The Las Cruces Bowling Alley Massacre

[Music] hey you and welcome my name is Micah in this old video we're gonna look at what happened thirty years ago a horrific unsolved crime in the city of Las Cruces New Mexico on a morning in early February 1990 two men broke into the Las Cruces Bowl seven people were shot part of the building was burned down and that's kind of all we know so what kind of seems to be maybe a robbery gone wrong well we're not exactly sure and not because there's a lot of unanswered questions in this case so let's look into it you and I yeah this will be a fun one you're entering a world of pain so what are we waiting for [Music] las cruces is a city in southern New Mexico the second largest after Albuquerque it spent 41 miles from the Mexican border today it has a population of just over 100,000 back in 1990 it was roughly half that era story takes place at 1201 East Amador Avenue located more or less in the center of town good old bowling alley on the morning of February 10 to 1990 it was a Saturday so busy day ahead 34 year old Stephanie Sanok arrived at the las cruces both to set up for the day she was the manager of the place and was also the daughter of the bowling alleys owner Ronald sanic coming in with Stephanie this morning was her 12 year old daughter Melissa repass as well as Melissa's friend 13 year old Amy Houser Melissa and Amy although they were quite young they would supervise the bowling alleys daycare center it was 8 a.m. stephanie was in the managers office getting documents ready for today checking her receipts from last night just preparing to open they opened at 9 a.m. on Melissa and Amy they were just hanging out with Stephanie Roman her in place hanging out in her office also in the building was Ida hauled when the cook she was there preparing the kitchen I'm getting snacks ready for the day bowling his hungry work you know that's just like your opinion man at around 8:15 a.m. Stephanie's brother Steve he popped by see he had been working there he also worked there and he'd been there the previous night and he left his backpack there so he just popped like let me get when he arrived to get his backpack he was surprised that the front doors were open Stephanie had left left the front door open and he actually said this to Stephanie as he was getting his stuff and when he was walking out he saw two Hispanic men walking towards the front of the building one of them carrying a briefcase and this is when the [ __ ] hits the fan at around 8:20 a.m. these two men stormed into Las Cruces both neither of them were wearing gloves or a mask they obviously didn't give a [ __ ] if they were recognized or not both of them were armed with handguns and the two men forced before women Stephanie Melissa a man into the manager's office the men would be described as being Hispanic with one appearing to be in his late twenties early thirties and the other in his late 40s early 50s one spoke English with a slight Spanish accent the other with no real accent at all they demanded the women to lie on the floor now they said they'd let him I'll go if they got what they were after which is weird because they didn't really give a [ __ ] about being seen I guess that's a hint that they weren't staying in Las Cruces for long the border was about an hour's drive away so to two lines he started looking around the office as if they were looking for something in particular and when it appeared that they couldn't find what they were looking for they then decided hey a safe looks all right let's get it Stephanie the manager was the only one would access to it she opened it for them and they took what's estimated to be between 4,000 and 5,000 dollars though interestingly they didn't take all the money that was in the safe it says it's as if via the robbery of the safe which you know we think you you would think would be the main thing was almost an afterthought yes they still couldn't find what they were looking for regardless the two guys they gathered up all the cash they were getting ready to haul us when something happened tree people walked through the front door Steve and Taryn the 26 year old mechanic at the bowling alley along with his daughter and stepdaughter 2 year-old Valerie and six-year-old Paula Steven had been unable to arrange any child care for the day and his wife was attending class so he decided to bring them in to work they had a daycare so I guess Melissa and Amy would have looked after them the gunman grappled with Steven and they eventually forced him and the two girls to the floor along with the four other women who were already there and then this is what happens the two gunmen fired 25 bullets at the people lying on the floor each person was shot multiple times including execution-style shots to the head they then gathered some papers put them on top of the managers desk set him on fire I guess hoping set the burned place to the ground I'm does a destroy destroy any evidence that they were ever there hey let's burn this place to the ground no one will know we were ever here thankfully they hadn't killed everyone [Music] it was 12 year old Melissa okay and I've got the police officers in around they'll be with you just shortly okay you didn't see what any of the men you didn't see what any kind of the men were wearing or anything nothing they just walked in black men never [ __ ] two black men okay okay okay it's okay they put you in the office yes I need a fire engine okay Melissa she said they locked them in the office she doesn't know if they're still there or not the doors open fire it's on Amador you [Applause] [Music] smell smoke the building on fire utility one okay Melissa we've got him coming huh we've got him coming okay Melissa there was a police officer there now okay yes he's gonna try and find you [Music] emergency services arrived at the Las Cruces Bowl in a bantam it and thanks to Melissa's actions and quick thinking herself Stephanie and Ida managed to survive but Amy Stephen and Paula were all pronounced dead at the scene and Valerie died shortly after she was rushed to hospital received a call reporting a fire and people heard the firefighters were quickly able to put out the fire but unfortunately much of well honey real evidence was destroyed the police immediately spread it they were acting fast they set up roadblocks and we're keeping a lookout for anybody suspicious I know Melissa described on that 9-1-1 call we heard as the two guys being black she she later said that they were Hispanic the police then coordinated with Border Patrol to help you know set up roadblocks not gonna stuff thought that they may be trying to escape down Old Mexico Way which is not too far from Las Cruces and the two guys were Hispanic and so as I said the scene crime scene didn't really give much of anything the two men were primarily in the managers office and after a fire combined with water from firefighters steer right there goes anything that could help you identify who the [ __ ] they where they did find one person nearby who claimed to have heard them gunshots and another who said they saw two men running from the bowling alley at about 8:30 when Melissa was calling 911 and of course Stephanie's brother Steve who saw the two men walking nearby and his description of the two men he saw would give the police their their sketches a short time later Steve was asked to come to a police roadblock where a van had been pulled over just outside Las Cruces but her witnesses led the police to believe the two men leg de in a van inside the van that Steven was asked to pop by two were four men who had thousands of dollars in cash on him Steve well he couldn't identify any of the man as being the ones he had seen earlier they were allowed to leave I would say that when the good men appeared they seemed startled by the number of people in the bowling alley eater they thought it might be empty or they certainly weren't expecting Steve and not his two daughters to walk in the door she was able to confirm Steve's descriptions and she actually told the police she had seen them a couple of times before at the bowling alley snooping around melissa ida and stephanie would all say it seemed like these two guys were looking for something more than whatever was in the safe that wasn't their target that just happened to be that there was something else in the bowling alley that they were there that morning to get and were I guess prepared to kill for it didn't seem like they found it though so rumors began to spread was this linked to organized crime cartels drugs and the police began looking into the owner of the bowling alley Ronald senic he had been in Tucson Arizona on a weekend golfing trip when the crime took place and yeah this he surprised everyone by reopening the bowling alley for business just one week later the blood of his daughter granddaughter and five other people probably wasn't even dry yet but run into financial problems later that year and sold the bowling alley mid court ordered auction the police would look into him again and again and again and again and again come up with jack-shit they didn't find anything nefarious about him that would link him to this robbery murder massacre in the following months to please also looked into Ronald's other child Stephanie's brother or Jay he was a bartender at the bowling alley and several tips have been received by police claiming that he was involved in some kind of drug activity and he did drug deals at the bowling alley police did look into this and discovered that he had a cocaine addiction they also discovered nothing else at least nothing linking him to what happened interestingly less than a month before the bowling alley massacre tourney two-year-old Salvador Lorenzo was murdered in a gas station he worked at in Las Cruces he opened the gas station at 8 a.m. and two customers found his lifeless body in the gas station's office our Antonia five hundred dollars were stolen and he was shot to death you shot in the head his case remains unsolved to this day but despite some possible similarities the police don't think it's related it's a frustrating case with very little to go on the fact that they were both there at 8:00 a.m. is it's interesting Stephanie senex brother Steve said it was unusual that the door was open giving the two suspects access it wasn't usually open that early and they didn't open until 9:00 a.m. I think this probably gives it more credence that it may have been some kind of inside job or that at least the two suspects knew someone who worked at the place if it was a simple robbery why didn't they break in during the night maybe it also had something to do with the backpack Steve took when he arrived that morning if so he's never said or if there is anything spicy in it that remains unknown he claimed he was on his way to class when he caught it but it's a weird coin key link that he grabbed it right before they showed up likely seconds before though then again they would have seen him walk out of the bowling alley with that backpack so you would think that if that's what they were after they would have just grabbed it then the story obviously did get a lot of coverage in local and some national news but that was it 20 years have come and gone but idaho jeans haunting memories linger every day it's still there I mean I think of it from when I wake up to when I go to see the Las Cruces bowling alley Massacre remains unsolved to this day who the two men where we don't know their motive remains unknown and where they went remains a mystery Stephanie cynic would pass away in 1999 due to complications from her shooting related injuries leaving Melissa and Ida the two remaining survivors as Cruces bowling alley shooting remains one of the worst crimes ever in our state's history the business has since been closed for over a year but officials are hopeful that the 30 year anniversary will bring new tips throughout the years our investigators receive calls periodically on this and we investigate there we still know that there's somebody out there we still have somebody in our community or in our state or in our region who has vital information that they can probably share with us but for whatever reason we believe they're holding back despite the ongoing investigation Martinez Teran tells us she's losing hope yeah I know that 30 years it makes it a whole piece but it's not cold it's not cool to my family Martina's Turan tells us if police were going to solve it they would have by now I would like to see it investigated more I you know it being close to the 30 years if he does get any calls or anything I'd like to see that's become priority well you know it was never an easy case to begin with if you remember the facts of the case there were several people shot in there and then the suspects started fire to the small office where the incident happened and so Las Cruces fire had to go in there and put out the fire first which covered up some of the evidence unfortunately and destroyed some of the evidence police say evidence is still being tested at the crime lab in Santa Fe and they believe that someone knows something that's why they're still offering a $25,000 reward for information you know there was a certain amount of cash that was stolen during the robbery and so somebody may have used that money for something somebody may have bought a new car may have done something with that cash and we need that information so we can connect the dots if you will Martinez Teran says regardless of the outcome she'll always remember her family hoping that someday she'll see justice just them living just them breathing just them being here herzman and then the way they died Steven was it was a good man and he was an officer and he didn't he didn't deserve that the police say they're still aggressively following leads and tips they're obviously not having much success no rest of the made and it's very similar to another case I'm going to cover the Austin yogurt shop murders a each progression images of the two suspects have been made which doesn't exactly give us a whole lot more they kind of just added a few wrinkles but it still remains uncracked let me know your thoughts on this frustrating case that gives us so little to go on a $25,000 reward remains for anyone who can identify either of the two guys responsible for what happened and it still remains to this day one of the worst unsolved mass shootings massacres in America thank you so so much for watching I really really appreciate it if you'd like to watch some more of my videos please work away and we'll see you as always real soon in the next video take care of yourselves Mike you [Music]

Channel: That Chapter

Views: 1,065,282

Rating: 4.9351807 out of 5

Keywords: that chapter, unsolved mystery, las cruces bowling alley massacre, las cruces new mexico, las cruces 911, stephanie senac, melissa repass, steven teran, amy houser

Id: yxQ92YSOdHI

Length: 18min 5sec (1085 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 07 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/phlrmrz]

That little girl on the phone with dispatchers was very difficult to listen to. You can tell she’s scared and in pain.

[u/Bozoso77]

I have to admit this is my favorite old channel on YouTube

[u/SeacattleMoohawks]

That little girl is a hero.

What a sad story, sucks the guys were never caught.

[u/SoupieLC]

I find it really fishy that the people that were supposed to be there that morning survived, but the people that just turned up didn't 🤷‍♂️ it's odd

[u/mamavesta1980]

Thank you again Mike. The guy who played in that asshole Charlie Minn's "film" said how much better yours were. Then at the vigil, EVERYONE did!