ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – In this episode of New Mexico Crime Files, KRQE Anchors Dean Staley and Jessica Garate sit down with Investigative Reporter Larry Barker to discuss his story from summer 2025 about an unsolved crime on its 90th anniversary. The Rio Grande Murders is a case from 1935, the first in the history of the New Mexico State Police, where four tourists disappeared and were murdered while stopping in Albuquerque on their road trip to California from East St. Louis.
Here, Larry takes Dean and Jessica behind the scenes of his investigation and the history of this mysterious case. Larry emphasizes how much research and time went into “finding the facts,” from photos to FBI files, for this investigative report. Today, not many people may know about the Rio Grande Murders, but decades prior, it helped define New Mexico as the true “wild west.”
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