Neveah Janey Gallegos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On September 21, 2007, Denver Police received a 911 call from Neveah’s Miriam Gallegos. She claimed that her daughter had been kidnapped, having been snatched from her arms. She even gave a description of the supposed kidnapper and the car he was in, adding that he was the passenger and that she was unable to see the driver. Nevaeh’s mother gave police permission to enter her apartment in order for them to obtain a photograph of her daughter to aid them in their search. Once inside the apartment police noticed a "paper towel on the floor of the living room that had blood or some other type of bodily fluid on it".

 

Later that day Miriam Gallegos agreed to answer questions from police. She told them she had received a telephone call at work, the same day as she made the 911 call. The call was from her boyfriend who she named as Angel Montoya. He told her to come home but did not explain why. Miriam Gallegos left work and walked home. When she entered her apartment she discovered her daughter, Neveah, who was not breathing. She claimed she had tried to "put air into Neveah" but was unable to revive her. She informed the police that she and Montoya decided not to call an ambulance but instead opted to put the body of Neveah into a "white trash bag" which they then put inside a "black trash bag" and placed the bagged body of the little girl into a duffel bag. She claimed that she and Montoya left the building and he, with the duffel bag, went a different way. During the interview police showed Miriam Gallegos a photo of Montoya. She confirmed the photograph was of him. Neveah, dressed in red sweat pants, a red shirt with a cartoon character on it and pink tennis shoes, was found on September 24, 2007, three days after being reported missing, in a white plastic trash bag under a tree stump in a ravine. She was found about two miles from the couple's apartment. At the time cause of death was undetermined, though it was later determined to be asphyxiation.

 

Miriam Gallegos promised her mother she wouldn’t leave Neveah alone with her boyfriend. Gallegos knew that her boyfriend, Angel Ray Montoya, was a registered sex offender. She knew he was accused of choking and hitting another little boy in his care. She knew that days after Montoya gave her daughter a bath, Janet Gallegos rushed her three year old granddaughter to the hospital for vaginal bleeding. She knew. She promised. She left her daughter with him anyway.

 

Nine months before police found Neveah’s body, stuffed in a white trash bag, dumped in a gulch and covered with garbage, child protection workers for Denver County had closed an investigation into allegations of abuse of Neveah. Miriam Gallegos was in therapy and parenting classes. Inconclusive medical findings and an “inability to interview” Montoya, whose whereabouts were unknown led child protection workers to declare that allegations of sexual abuse were “unfounded.”  Investigators determined that there was a lack of evidence and insufficient probable cause to arrest Montoya.  

 

An autopsy report included three pages of traumatic injuries found on Neveah’s 30 pound body. The coroner could not determine which of them led to her death. Montoya was convicted of first degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Miriam Gallegos pleaded guilty to child abuse resulting in death and was sentenced to twelve years in prison.