Bones Found in Santa Fe Could Solve 62-Year Cold Case

It's been 62 years since then-26-year-old Inez Garcia went missing—and investigators may finally have some new clues. In digging up the floor of a garage at the center of the case, detectives on Monday found bone fragments, some charred, and they're having them tested to see if they might have belonged to the mother of four, the Albuquerque Journal News reports. Detective Robert Garcia Jr. says he was fascinated by the case when it was mentioned by a colleague. "I thought, ‘Why not?’ Maybe I could bring a little closure."

Stories of Garcia's disappearance are mysterious and varied. A 1954 news article said she'd spent a drunken night "aloof from the crowd" at a bar; she then spoke to a stranger before disappearing. Other accounts held that she suddenly fled from her car on a night out with her husband. The husband, Juan Andres Jose Garcia, was a top suspect in the case and arrested several times, the Santa Fe New Mexican notes. He was, however, never tried. "There were lots of rumors that he buried her in the dirt floor" of the garage at the family's former home, says a police rep. "Nobody was allowed in here when he was alive." He's now deceased but remains a person of interest; the bones will next go to a Texas lab. Final results could be several months out. (Click to read about another recently opened cold case, this one from 1976.)