
Jan. 21—Family members of Jose Orozco-Montijo said despite a massive search effort Monday, he still has not been found.
Orozco-Montijo, 80, was last seen Friday afternoon walking on a street near his home in Eldorado, where he lives with his daughter.
About 100 people had taken part in a search for Orozco-Montijo, including volunteers and search and rescue groups from around the state that used drones, dogs and horses. Search and rescue crews had also been deployed Saturday night to search.
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Orozco-Montijo, who moved to the area from Gómez Farías in Chihuahua, Mexico, in 2017, speaks Spanish and suffers from dementia, his family has said.
His granddaughter, Valeria Orozco, said Tuesday that family members felt like they had hit a “dead end” in their search, and they no longer believe her grandfather is in Eldorado. Some family members have begun to look for him in Santa Fe, she said.
In spite of the large coordinated effort Monday with dozens of volunteers, there have been no leads in the search for Orozco-Montijo, who had been missing for four days — including some of the coldest nights the area has seen this winter.
Search and rescue groups were not likely to return to continue the search, Orozco said, since the crews did not find any leads.
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Orozco and another woman who has helped to organize the search for her grandfather, Tangerine Bolen, said there are “gaps” in the public safety response to missing elderly people.
A Silver Alert was not issued by New Mexico State Police until Orozco called them and asked for such a notification, she said. Even so, Bolen and Orozco believe the state’s Silver Alerts should be distributed to people more urgently — perhaps as emergency text messages the same way Amber Alerts for missing children are issued.
“Nobody told us about any resources, and when I posted on [the social media site] NextDoor, that’s when a lot of people in the neighborhood were asking me if I had done a Silver Alert, if I had reached out to search and rescue,” Orozco said. “Mind you, I had never been in a situation like this before.”
Orozco-Montijo’s family members called the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office at 8:30 a.m. Saturday to report him missing, she said, but search and rescue crews were not deployed in Eldorado until about 12 hours later, losing time they believe could have been critical to finding him. The crews did not return Sunday, but they returned to search for about seven hours Monday.
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Orozco said her family members will continue to search, with the help of volunteers, in hopes of finding him.
She said a unique feature of her grandfather’s is his eyes are different colors. Orozco-Montijo cannot see out of his left eye, which appears as light blue while his right eye is brown, she said.
“I feel like that is important information, because you’re just not going to see a lot of people with only one working eye,” she said.
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