him. She just wanted to, you know, get away from him.

Where was that guy when Melanie disappeared?

So she had heard at the time that he was out of jail.

So Melanie at least thought, he's looking for me, and I have to hide.

Yeah.

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It has torn us apart, completely destroyed us. There's times where we don't have contact with each other because we're so depressed and we don't want to show each other because we're trying to be strong for each other.

They've also come to realize they are far from alone in their quest for answers. New Mexico has one of the highest rates of missing and murdered indigenous women in the nation. And, according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, four out of five indigenous women have experienced violence during their lifetime. Facing those statistics, Leila decided there was only one response, and that was to fight.

And to this day, I am still looking for my daughter.

When you're talking about her story to whoever, when you're protesting, when you're marching, when you're trying to get the word out, that actually helps you as well as maybe her.

It helps us let go of some of the emotions that we have at the time and also to give us the strength that we need to carry on.

Leila relied on that strength at an event in 2022.. Deb Haaland was giving a lecture at the University of New Mexico and opened the floor for questions. I was watching some video of you talking to Deb Haaland at that meeting, the Interior Secretary. And what I thought was that you were doing a very good job of concealing how angry you were.

Yeah.

Secretary Haaland is in a unique position. In 2021, she became the first Native American to serve as a U.S. Cabinet Secretary. She's also become a target of criticism for how little has changed over many decades.

What the first two families that went up, she kept saying, I sympathize with you. And that's when I said what I said on the tape.

Ma'am, I'm so sorry for your loss.

I truly am. I don't need sympathy. I need understanding. We just need help.

I want you to know that we're trying, we're working as hard as we can.

We contacted Secretary Haaland's office for further comment. They noted that one of Haaland's first acts as Secretary was to establish the Missing and Murdered Unit, which works to expand collaborative efforts with other agencies when it comes to missing and murdered indigenous people. Her team told Dateline Haaland is determined to make this issue a top administration priority.

Correct. So if you look back at the time of Christopher Columbus and the slave trade and the conquistadors that came into New Mexico, and then we have the federal government that made tribes go on to reservations, we have boarding schools, we have the water being taken away from them, we have poverty, we have alcohol introduced to the Native Americans. And we just have had this ongoing system of failures when it comes to Native Americans.

On their website, the Bureau of Indian Affairs notes that many MMIW cases remain unsolved due to a lack of investigative resources. People have gone missing and there's been no accountability and no one to investigate it. Correct. A New Mexico native, Darlene, met Lila at a rally and took up Melanie's case. She helped Lila get a billboard put up to find her daughter.

And I think one of the things that you talked about was victim blaming. So we see a lot of this, and even in this report, talking about not having a job, having criminal charges. She had been in a domestic violence relationship prior to her going missing. I think cases like these, they just get put on a shelf. I don't know if there is policies and procedures in place to ensure that these cases get investigated.

I asked Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebby about that. You know, this is something that comes up in missing cases all the time, when they have a criminal record. Do you look for them differently? Is that a lower standard? Is there sort of an assumption by law enforcement that, well, they've probably done something to put themselves in harm's way?

We requested that the swabs be tested through our state laboratory, which is the New Mexico Department of Forensic Laboratory. It's in Santa Fe, and it's our state lab where we send all evidence. So they declined to process it because we did not have evidence of a crime. And that's something that they required. They required a criminal offense to process any DNA.

It's sort of a law enforcement catch-22.. No proof of a crime means no DNA testing.

But there was nothing obvious to those bags. That's something that happened to whoever was carrying those bags.

At this point, we don't have any clue whether there's a crime or there isn't. Even so, the department didn't submit that purse for testing until two years ago. That's eight years after Melanie had disappeared. Chief, are you confident that your department has done all it could? from the beginning?

I'll let my evidence lead me where I need to go, but I'll talk to whoever, anybody. This whole case revolves around people that know her or came across her. And at that point, I would hope that they would give me information.

People like that ex-boyfriend. The detective did look into his whereabouts at the time Melanie disappeared.

We could confirm that through our jail records, he wasn't incarcerated at the time in April. And even, I believe, most of the time in May, he was incarcerated.

So there's very little chance that he's involved in her disappearance.

Yes.

Melanie's ex pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in September 2014,, five months after her disappearance. Prosecutors dropped that other charge of false imprisonment. However, the detective has yet to interview him. And he says he can't rule out any potential suspects until he talks with them. He's also hoping to track down that friend.

I need this unknown black male to come forward and give me a statement. That way I can check his name off the list and then we can move on and not focus on him.

Melanie's family says they are pleased with the way Bedoni has handled the case so far, after years of feeling abandoned by law enforcement.

The detective that's working on the case just really gave us a lot more information than the other detectives have before. And it gives us a lot more hope, you know, that he's really doing something.

Melanie's mom, Leila, does not just hope her daughter is alive.

I do think she's still, well, I know she's still alive. You know, like, like a connection. I loved her before she was born and I loved her more after she was born. So, in my spirit, I think she's, I know she's alive.

Melissa is still clinging to that last moment she saw her sister.

Deep down, I know she's alive and I have to hold on to that hope, but I am human and I struggle with it every day and it just doesn't make sense. Throughout 10 years, there's no way that she, there's no way she would not call me. There's no way she would not stop by my house.

And Melissa has her own theories of where her sister might be.

I think she's either being held hostage or she's hiding. I know she knows how to survive out there. She's really smart. She knows which way to take, how to survive without a phone, without ID, without a lot of things. She knows how to take care of herself.

Leila has vowed that she will continue to advocate for missing and murdered Indigenous people, long after Melanie's case is solved.

I told everybody that I am not going to stop when Melanie's found, because I know what it feels like and what every family is going through right now because of their loved one is in the same situation as Melanie.

In March of 2024, the New Mexico Department of Justice set up a new website to serve as a hub for information, advocacy and support all related to cases of missing Indigenous people. There is also a database for reporting and searching for missing Indigenous persons. Melanie James is listed there.