It’s true of all the Molina women. “If it makes noise,” Ramona Molina explained. “I’ll dance to it.”
Ramona’s sister Maria Dolores Molina — or Lola, as she liked to be called — was no exception. Ramona says one of her earliest memories is watching Lola work out and dance to the Bee Gees’ ‘Stayin’ Alive.’ “[That song] takes me back to that time,” she told Dateline. “Lola loved music.”
In 1983, 17-year-old Lola was involved in the ROTC program at her high school. Ramona says Lola had dreams of one day joining the U.S. Navy. “She was tiny. She was five feet,” Ramona said. “When she, like, practiced with her rifle or carried that flag — phew, you would think she was a six-foot-tall giant, you know? She did it with so much pride, you know? She loved it. Like, she — that was her passion.”
Ramona’s memories of Lola are fleeting, momentary flashes, but vivid nonetheless. “There are just a few [memories],” she told Dateline. “But every single one of them that I remember is her smiling.”
Ramona was less than two weeks shy of her 10th birthday when she caught the last glimpse of her sister’s smile.
It was August 13, 1983.
Ramona and her four other siblings were playing inside their San Miguel, New Mexico home when their mother called them and told them to come outside to say goodbye to Lola, who was headed to a friend’s quinceañera in the nearby town of Berino. “My sister sat in the backseat and she turned around, you know, and waved at us ‘bye’ through the back windshield,” Ramona recalled.
It was an unremarkable moment — only made memorable by the fact that Lola never came home.
It was unlike the teen to stay the night somewhere without telling her mother, who immediately began to worry.
Ramona says the family spent the next day, August 14, driving to Lola’s friends’ houses asking if anybody knew where she was. “Nobody seemed to know,” she said.
As the Molina family drove around, they passed by the railroad tracks off of Highway 478 in Vado, New Mexico — a couple of miles from Berino. “There was ambulances, sheriff’s cars, and a slew of vehicles,” Ramona recalled. “[My mom] told my tía, like, you know, ‘Stop. I think my daughter’s there — I think she needs my help.’”
Ramona’s aunt comforted told her that Lola was likely waiting for them at home by then, so they headed back.
Lola was not at home.
Ramona remembers that once they got home, she and her two brothers began playing outside, while her mother and aunt sat in the kitchen waiting for Lola. Then, suddenly, their lives changed.
“We hear a scream and it’s my mom,” Ramona told Dateline. “So I ran inside. And I remember her being picked up from the floor. My younger sister Cristina, she’s underneath the table, you know, holding one of [Lola’s] pictures. So we’re like, ‘What’s going on?’”
Officers had come to the house to deliver the news. “To inform my mom that, you know, they had found my sister — my sister’s body, you know, by the railroad tracks, which is where we passed through,” Ramona told Dateline. “And of course, my mom, you know, lost it.”
The family couldn’t imagine how Lola wound up dead at the train tracks the morning after the party. “She kind of — supposedly — fell off the face of the earth,” Ramona said.
According to Ramona, Lola’s autopsy report lists head injuries “mainly in the back of her head” and “a gash on her forehead,” though the cause of death was listed as “undetermined.” Over the years, Ramona has come to believe her sister was murdered.
Dateline spoke with Kim Stewart, the current sheriff of Doña Ana County who says that Lola’s death is “not classified right now as a homicide.” She would not comment on Lola’s injuries or the cause of death.
Sheriff Stewart says her office was provided a report earlier this year from an expert in railroad vs. pedestrian crashes that led them to take another look at Lola’s case. She assigned a new detective, who ultimately came to the conclusion that Lola’s death was not a homicide.
“For about two months, [the investigator] has been looking not only at the former work done by cold case investigators at Doña Ana Sheriff, but also re-interviewing some of the individuals” from the original investigation, the sheriff said. “His opinion, which I concur with, is that this was a tragedy — of either an accident or a suicide, and not at the hands of another perpetrator.”
Ramona told Dateline that in 2021 she obtained a copy of her sister’s case file from 2003 which classifies Lola’s death as a “full murder case.” Sheriff Stewart doesn’t deny the existence of that specific file, but says she has no personal knowledge of it — and describes the classification of the case as a murder investigation as “almost an anecdotal title.” “I have no idea what that sheriff was basing it on,” she said. “As far as I know, it was just word of mouth.”
According to Ramona, a previous investigator in Lola’s case told her in 2011 that he had sent physical evidence out for testing in Colorado. Sheriff Stewart says the department recently learned about the evidence being sent for testing. However, “unless it was through the Department of Justice or someone like that, I would be kind of skeptical of who they were and why they were [testing physical evidence],” she said. “I think we are still looking to find out, though, who that person is — or company is — and where is the report? Because, at this point, I don’t believe we have the report.”
Sheriff Stewart says that prior to her arrival in 2019, the department had been “firmly entrenched in the ‘80s” in how it operated and very few policies, procedures or protocols were in place at the time of Lola’s death. “I think we put a lot of stock in this — presuming that this was an agency functioning at a very high level [prior to 2019],” she said. “It wasn’t. I’ve looked at other cold cases for Doña Ana Sheriff and I can tell you right now, they’re all over the map. Because their deputies weren’t sufficiently trained — there was a host of reasons.”
Ramona Molina expressed frustration and disappointment with the way the Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Office has handled her sister’s case over the past 41 years, alleging they mishandled the investigation.
“[Ramona’s] concerns, or her allegations, or her conclusions — I’m not making a judgment, wrong or right. I am telling you that this was a department stuck in the past when I walked in the door [in 2019],” Sheriff Stewart said, in response. “I also recognize our blemishes. I am not afraid to say we can do better. We should do better — by not only the victims, but their families and friends.”
Sheriff Stewart says that while Lola’s death is not currently classified as a homicide, new information could change the course of the investigation. “Things are changing — things are constantly ongoing,” she said. “Today, I’m gonna remain, you know, interested to have a detective continue to do some work on this. Is it going to be a homicide today? No.”
Ramona remains convinced Lola met with foul play — and plans to continue pushing for answers and justice. “I dream of one day, you know, like, finally saying, you know, like, ‘My sister’s case was finally solved,’” she told Dateline. “You know, ‘I’m finally able to give her the justice she truly deserves.’”
Lola and her mother, who passed in 2015, are buried in the same plot in San Miguel. Ramona says she often prays to both of them for the strength to keep pushing for justice in Lola’s case. “I had promised my mom,” she said. “I don’t wanna fail her no more.”
Anyone with information about Maria “Lola” Dolores Molina’s death is asked to contact the Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Office at 575-525-1911 and ask for Detective Robert Nevarez.
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