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Forensic sketch revives cold case in Albuquerque death

Botched missing person report slowed search

By Maggie Shepard
Saturday, February 23, 2008

Tara Woodman, 18, identified as the skeleton found on the West Mesa in February 2005.

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Tara Woodman, 18, identified as the skeleton found on the West Mesa in February 2005.

Forensic artist's rendition of a skull found on the West Mesa in February 2005.

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Forensic artist's rendition of a skull found on the West Mesa in February 2005.

To help

Anyone with information about Tara Woodman's disappearance or death is asked to reach Albuquerque Police Detective Rich Lewis at 768-2404 or rlewis@cabq.gov.

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Much like her identity, the secret to Tara Woodman's death is out there, somewhere.

Detectives plan to find out who killed her, just as they located her name last week - about three years after Woodman's skeleton was discovered by hikers on Albuquerque's West Mesa.

Using her recovered skull, a Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department's forensic artist recreated a facsimile of the young woman's face.

And the skull reconstruction, the first of its kind in Albuquerque, broke the case open as an artist's sketch prompted a flood of tips from the Gallup area.

That's Tara Woodman, 18, the callers said.

Aspiring poet. Skilled athlete. Beloved cousin, daughter, niece, granddaughter and friend.

Fresh out of high school, Woodman had moved to Albuquerque from Sanders, Ariz., setting her own path away from the Navajo Reservation and her very large family there.

"Living on the reservation isn't an easy life by all means, but it wasn't difficult for her in a violent sense. She has a very loving family, and she loved them," said her uncle, Mark Forster, from his home in Sanders. "She wrote to family saying I will contact you, but don't contact me. She was starting her own life."

Still, when family stopped hearing from Woodman in the fall of 2004, they started looking for her. They eventually filed a missing persons report with Albuquerque police on Feb. 28, 2005.

The report said she'd last been living with Paul Eugene Perea, then 28. Woodman was Perea's girlfriend, though he was married at the time, according to court records.

Police have not named suspects in the case and would not comment on Perea.

Perea, now 32, is serving 14 years in prison for raping a 13-year-old girl in January 2005, the same month Woodman's skeleton was found.

He also served time at age 19 after he was convicted of beating his abusive father to death at an Albuquerque softball park.

All of this information would have surfaced if the missing person's supervisor investigating Woodman's missing persons report had taken the proper steps in her investigation, said police spokesman John Walsh.

But the supervisor didn't. She has since been assigned an additional detective to help with investigations.

Despite insistence from Woodman's family that something bad had happened to her and she had not just run away, the case was closed with notes saying the investigation revealed Woodman had moved to Arizona to live with her father and that the case was now out of APD's jurisdiction.

No call to verify this information was made to Arizona. The case was not out of APD's jurisdiction, Walsh said.

"We were asking for hope against hope," Forster said. "She was a very strong-willed young lady, very independent. We hoped she was out there, still missing."

While an open missing persons case wouldn't have saved Woodman's life, it might have answered the family's blind hope sooner.

APD cold case Detective Rich Lewis had already looked at Woodman as a possible match with the unidentified skeleton.

About a year ago, with the help of the FBI, Lewis had obtained a list of 3,000 participants in a marathon that was part of an American Indian health campaign called "Just Move It."

The distinctive phrase was on the shirt Woodman was wearing when she was killed, and it was the first clue Lewis turned to.

He located every person in the skeleton's suspected age group - age 15-23 - on the marathon list and either contacted them or tracked information on them.

Two teens on the list had been reported missing and later "found."

One was Tara Woodman, who according to the records, was living in Arizona with her father.

It was a discrepancy that delayed the investigation into Woodman's disappearance and possibly prevented a timely conclusion.

Despite the error, Lewis said in an interview that the investigation can be solved and a suspect brought to justice.

"I'm not closing my eyes to anything," Lewis said. "I feel positive about this case."

Woodman's family also isn't dwelling on the mistake or the time they've lost in knowing their "baby's" fate.

"We are so happy with the Albuquerque Police Department," Forster said. "Now we're trying to take care of Tara, and do what's best for Tara and her family."

That means helping detectives with details of Woodman's life so her killer can be found.

That means claiming her bones from the Office of the Medical Investigator, which helped in identifying her.

And that means giving her a proper burial, so she's no longer out there, somewhere.