Page 16 - Dan May News Today

Different and youre going to be proud of me again. then she bails two hours after shes home. >> the toll of michelles addiction on her younger sister camille is also evident in dans videos. as camille becomes a teenager, she no longer seems to want to acknowledge michelle or even have her around. >> we were always bumping heads. we werent as close because of the drugs. shed come over and steal my things or, you know, i would see how upset it would make my dad, so i would tell her, you know, mean...

Living that kind of life. >> definitely. definitely. it was not the way that her mother and i raised her. >> those were long nights filled with bitter sweet memories of michelle and the way she used to be before the drugs took over. and thoughts of rare moments together before she went missing. >> she came over to the house one day and i had given her a few dollars and she stood up. she said dad, im going to run. i said all right. and she said -- she went up to put her arms around me and i hugge...

Valdez fast and furious. by then dan and michelles mother were divorced and dan was raising michelle and camille alone while working days at the juvenile detention center. and nights and weekends playing steel guitar with his country band. dan tried to keep a watchful eye on his girls and even took them to work with him at the juvenile detention center to show where careless mistakes can lead. some of it seemed to take. some of it didnt. at 13 michelle became pregnant. >> i was devastated. what ...

Faith in your law enforcement. if you dont have faith in your law enforcement to treat everybody equal, then what do you have? >> what you have in dan valdezs case is a search you do yourself. as spring turned to summer that year, dan, his ex-wife and his daughters plastered fliers with michelle all over central avenue asking anyone who had seen her to call the albuquerque police department. at night dan drove through the war zone sometimes into the wee hours of the morning looking for michelle....

So i gave her the money. >> even though you knew -- >> even though i knew that it could be going for drugs. it was my gateway to making contact with her and seeing her in person. >> dan may have had the patience of jobe, but by 2004 camille, the tagalong little sister, had had enough. when michelle asked dan if she could move back home for a while, camille put her foot down. >> he was going to let her stay with us. and i remember telling him no. if she comes and stays, im going to leave. i could...

Hitting the crack pipe. >> when did you notice things were gone wrong? im guessing you noticed before anybody else. >> i noticed when she started seeing one of her boyfriends, you know, he opened up the door for all the wrong things. >> like? >> the drugs. the drugs. definitely. >> dan knew about the drugs and twice got her to agree to enter rehab, but michelle never showed up. increasingly there were run-ins with the law. michelle had already been busted for receiving and transporting stolen pr...

Together, but michelle eventually dropped out of school. for a while she tried to support herself and angelica with a series of minimum wage jobs, but couldnt make ends meet. after three years, angelica was sent to live with dans mother who lived nearby and michelle took to living with a series of people she called friends. but 2002 the wear and tear is written all over her face. that september angelica celebrated her sixth birthday. michelle had just turned 20, a milestone that was not lost on ...

Cinnamon were stabbed and buried on the west mesa. >> do r did you know who that was? >> no. never heard of her. >> did you ask who she was? >> yeah. michelle had ran the streets and knew certain people and they had heard of her aunt. >> dan called detective ida lopez with the tip but she was unable to find the aunt or to pin down the source of the rumor. it was all just unverifiable street talk. the kind ida althoulopez had he before except for one tantalizing tidbit. cinnamon was a name on ida...

Michelle. then in july, 2005, about five months after dan had first reported michelle missing, he got a call from a detective who had only recently been assigned michelles case. a detective named ida lopez. >> i thought ida being a police officer was awfully small. shes a short lady. but other than that, it had seemed that she was on the up and up and that she was doing what she could in her power and the time that she had to go out and -- out to the streets. >> it would become a close working r...

Birth to a baby girl she named angelica. >> so you were being a father all over again. >> a father all over again. >> i was only eight years old and becoming an aunt. it was tough. but once, you know, we had that bond, me and angelica, it was nice. i enjoyed it. >> at 14 most kids rightfully think their best years are ahead of them. high school. college. career. that was not the track michelle d valdez was on. though dan continued to tape the usual family functions, michelles little girl angelic...