Naman Shrestha
In the episode titled ‘The Vanishing of Melanie James’ of the podcast ‘Dateline: Missing in America,’ the listeners get a detailed account of the years-long disappearance case of Melanie James. Last seen in the spring of 2014 in Farmington, New Mexico, by her sister, the 21-year-old woman vanished into thin air. Despite years and years of investigation by multiple detectives, Melanie is yet to be found. The podcast episode features her mother and sister, who express the impact it had on them and how they have kept their hopes alive.
Melanie James Went Missing Under Suspicious Circumstances
Born in the early 1990s, Melanie Marie James grew up in Farmington, New Mexico, in the supporting and loving company of her mother, Lela Mailman, and sister, Melissa James. Not only did she love to listen to Native American music, but she also loved dancing to its tunes with her sister. Unfortunately, when her teenage years came around, she began associating with the wrong crowd, which led to her getting arrested for burglary at the age of 18. She and her associates tried to break into a house to steal some jewelry. Having learned from it, she worked to get her life back on track after she was released from jail in November 2013.
At 21, Melanie was unemployed but looked forward to joining San Juan College and had been filling out job applications at the time. Given her love for animals, her mother and sister thought that she would opt to study something related to animals. In mid-April 2014, she had plans to meet with her mother, Lela, around 5 pm in the evening after the latter got off from work. While Lela waited for her daughter, hoping to catch up with her, she never showed up and did not even answer the phone when Lela called. There was no sign of Melanie for a couple of days until her sister, Melissa, spotted her with a man she didn’t recognize on April 20, 2014.
Melissa admitted that they spoke for a while in an empty parking lot of a church while Melanie talked about her plans to head to Albuquerque. Melissa noticed that her sister did not have her belongings, but she provided her with a phone number that Melissa wrote on her hand with a highlighter. Forgetting to jot it down on paper, she lost the number after she washed her hands. Reflecting on her short meeting with Melanie, she claimed that she did not seem scared or uncomfortable at all. That was the last day anyone ever saw her. So, when nobody closest to the 21-year-old woman could reach out to her, Lela and her loved ones began searching for her.
Police Pulled Out All Stops in Their Search For Melanie James
While Lela claimed that she reported Melanie James missing soon, the authorities said that the missing person report did not come in until a couple of months after she went missing, in June 2014. The police launched an extensive search for Melanie, but no significant developments were made until September 2014, when a former coworker of Lela claimed to have seen her at a Farmington Family Dollar. By the time her loved ones reached the site, she was nowhere to be seen. Fortunately, the manager of the store allowed them access to the security footage, and Lela claimed that a woman who had bought a single lollipop was “definitely” her daughter.
Finding it suspicious, her sister, Melissa, believed that she was trying to escape the clutches of a former boyfriend who was controlling. She claimed that he had been physically aggressive toward her at times. As a matter of fact, Melanie had filed a police report against him, and he was arrested for domestic aggravated assault and false imprisonment on March 17, 2014. But when the authorities learned that he was still incarcerated at the time Melanie went missing, they focused on the other leads at their hands — the male friend who was with Melanie when Melissa saw her on April 20.
Lela and Melissa Remain on the Lookout For Their Beloved Melanie
The case of Melanie’s vanishing saw no movements for several years until a new lead detective took up the case in January 2024. Upon revisiting the case, the investigators learned that on April 24, 2014, a duffel bag and two cell phones belonging to Melanie James were found in the area of Yucca Avenue and 20th Street in a Farmington alleyway. It turned out that in 2022, when the investigators wanted to test Melanie’s bag for DNA purposes, the state laboratory denied their request because they did not have evidence of a crime. On the other hand, the cell phone record led them to Brian, who claimed she left his place the previous night. Upon interviewing him again, he stuck to his story that “he was staying with family at a residence on 21st Street here in Farmington.”
Brian recalled that Melanie was intoxicated, and she was knocking on neighbors’ doors, and police were called.” He also added that he had gotten a call about a week later from Melanie, who was in Albuquerque, asking for some money to return to Farmington. Ten years into Melanie’s disappearance, her mother, Lela, continues to believe that she is alive. Meanwhile, her sister said in the episode, “I think she’s either being held hostage or she’s hiding. I know she knows how to survive out there. She’s really smart. She knows which way to take, how to survive without a phone, without I.D., without a lot of things. She knows how to take care of herself.”
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