By Kevin Hendricks, The Paper.
A Placitas family finally knows what happened to their mother after 30 years of wondering — and it wasn’t the story her husband told for three decades.
The Sandoval County Sheriff’s Office announced Wednesday that DNA testing has conclusively identified skeletal remains found in May as those of Ann Lombard Taylor, closing a missing person case filed in May 1996. Detective Donald Chewning said the remains surfaced when the current owners of Taylor’s former home on Perdiz Canyon Road were excavating for property improvements — turning up a body wrapped in a blanket and tarp, buried roughly 2 1/2 feet down. Genealogy testing using DNA from Taylor’s eldest son, Tyler Anderson, confirmed the identification.
A husband’s story, and 30 years of searching
When Taylor vanished in 1996, her husband, James Anthony Taylor, told investigators the couple had fought and she’d fled, leaving behind their four young children. He and the children left for Iowa soon after. Chewning said the couple had a documented history of domestic violence. No evidence of foul play turned up in the home or yard at the time.
That wasn’t the end of it. In 2002, during a domestic violence incident with his second wife, James Taylor threatened to kill her “like Ann, and no one would find her body,” according to the sheriff’s office. That wife later told detectives about the threat. In 2009, former SCSO Detective Adam Crosby reinterviewed James Taylor, who initially suggested he’d help recover the remains — then lawyered up. Searches of the property’s septic tank and, later, an orchard where James Taylor reportedly told his children Ann had hanged herself, both came back empty.
In 2011, the Sandoval County District Attorney declined to issue an arrest warrant, citing insufficient physical evidence despite naming James Taylor the sole suspect. He died of a cardiac event in Iowa in 2019 — never charged, and taking whatever else he knew with him.
A son’s long wait
Tyler Anderson, Taylor’s eldest son, was 14 when his mother disappeared and was separated from his younger siblings into foster care shortly after. He said the outcome didn’t surprise him. “I knew my mother, and the idea of her just disappearing and no one ever hearing from her again didn’t really fit well with who she was,” Anderson said during Wednesday’s briefing, joining by video. Now a therapist specializing in domestic and sexual violence survivors, Anderson said he hopes the closure might eventually help him reconnect with siblings he’s been estranged from for years.
Chewning, who took over the cold case in 2024, said he’d spoken with Anderson just months before the remains were discovered. With no charges possible, the sheriff’s office says the case is now closed. Sandoval County has agreed to assist with cremation costs so Taylor’s remains can be returned to her family.