{"id":51887,"date":"2020-08-27T12:55:41","date_gmt":"2020-08-27T18:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/abandoned-car-found-under-massive-pile-of-logs-owner-missing\/"},"modified":"2020-08-27T18:55:41","modified_gmt":"2020-08-27T18:55:41","slug":"abandoned-car-found-under-massive-pile-of-logs-owner-missing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/abandoned-car-found-under-massive-pile-of-logs-owner-missing\/","title":{"rendered":"Abandoned car found under massive pile of logs, owner missing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Authorities
Authorities say a car was found under a massive pile of debris earlier this month north of Pagosa Springs, and its owner has been missing.<\/span>Courtesy of Mineral County Sheriff\u2019s Office<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A mysterious situation is unfolding after an abandoned car was found buried under a massive pile of logs and debris on a mountain road outside Pagosa Springs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very strange,\u201d said Mineral County Sheriff Fred Hosselkus. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing about this that makes any sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hosselkus said a passerby spotted a part of the car, a silver 2014 Toyota Camry, sticking out through the debris pile on Aug. 13 and reported it to law enforcement.<\/p>\n

The car was located up West Fork Road (Forest Service Road 648), about 15 miles north of Pagosa Springs, but located in Mineral County, right before U.S. Highway 160 starts to climb Wolf Creek Pass.<\/p>\n

Investigators talked to neighbors, but nobody had seen anything unusual in the past few days and weeks. A host at a nearby campground said the car couldn\u2019t have been there more than 10 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t sound like it was there that long under the debris,\u201d Hosselkus said.<\/p>\n

\"Mineral
Mineral County Sheriff Fred Hosselkus said he believes heavy equipment was used to bury a car north of Pagosa Springs.<\/span>Courtesy of Mineral County Sheriff\u2019s Office<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

To make matters more unusual, Hosselkus said he believes heavy machinery was used to bury the car.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just crazy that could be done, and no one could see it,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s just weird to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nothing was found inside the car to help investigators determine what might have happened. Hosselkus said the vehicle, which is in good working order, is in the Sheriff\u2019s Office\u2019s possession.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the car still had its New Mexico license plates, so authorities were able to easily identify the owner as Gabriel Max Baldonado of Albuquerque, who is in his early 40s.<\/p>\n

But in the days since, authorities have been unable to locate Baldonado.<\/p>\n

Hosselkus said investigators were able to reach his family, but Baldonado has been estranged from his family and they haven\u2019t talked to him in years and didn\u2019t know his whereabouts.<\/p>\n

\"Authorities
Authorities believe a car that was buried and abandoned north of Pagosa Springs was there for about a week before being discovered Aug. 13.<\/span>Courtesy of Mineral County Sheriff\u2019s Office<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Mineral County Sheriff\u2019s Office is now working with law enforcement in New Mexico to help track down any recent bank, credit card or cellphone activity.<\/p>\n

And on Friday, authorities will scour the area with dogs in search of a body.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everything\u2019s on the table right now, and foul play is always an option, as weird as this is,\u201d Hosselkus said. \u201cMost people don\u2019t just go out and bury their car.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anyone with information is asked to call the Sheriff\u2019s Office at (719) 658-2600.<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"A
A passerby spotted a part of a car sticking out of a massive debris pile in a remote location north of Pagosa Springs and reported it Aug. 13 to law enforcement.<\/span>Courtesy of Mineral County Sheriff\u2019s Office<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Authorities
Authorities have possession of a car found buried and abandoned north of Pagosa Springs.<\/span>Courtesy of Mineral County Sheriff\u2019s Office<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Authorities will conduct search of area Friday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[168,28,138,310],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-51887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-crime","tag-headlines","tag-new-mexico","tag-pagosa-springs"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51887"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=51887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}