SANTA FE, N.M. — The murder mystery of a man who owned a ghost town near the New Mexico-Arizona line remains unsolved four months after he was found shot to death, and investigators say the case has stalled.
“We need help,” said Capt. Ryan Suggs of the New Mexico State Police. “We need to turn up a new lead.”
The body of Larry Link, 68, and a small-caliber revolver nearby were found by his son on June 7 just outside his property in Steins, a 5,000-person town that borders Arizona. Link and his wife Linda were the longtime owners of Steins Railroad Ghost Town.
Suggs told the Las Cruces Sun-News that the only people who have been ruled out in the killing are Link’s family members.
The death initially lit up the Internet with innuendo about border violence, creating a wave of speculation on blogs and comment boards that an illegal immigrant likely was to blame. The town is about 80 miles north of Mexico.
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State police Lt. Tim Johnson said those assertions had no substance and that investigators never had a suspect or a specific lead. He said the migrant claims died down after police made fact-based announcements about the investigation intended to squelch rumors.
Link’s daughter said she would find it hard to believe that her father died at the hands of an illegal immigrant.
“In my experience, they are the least threatening thing out here,” Pamela Link said of immigrants who cross illegally into Hidalgo County. “Everyone I’ve ever seen wanted one of three things: a drink of water, a sandwich or a ride to a big city.”
She said she also didn’t believe the motive was robbery because her father’s wallet was on the nightstand, and added that he had no enemies: “My father, he would have given anybody anything. There was no reason to shoot him.”
Link had worked as a butcher and in the grocery business in Arizona before he moved to New Mexico to start a rattlesnake farm. He raised the reptiles to sell their skin and meat before he bought Steins Railroad Ghost Town in 1988.
The ghost town — a tourist draw with an old West history — was Link’s family business for 20 years. He and his wife closed it in 2008, but his working life went on. For 18 years, he ran a 24-hour business in which he fumigated and cleansed citrus fruit of parasites to make sure it was in compliance with Arizona and California law.
Pamela Link said fumigation takes three-and-a-half hours and requires substantial paperwork. She said that she was sure her father did not have a customer at the time he was killed.
Link suffered from insomnia, so his nights were fractured into periods of sleeplessness. On the morning that his body was found, Link’s wife of 50 years saw him in his chair around 2:30 a.m., awake and restless. They blew each other a kiss for the last time.
Link must have ventured outside between then and 6 a.m. but it was unclear why. Once outside, he got about 200 yards from his house, Suggs said.
Pamela Link said that the family hoped for an arrest and conviction, and offered a reward of up to $2,000 for information leading to his killer. She said that her father’s home used to be peaceful.
“Now it’s nothing but fear,” she said. “The only way to get through it every day is to breathe. We tell ourselves we have to breathe.”
