Anybody who has spent any time in Albuquerque’s Bosque knows how relaxing it can be. Known officially as Rio Grande Valley State Park, the 4,300-acre park is a unique environment that’s a home to various species of trees, birds, turtles, snakes, and beavers. The Paseo del Bosque Trail within the park is a popular feature. It stretches 16 miles in length along the east side of the river. It’s a great environment for hiking, biking, or horseback riding.
In short, it’s an outdoorsman’s paradise, a getaway from the hustle and bustle of the city, a place where friends and family can experience nature and get a little exercise out of it. It’s a place where you can get out and forget all the troubles of the world.
For one man, however, this trail was almost a grave. At about 8:30 am on Monday, May 1st, city cleanup crews in the area heard cries for help. What they found was a man screaming in pain, nailed to a tree.
“I’m scared, because… nobody believes me,” the unnamed man pleaded. He claimed that he was taken by gunpoint early that morning by people he couldn’t identify. Talking with KRQE News 13, the man walked reporters through his morning that day. At around 8 am, he walked on a path that lines the canal behind the BioPark Botanical Garden, carrying a folder full of documents relating to a real estate case.
It was when he made it about a quarter-mile up the road that the two gunmen made their move. Held at gunpoint, the man was instructed to follow them into the woods. “So they wouldn’t shoot me, I agreed.” They led him 50-100 feet off the trail and into the woods when they allegedly said that they were “going to make him disappear,” and pulled out a hammer.
You can guess what happens next.
The man then claimed that the gunmen “grabbed a nerve in his neck” and he “passed out.” This is also known as a “Vulcan nerve pinch.” Drifting in and out of consciousness, he asserted that the two men were spooked by someone off the trail and ran off. But not before burying the folder of documents the man had been carrying along the path.
This wasn’t a random attack, the man claimed. Nor was it drug-related. One might wonder, being located just outside of Albuquerque, if this was an action of the cartels. But according to Albuquerque Police, the victims of cartel violence are for likely to be severely tortured or murdered.
What the man claims this violence is about is an ugly real estate deal. A deal so ugly that he claimed he had been threatened multiple times before by the very same gunmen he couldn’t identify earlier.
Albuquerque Police are investigating the case, but they are wary of the man’s story, not ruling out the possibility that he could have done this to himself. KRQE News 13, whom the man gave a detailed account of the traumatic events, were unable to confirm any of the man’s claims. They could not find any criminal record, but they did find a lengthy court battle over real estate under the man’s name.
The man insists that this story is true. While showing KRQE News 13 the location of the attack, he found a stack of papers inside of a manila envelope buried in the leaves. “You think I’m lying? Right here is the truth.”