- Dawn is a bright, sparkly star.
She just had such a bright personality.
[Faith] Dawn Sandoval found her storybook romance.
- They fell in love, they got married,
they had twins.
It was everything she always wanted.
- But then Dawn found out that Mike was cheating on her.
- She was angry.
Dawn filed for divorce.
[Faith] When that chapter closes,
Dawn opens her heart again.
- She had registered on some dating websites.
- I remember telling her, "Be careful."
[Faith] And in her search for true love...
[Faith] Dawn goes missing.
- I just had this terrible feeling.
- Reveals...
[Faith] A killer relationship.
[dramatic music]
Forty-six-year-old Dawn Sandoval never gives up on love.
And as a mother of four boys, and a friend to many,
she has plenty of love to give.
But when it comes to romance,
she seems to give more than she gets.
Still, after two failed marriages,
she's willing to try again.
And hopes that one of the men she's recently met online
might be the one.
Then, on April 16th, 2018,
Dawn vanishes,
and is never seen again.
[gentle music]
- Dawn grew up in Las Vegas, New Mexico
on the west side of town.
It was, like, a poor neighborhood.
- She had a strong personality.
I tend to be more timid.
Usually, she was the one that nudged me along,
you know. [giggles]
- Dawn was an absolute, positive person.
She loved to have fun,
and she loved to be with her friends.
[Faith] Dawn's love of life draws everyone into her orbit,
including 18-year-old Rick Trujillo,
the older brother of one of Dawn's girlfriends.
Dawn is just 16,
but she falls head-over-heels in love.
- Rick Trujillo is the first love of her life.
She was giddy,
excited about the relationship,
very happy.
Shortly after we graduated from West Las Vegas High School,
Rick and Dawn are married.
Rick joins the National Guard.
[Faith] In the summer of 1990,
the young and newly-married couple learns
that Dawn is pregnant.
But Rick misses the birth
because he's deployed overseas to Operation Desert Storm.
He returns in 1991.
And over the next four years,
Dawn and Rick have two more sons.
- Baby Rick was born, then baby Kevin,
and then she had baby Jonathan.
And then, things did get very difficult for both of them.
Baby Jonathan was 10 months old when he was found
stuck between the mattress and the railing of the crib.
I just remember there being no words.
- Statistics tell us
that only 16% of marriages end
after the death of a child.
But there's no question
such a tragic event is devastating for any parent,
and challenging for any couple.
Feelings of guilt, sadness,
anger, and even blame
can consume the relationship and create a divide.
It's no different for Dawn and Rick.
- It took a toll on both of them when they lost the baby.
But she knew she still had her other two boys
that she needed to be there for and take care of.
- After Jonathan passed,
it drove a huge wedge between her and Rick.
Things were not in a good space.
- Things did get very difficult for both of them.
Dawn is just holding everything together.
Rick, on the other hand,
was having a more difficult time.
He was still dealing with going to Desert Storm,
and then losing his baby.
Although Dawn wanted to be there for Rick,
I think she knew that moving forward without him
was better for her and her family.
[Faith] In 1996, after five years of marriage,
Dawn divorces Rick.
They share custody of the boys.
But at 25, Dawn is virtually on her own
with two little kids to raise.
- So, at this time,
Dawn is still working very hard, taking care of her family.
She wanted to become a nurse.
And was talking about starting to take classes.
[upbeat music]
But we went out a few times, had tons of fun,
just to get away from our young,
very responsible-filled life.
[Faith] In the summer of 1999,
three years after her divorce from Rick,
a close friend of Dawn's decides
it's time for her to get back in the game.
And she's got the perfect person for Dawn...
an electrician named Mike Encinias.
- Mike Encinias is also from Las Vegas, New Mexico.
He is three years younger than us.
She loved his eyes.
I think that was the main thing
that attracted her to Mike was his eyes.
- Mike was definitely smitten with her,
definitely.
Mike was a hard worker just as she was.
She liked that stability.
[Lisa] That was one of the things that attracted
her to him,
that he would be a very strong role model for her boys.
[Faith] Dawn feels she's found her perfect match.
And in September of 2000, wedding bells ring.
Dawn and Mike tie the knot
nearly a year after their first date.
- It seemed like Dawn finally was getting what she deserved,
a good man for her kids,
a good man for her.
It was like a perfect relationship.
[Faith] But what would be more perfect
is a baby to complete the family.
Mike always wanted a biological child of his own,
but never had the chance.
And after undergoing two rounds of in vitro fertilization,
Dawn and Mike are blessed with twins,
Dylan and Donovan.
- Mike was Mr. Mom.
He'd be cooking and cleaning all day,
taking care of the kids.
- They were a partnership.
It was just everything I think she always wanted.
[Faith] Mike is every bit the doting dad.
Unfortunately,
he's not the best husband.
Nine years into the marriage,
which seems to be built on such solid ground,
the foundation starts to crack,
and Dawn's world starts to crumble.
- Dawn found out that Mike was cheating on her in 2009.
She did have an inkling that something was going on.
Just somehow she knew things weren't right,
things were different.
- Mike admitted to having the affair.
Dawn was angry when she found out.
He begged her,
promised it would never happen again.
- She trusted him,
and never thought he would do something like this to her.
She was devastated,
but yet willing to work on it
because she didn't want to be that single mother again.
[Faith] In 2010, hoping a fresh start in a new city
will repair and rejuvenate their relationship,
Dawn and Rick moved to Rio Rancho, New Mexico,
where Dawn works as a licensed private nurse,
and Mike as an electrician.
- Part of the reason was
the fantasy of what they had in the beginning.
But that was gone.
I don't think it ever got better.
I never saw her truly happy again.
[Faith] The pain for Mike's infidelity may be in the past,
but just before Christmas in 2017,
the wound is re-opened.
Seven years after Mike promised to remain faithful,
he breaks that promise once again.
- On her 46th birthday,
Mike informed Dawn that he was having an affair
with a lady named Stephanie...
and he was moving out of the house.
- Mike met Stephanie at the casino.
She was a lot younger than him.
I believe, 24.
He was 44.
Mike moves in with Stephanie at that point.
Dawn filed for divorce
and was divorced within, what, three months.
- Her two older boys were already moved out of the house.
The twins were 12 years old.
- When their divorce was final,
it was like a weight had been lifted off of her,
and she could just now have a life.
She was going out,
she was having fun,
she was dating,
she was single.
[upbeat music]
- She was really, really working hard
to find a new identity.
She looked great.
[Faith] Dawn may have been unlucky in love twice,
but she's a hopeless romantic and an eternal optimist.
She decides to take another gamble on happily ever after
and rolls the dice.
- She had registered on some dating websites.
We would tell her,
"You better be careful when you go on these dates.
You don't know who you're gonna meet up with."
- She met a guy named Billy
who she was pretty smitten with.
But I remember telling her, "Be careful.
Always tell somebody who you're with and where you're at,
and always be in a public place."
[phone dialing]
[Faith] The last time anyone heard from Dawn
was Sunday night, April 15th.
- That Monday, the 16th,
I call her.
I get no answer.
I message her.
No response, and I just had this terrible feeling.
- Dawn was nowhere to be found.
[dramatic music]
- This isn't the normal missing person case.
Something was wrong.
- Everybody was a suspect.
One was a man named Billy,
and there was a guy, Anthony.
- They're looking everywhere for your friend's body.
[eerie music]
- It's been 24 hours since Dawn Sandoval simply
disappeared.
And her sons haven't heard a word from her,
which they say is completely out of character
for their beloved mother.
Fearing the worst, they call their Aunt Anita,
who immediately calls law enforcement.
[Faith] Detective Aaron Brown
and his partner Jacqueline Reedy,
arrive at Dawn's home at 9:30 PM.
- Anita Sandoval, Dawn's sister, tells the officers that
Dawn had not been seen all of Monday.
This is late Monday night.
- I called her boss.
Her boss reported that she
didn't show up to her job on Monday morning.
They reached out to multiple friends.
There was no signs of ultimate disturbance in the house.
But Dawn's sheet and mattress topper were missing.
They're not in the house.
This was not normal.
[Faith] The detectives question Dawn's family members
including her sons, Ricky, Dylan, and Donovan.
[Faith] The twins tell detectives
they spent a rare weekend together
with their mom and dad,
even though the two had recently divorced.
- Dawn and Michael were gonna start trying
to work on their relationship,
trying to get back together.
- On Sunday, they all meet up after the baseball game
And they go to dinner
and they ultimately all returned back to the house.
- The last that they saw,
Michael and Dawn went to Dawn's room
about 10:00 or 10:30 that night.
[mysterious music]
Monday morning, the boys wake up,
they don't see mom or dad,
and they go to school.
- Dawn was independent.
She instilled that in the boys,
so it wouldn't have been unlikely for them to
get up on their own, and then make their way to school.
[Faith] When the boys get home from school that afternoon,
they notice Dawn's two cars haven't been moved.
- One car was in the driveway, one was in the garage.
This was not normal.
[Faith] And inside the house,
they see her cell phone is still next to her bed charging.
- According to the boys,
she never went anywhere without her phone.
So, the phone was a big problem.
[Faith] Detective Brown questions Dawn's sister to see
if anyone has seen or spoken to Mike, her recent ex.
- Michael's truck was missing.
The boys had initially thought
that Michael and Dawn might have left in his truck.
- Mike basically told her
he had left the house Sunday night
and everything was fine.
[Faith] Next, detectives asked to examine Dawn's phone,
hoping someone in the family might know the password.
- Donovan, he actually had the unlock pattern for it,
so he opened Dawn's phone for me.
There was texts from friends, there was missed phone calls.
[Faith] The most recent text messages are from Mike
at 12:29 AM and at 7:30 AM,
which don't appear to be anything unusual,
but they do paint a picture.
It looks like Dawn and Mike have
at least emotionally reconnected.
- Mike was saying stuff to the effect,
"I hope we can work on things."
Following up on
what appeared to be something that happened Sunday,
maybe a conversation.
There was also the text messages
from two people that Dawn has been dating
that she had met on a dating website.
One was a man named Billy.
- He was a captain with the County Sheriff's Department
up in Española.
It's about 80 miles from Albuquerque.
And there was a guy, Anthony.
They met on match.com a couple months prior.
Dawn and Anthony had communicated
over text on Sunday.
- Detectives are anxious to question each of the men.
But with Dawn missing,
and in possible danger,
the first priority is finding her.
Investigators issue a BOLO for Dawn,
then head straight to the person who last texted her,
her ex-husband, Mike Encinias.
- I called him at about 1:30.
It was now Tuesday morning.
And he came down to the station,
and we asked him why, leading up to that weekend,
there was an obvious change in their relationship.
- And then, Sunday night,
she tells him, "I think it'd be a good idea if you left,
slept at your house tonight
We need to take things slow."
- Mike says he agreed.
He says he left the house,
and went back to his house that night.
[Faith] For two hours,
Mike answers every one of the detective's questions.
He also readily allows them
to search his truck
and swab it for touch DNA.
- And he allowed us to follow him back to his house,
and document and search his house.
He handed his phone over.
I told him I would get it back to him as soon as possible.
[Faith] At this point, it's been 28 hours
since anyone has reportedly seen Dawn.
And on the surface,
her ex-husband, Mike, is certainly cooperating.
But what, if anything, lies beneath?
Was he angry that Dawn told him to leave the house?
Did he know that Dawn was dating other men?
And as for those other men,
did any of them have a motive
to abduct and possibly harm Dawn?
At this stage, detectives have more questions than answers.
But the clock is ticking.
In a missing person's case.
the first 48 hours is critical to the investigation.
After that,
the likelihood of finding someone alive
greatly diminishes.
[suspenseful music]
- Dawn Sandoval has simply vanished.
And evidence at the house shows she left in a hurry.
Her two cars, purse, and cell phone are still there,
yet her wallet and car keys are gone.
But would a mom of four boys,
two of them just 13 and living at home,
walk away, and leave them on their own?
Family and friends say no.
- I looked into Dawn's bank account
Past a certain time on Sunday,
there was no activity on any of her accounts.
- A lot of people were starting to get really worried.
We didn't know what was happening.
This was so uncharacteristic of her.
- It was very hard for the family.
I remember Dawn's mom telling me the boys were in shock.
- We checked Dawn and Michael's neighborhood for cameras.
Everything was in play.
Even family members were in play.
Nobody could be ruled out at this point whatsoever.
[Faith] This case is a classic whodunit.
The detectives looking at every man
who's had a significant or recent relationship with Dawn.
There's her first husband, Rick Trujillo,
who detectives learned died many years ago.
That leaves Mike Encinias,
an ex-husband who cheated twice,
but seems to be back in Dawn's life.
And two men that she met on dating sites,
Billy and Anthony,
whom she texted with just before her disappearance.
One of these men likely knows where Dawn is,
and what's happened to her.
But which one?
- The criminal investigation on Mr. Encinias showed
that there was no reports of domestic violence.
There was no reason
to believe there was motive for any nefarious act.
- So, we looked into Billy,
the Sheriff that she had been dating.
Just because Billy was also in law enforcement,
we can't treat him any differently than
anybody else we talked to.
- We asked Billy, "When was the last time you saw Dawn?
When was the last time you communicated with Dawn?"
- Billy hadn't seen Dawn in about a week.
[Faith] Detective Brown asked Billy
for an alibi for the night of Sunday, April 15th
into the morning of the 16th.
- He was reportedly up north.
No reports that he was down here
in Rio Rancho or Albuquerque.
- She had wanted to start dating him more exclusively.
And I think he didn't wanna move that fast.
- Dawn was really infatuated with Billy.
I think that might have been a little disappointment to her.
- The conversation with Billy ended very cordial.
But knowing that there's somebody
with the ins and outs of law enforcement, well,
we had to be aware that he would have
better knowledge and better understanding
of how to elude us or cover it up for sure.
[Faith] While detectives can't rule out Billy entirely,
they next track down Anthony,
who would prove to be another disappointment
in Dawn's quest for love?
- Anthony and Dawn had only been dating for about a month.
Anthony was local,
so he came to the police station to meet us.
[Faith] Anthony says that Dawn also told him
she was reconciling with Mike.
- And Anthony told her, "Good luck to you,"
which was supported and substantiated by her text.
- Anthony says that
even though Dawn may be looking to reconcile with Mike,
she still holds animosity
toward Mike's girlfriend, Stephanie.
He then provides information
that will change the course of the investigation.
On April 11th, just four days before Dawn disappears,
Dawn has Stephanie arrested.
[Faith] When detectives follow up with Dawn's friends,
they paint a picture of escalating tension
between the ex-wife and the current girlfriend.
- Stephanie was threatening Dawn,
making verbal threats, and leaving really nasty messages.
So, when Dawn found out Stephanie was smoking pot
while driving her children around, Dylan and Donovan,
that angered Dawn quite a bit.
- She told the police that
her sons are in a vehicle on their way to school
being driven by Stephanie who is smoking marijuana.
[dramatic music]
[Faith] Officers pull Stephanie over
and arrest her for driving under the influence.
She also has outstanding misdemeanor warrants
and is thrown in jail.
- When we found out that Stephanie had gone to jail,
basically, because of Dawn,
of course Stephanie's gonna be pissed now.
We're looking at a retaliation aspect.
[dramatic music]
- As the police investigation
into Dawn Sandoval's disappearance
enters its third day,
her family is fraught with worry.
And investigators fear the chances of finding Dawn alive
at this point are slim.
With several suspects still on the table,
detectives aren't sure yet
who would've had the motive to harm Dawn.
Then a new suspect comes into focus,
Stephanie Baca,
Dawn's ex-husband's current girlfriend.
It turns out, Dawn is behind Stephanie's recent arrest.
- Of course, Stephanie's gonna be upset that
she just went to jail because of her boyfriend's ex-wife.
[Faith] Detectives Brown and Reedy make a beeline
to the Sandoval County Detention Center
to question Stephanie.
But they're struck by how cool and collected she is.
- Stephanie's attitude towards Dawn being missing was,
this was a game to her,
that she was doing this to get back at Michael.
[Faith] It looks like Michael has found himself
in a love triangle while Stephanie is behind bars.
Could Stephanie have caught wind of his reconciliation with Dawn?
And was she angry enough to do something about it?
- At the time that Mike started coming back into Dawn's life,
Stephanie was in jail.
And Dawn was a little confused.
A part of her wanted to try and work things out with Mike,
and a part of her didn't know what to do.
- I think that he was maybe testing the waters to see,
"Well, if I do leave Stephanie,
will I be able to come back to Dawn?"
- We looked into the possibility
that Stephanie communicated with anybody
to set up Dawn or to plan some harm to Dawn.
[Faith] The detective subpoenaed
Stephanie's recorded phone calls from jail
to hear if she might have been plotting
with someone else to get revenge.
Meanwhile, Dawn's friends and family
refused to sit and wait.
They searched tirelessly for Dawn inside the city and out.
[dramatic music]
- We had a big search party.
We had volunteers,
over 100 people out on four-wheelers.
- It was kind of surreal.
Part of you is hoping you find her.
And the other part is
praying to God you don't find anything.
- Dawn's kids were out there looking
for any kind of evidence that could help.
- A friend of mine called Mike,
and said, "You know, we're doing a search for Dawn,
are you going?"
He says, "No."
He says, "They don't want me there."
So, he went to the casino.
[Faith] The large group continues
to scour the New Mexico desert in a frantic search for Dawn.
Then, on Thursday, April 19th,
detectives obtained Stephanie's recorded phone calls
from the detention center.
- The one interesting phone call
that we heard from Stephanie
was when she called Michael.
- We hear on the phone call
that Michael's telling Stephanie,
"Hey, the cops have my phone.
They're mirroring it.
Don't call my personal phone, call my work phone."
He didn't tell us anything about a work phone initially.
When we learned about this, it was a huge red flag,
because he was potentially
hiding some type of communication.
- Up until now, Mike has gone out of his way
to present himself as helpful and cooperative.
But I can tell you this,
once the police catch someone being deceptive,
it's a surefire way
to get them to show up where you don't want them,
like at your job site,
with a judge's order.
- The search of his work phone
never ultimately ended up proving anything.
I made the decision based on the search warrant
to go through and manually search Michael's personal phone.
I was able to find Michael's location settings.
And remembering Michael's initial interview,
he said that he left Dawn's house
about midnight on April 15th,
and that he thinks he got home about 12:30 AM.
And that is when he sent her the text.
"Dawn, I had a great time with you.
I hope we can work things out.
I love you."
But the text message was actually sent
before he left Dawn's house.
[Faith] What's more, the location data shows
that Mike didn't go directly home
as he told detectives in his initial interview.
- At 12:40 AM that morning,
Michael's truck was seen at the local Giant gas station.
He walks into the gas station,
gets $10 worth of gas, and buys a Monster energy drink.
He pays in cash.
People drink energy drinks all the time.
But we were all thinking,
"This is 12:45 in the morning, what are you--
why are you buying an energy drink?"
So, we looked at the surveillance
from his neighborhood,
and we see on the footage
at eight minutes after he goes home from the gas station,
he comes straight back down that same route,
and leaves his neighborhood.
[Faith] Mike's truck isn't seen again
by the surveillance camera until 2:51 AM,
almost two hours after he left.
Yet, according to the GPS data on Mike's cell phone,
he never left home.
- His phone is home,
but his truck and he are out.
Obviously, we have to talk to Michael,
and confirm him.
- We go back through the night,
Sunday into Monday morning.
And again, I asked him what time he left.
And it was the same answer.
- He said he was definitely home when he sent the text.
- Everything else was mildly the same statement
until I challenged him
with the surveillance video from his neighborhood.
[Faith] The video shows Mike coming home,
and then eight minutes later,
leaving again.
Why?
- He told us he just went for a drive,
because he didn't wanna be home alone.
The area where he drives to is the end of the city,
literally, you drop off into a culvert.
So, he says he smoked marijuana, and he fell asleep.
We asked him why he went out there,
and what he was doing while he was out there.
- He says, "I just wanted to be alone,"
which was an absolute complete opposite of,
"I didn't want to be at home alone."
That was a big deal.
These were major inconsistencies.
- On the 21st of April, Rio Rancho,
in conjunction with other law enforcement agencies,
conducted a search
in the area where Mr. Encinias had reported going.
When you do an area search like this,
you're not looking specifically for remains,
you're looking for evidence.
- The only thing that was collected was a Monster can,
which was the same drink that he had bought
back on the Monday morning.
And we ultimately submitted it for DNA.
[Faith] Now convinced Mike Encinias is responsible
for Dawn's disappearance,
Rio Rancho PD puts him under around-the-clock surveillance,
while also increasing the size of the search party.
But nearly two weeks goes by
without uncovering any clues to Dawn's whereabouts,
removing any remaining hope for Dawn's friends and family
that she may be alive.
- There is no way that she would've been
gone for two weeks
and not had any contact,
especially with her boys.
In our hearts, we all knew that she was gone.
[Faith] Each week without Dawn
becomes more and more agonizing for her family and friends.
Now, they just want answers however horrible they may be.
And then, on the evening of May 5th, 2018,
a call comes into the Sandoval County Communication Center.
[phone ringing]
[dramatic music]
- This is a different type of evil
that we had never seen before.
- It was very heartbreaking.
My friend was gone.
[phone ringing]
[suspenseful music]
[sirens wiling]
- I received a request from our field deputies
to respond to an area of West Rio Rancho
with a report of a possible deceased person.
- An individual had been riding his motorcycle in the area.
He had had a large bird fly up from the ground,
which startled him.
He was curious and turned around,
and found the right arm sticking out of the ground.
- Once we determined what we had,
we preserve the scene,
and make arrangements to come out the next day.
- What law enforcement has is an arm.
And on that arm, looks like a sleeve of tattoos.
But further identification
will have to wait until daylight.
[dramatic music]
- The next day, we begin processing the entire area.
- We verified that the tattoo in the outside of the forearm
matched the location, the color,
and the design that Dawn Sandoval had.
We also learned that there was evidence
of a fire on the body.
- Once she was extracted,
we found the keys and the wallet under her remains.
At that point, there was no reason
to believe it was anything other than homicide.
- That same day, May 6th,
I've notified Dawn's mom, Lorraine.
That was pretty rough, because for the past three weeks,
we had developed a good working relationship
with all the family.
- My friend was gone.
Her boys weren't gonna have her anymore.
Her mom wasn't gonna have her anymore.
It was very heartbreaking.
[Tom] We got the call that they had found the body.
And we just broke down.
Our focus then turned to who did it
and why.
- Who and why.
While it appears Mike killed his ex-wife,
appearances don't win jury trials,
evidence does.
The Rio Rancho Police Department
has strong circumstantial evidence,
which can be enough to convict.
But it's DNA, and a clear motive
that gives prosecutors a more certain path to conviction.
- We had enough probable cause
to seize Michael's truck for a better search.
And we also executed warrants for his DNA and fingerprints,
as well as warrant on his house.
On May 6th, we arrived back at Michael's house.
He's living life as normal.
He re-established his relationship with Stephanie,
who was in jail for maybe a little over a week.
We didn't tell him we had discovered Dawn's body.
I told him we had more warrants.
[Faith] Police tow his truck, and drive Mike,
who says he sprained a knee,
to the police station.
- I told him we had made a discovery of Dawn's body.
And showed him a picture of the overall site.
- His reaction was taking deep breaths.
There was never an overt emotional response,
like, he didn't cry.
[Faith] Mike tells Detective Brown
he wants to talk to a lawyer
before making any more statements.
So the interview stops.
And as the detectives collect Mike's DNA and fingerprints,
New Mexico State Police search his truck
using the chemical agent luminol.
- In the backseat of his truck
was a very small, nickel stain
that illuminated with the reagent to blood.
The first time we searched Michael's truck,
we didn't have reason
to use all these tools and resources,
because the stain
wasn't visible just from the naked eye.
The fabric in his truck was real dark.
So, the area was cut out, collected,
and sent to the state crime lab for analysis.
[suspenseful music]
There was concern, especially from the family,
that Michael was gonna take off,
that he would flee the area.
We had undercover units making sure he was still around.
- People would send us pictures of him
at the casino with Steph,
or at the state fair with her and her kids.
I don't understand
how you could still be out living your life.
[Faith] More than six months
after Dawn's body is recovered,
and after being unable to get any DNA
off the aluminum Monster can found in the desert,
DNA results from the blood stain
in the back of Mike's truck
come back from the lab.
- When we got the DNA results back
with the positive match to Dawn's profile,
then we presented the case to the grand jury,
the grand jury returned the indictment.
And we were able to get an arrest warrant.
[dramatic music]
- On November 15th, 2018,
nearly seven months after Dawn Sandoval disappears,
a grand jury hands down an indictment
of second degree murder and tampering with evidence
against Mike Encinias.
- When they came out that he was indicted,
Lorraine, her mom just started crying.
We just celebrated.
[Faith] Mike pleads not guilty.
But police develop a theory about what he did.
- That night at Dawn's house,
Mike was attempting to push their relationship back
to what he had before.
And she rebuffed him, and something snapped.
- We believe she was suffocated.
And that's based on the pillows that were next to her bed,
the lack of sounds of violence in the house.
And it was definitely a crime of passion.
- I think in the moment that he killed Dawn,
he was thinking of the hurt and pain,
in his perspective, that she had caused him.
And once it was over, there was no reset button.
She was dead.
- After he kills Dawn, he wraps her up in the bed sheets.
Then he remakes the bed,
puts the comforter and the top sheet back on,
takes her down,
puts her in his truck.
And that's when I believe
he sent the text from her driveway,
creating himself an alibi.
Then he goes home to leave his phone,
so that he knows he can't be traced
while he goes out and disposes of her body.
Throws her out of the truck,
sets her on fire,
and goes home.
[eerie music]
It's one thing for someone to take somebody's life.
But to go to the extreme to set that person on fire,
that was a different type of evil
that we had never seen before.
- All the evidence in Dawn's murder points directly to Mike,
removing all suspicion from Stephanie
and the two men Dawn had most recently been dating,
Billy and Anthony.
In August, 2019, after a jury trial,
Mike Encinias is found guilty
of murder in the second degree.
Since there is no evidence
that Mike had planned to kill Dawn,
his actions are ruled
to have happened in the heat of the moment.
A crime of passion,
that carries a lesser sentence in the state of New Mexico.
Mike will spend the next 18 years in prison.
[gentle music]
- The best way to remember Dawn
is to think of a bright, sparkly star.
She just had such a bright personality,
a strong personality.
- She was my other half.
We had matching tattoos.
I have one side the ying, and she had the yang,
because we balanced each other out.
[somber music]
- The world lost a great person.
We all miss her so much.
Her laugh.
I can't get that out of my head.
- One of the most common questions I'm asked is,
"Why would someone go back to an abusive relationship?"
Or, "How could I have stopped them from going back?"
Dawn was so loving and had a beautiful heart.
She may have wanted to make it work with Mike.
And no one can blame her or themselves for being hopeful.
If you're watching this,
and you yourself are experiencing emotional
or physical violence
within an intimate relationship,
I'm here to tell you that you're not alone.
There is help out there.
[somber music]