Documents / FOIA release
This FBI file section compiles New Mexico State Police reports by Officer Gabe Valdez on 1978 cattle mutilations at Manuel Gomez's ranch near Dulce, a Los Alamos laboratory letter calling tissue findings inconclusive, and a December 1978 letter from Senator Harrison Schmitt asking the Justice Department to reopen an investigation. It also includes a Justice Department request that the FBI investigate 15 mutilations on Indian lands, and a report on an April 1979 Albuquerque conference that recommended central coordination of mutilation data.
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If the Albuquerque FBI Office is expected to broaden its examination of the cattle mutilation, additional manpower would be necessary. The scope of the cattle mutilation problem in the United States is vast and coordination of expected future investigation would be so broad that the manpower currently assigned to the Albuquerque Office could not cope with the problem. At the present time, the number of additional Agents necessary for such an investigation could not be estimated by the Albuquerque FBI Office. Reairtel authorized the Albuquerque FBI to investigate the mutilations of 15 animals which have reportedly occurred on Indian lands within the State of New Mexico. Further investigation of these mutilations is an impossibility because of the fact that the carcasses of the animals have been destroyed The only purpose which could be served in making inquiry about these matters would be to compile a record of what investigators have determined in the past. It is expected this would be an extremely limited record because those who have looked into such cattle mutilations have done so without any jurisdictional authority and their records are expected to be very brief, if any at all were kept. The Albuquerque FBI Office feels that if an investigative unit is approved and an LEAA Grant is given to the Office of the District Attorney in Santa Fe, New Mexico, this approach to the solution would probably be the best in the absence of full FBI jurisdiction. Such an investigative unit would have jurisdiction over investigation of the cattle mutilations and authority to prosecute persons responsible for the mutilations if they are identified. The FBI could cooperate with this unit by furnishing data available to it for assistance in its investigation. The Albuquerque FBI feels that if the grant is given to the District Attorney's Office in Santa Fe, coordination of investigative efforts could be handled appropriately. During the afternoon session of the conference attended by law enforcement officials, it was concluded by U.S. Attorney THOMPSON that a decision would be made whether the FBI, the New Mexico State Police, or the special unit attached to the Santa Fe District Attorney's Office would be the coordinating agency for the investigation of the cattle mutilations. U.S. Attorney THOMPSON said a decision would be made within two weeks which of these three agencies would be so designated depending upon approval from FBIHQ, the New Mexico
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FOIA release, from the fbi-vault collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 27 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.