The flames of white wax candles flickered in the dark just 20 minutes from the site where at least a dozen people were buried in a mass grave.
About 100 people held a candlelight vigil at Robinson Park on Saturday to honor the women whose bodies were found on the West Mesa.
The search for bodies, clues and answers continues on the dusty mesa where so far 12 bodies - 11 women and an unborn child - have been found at a patch of land near 118th Street and Dennis Chavez Road S.W.
The Albuquerque Police Department has used dental and medical records to identify seven of the victims: Monica Candelaria, Veronica Romero, Victoria Chavez, Cinnamon Elks, Julie Nieto, and Michelle Valdez and her unborn child.
All of the women found were in their 20s.
Daniel Valdez, father of Michelle, said that he and other family members of the victims plan to band together and pick up the investigation and search for evidence wherever the APD decides to leave off.
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"I don't want them to finish," Valdez said. "I want them to turn all of that area out until they find all of (the) 18, or as many females that have been reported missing."
APD spokeswoman Nadine Hamby said the department doesn't plan to wrap up the West Mesa investigation anytime soon.
There are 25 to 30 investigators at the site at all times looking for bones, Hamby said.
"There are just a ton of resources that are being utilized out there right now," she said. "Many of those bodies aren't intact. Just three days ago we found a toe bone, and that's the reason why we're not leaving that site. There are minor, little, tiny bone fragments, and we are still out there trying to recover those."
Lupe Lopez, a former deputy sheriff, said her sister, Beatrice Lopez Cubelos, went missing in 1989 after leaving a friend's apartment on Second Street. Cubelos said her sister could be buried out on the West Mesa. If her body is not recovered because it was buried away from the bones of the other bodies, then the APD will have conducted an incomplete search and investigation, Lopez said.
Valdez said he has the same concern for the other girls who were reported missing around 2004, the time period when most of the identified victims went missing.
Valdez said he has contacted other national organizations and news networks to bring more attention to the West Mesa investigation.
"I was able to contact 'America's Most Wanted,'" Valdez said. "They were at the house this week and out at the dig site, and I've been in communication with two or three more national programs, so I'm taking this bull by the horns and I'm not letting it loose until it's over."
Lopez said that she, Valdez, and other family members of the West Mesa victims are going to start soliciting the help of community volunteers and UNM students. Archaeology students, criminal law students, public relations students and anyone else who wants to help continue the investigation after APD has packed up its last shovel are welcome to join the movement, Lopez said.
Valdez said no stone should go unturned in the investigation and that APD should broaden the site to include the neighborhoods that sit on the precipice of the mass grave.
"A human being is a human being," Valdez said. "There's no subdivision in Albuquerque that's worth the life of a human being. All the houses out there - if they have to move them to dig underneath them, they should. That should be the priority - to locate, identify and find all of the women that went missing around that time period."
Hamby said family members should seek approval from property owners before spearheading their own investigation.
"Keep in mind that that is also private property," Hamby said. "KB Homes does own that property. It's not like once we vacate that, people are going to be allowed to be there. That's not going to happen."
Calls to KB Homes were not returned Sunday.
Lopez said that she plans to work within the frame of the state's laws. However, no amount of departmental red tape will prevent her from following up on the APD's investigation, she said.
"Nothing is impossible, and I intend to go forth with this because I am like this: If I start something, I end it. I finish it.. I don't get cold feet," she said.
