The unsolved mystery of missing party girl ‘Cricket’ Coogler

A red shoe on the side of the road was the first clue to whatever happened to “Cricket” Coogler on March 31, 1949.

The pretty, spirited 18-year-old waitress vanished in the early morning during a wild night of bar hopping, shuffleboard, and booze.

Ovida was the girl’s real name, but she went by “Cricket.” The nickname, say some, was a nod to the clattering sounds of her high heels as she rushed down the streets of Las Cruces, New Mexico, wrote Paula Moore in her book on the case “Cricket in the Web.”

Others said it was because of her lively, unfiltered personality, size (about 5 feet tall and 100 pounds), or her tendency to be always on the move.

“Cricket was a lovely lass of loose morals,” was how Ruth Reynolds characterized her in a Daily News feature. “A barfly since 14,” noted Time Magazine, a girl often spotted at gatherings of political and law enforcement bigwigs, who were happy to supply her with liquor.

On April 4, a motorist found the red shoe along a highway 12 miles from Las Cruces.

No other hints of her whereabouts emerged until April 16, when four boys went rabbit hunting the day before Easter Sunday.

They found a decomposing female corpse half buried in sand and covered with mesquite. Her face was mutilated, and her ribs and collarbone were broken. All she had on was a skirt that was pulled over her head.

Oddly, no photos were taken of her corpse at the scene. Also, no autopsy was conducted by order of Dona Ana County Sheriff Alfonso Luchini Apodaca. Doctors guessed she might have been beaten, run over, or perhaps she jumped from a moving car. The coroner’s jury said the cause of death was “an unknown person or object.”

Sheriff Apodaca, a one-time prizefighter whose nickname was “Happy,” said the victim had been raped, but that was impossible to confirm because of the condition of the body.

Investigators turned their attention to the hours before she vanished, starting with the 3 p.m. end of her shift at the De Luxe Café.

Around 7 p.m., she was home and told her mother she was going on a date. Her mother knew this meant Cricket would probably not be home that evening.

Witnesses spotted Cricket drinking at several bars. Nightspot owners and bartenders started refusing to serve her any more alcohol.

Around midnight, she was at the Del Rio bar, still tossing back the booze. A regular was with her, trying to persuade the girl to switch from alcohol to caffeine.

Another man soon joined Cricket’s party — Jerry Nuzum, 25. Nuzum was a local celebrity, a university football star, born and raised in New Mexico. His nickname, “Bruiser,” came from his sports prowess.

After serving in the Navy during World War II, the burly athlete returned to Clovis briefly. Within two years, he was with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

During the off-season, Nuzum returned to New Mexico with his wife and two children. He was often seen drinking in bars with influential buddies, including Apodaca.

Several people saw Cricket and Nuzum together that night. But others later saw her in various nightspots talking with different men. Someone else saw her getting into a cream-colored car with three police officers. Then she vanished.

Nuzum became the focus of the investigation despite a confirmed alibi that he was home by 3 a.m. Apodaca arrested his friend, locked him up in secret, and threatened to charge him with murder if he tried to hire a lawyer.

An El Paso police reporter got through to Nuzum and published a story about the arrest. Then another man who had been imprisoned as a possible suspect — a black World War II veteran and construction worker, Wesley Byrd, 26 — said Apodaca and state police drove him into the desert and used torture to try to force a confession from him.

Less than two weeks later, the district attorney issued a statement clearing Nuzum. Both he and Byrd were released.

Enraged citizens, led by New Mexico college students, pushed for a grand jury probe into the botched investigation of the case.

The probe spread to other shady doings in Dona Ana county—including gambling and illegal liquor sales — resulting in 58 indictments. Then grand juries started popping up in different parts of New Mexico, taking aim at gambling and a slew of criminal activities.

Apodaca resigned, and some charges against him were dropped. But along with a deputy and state police officer, the sheriff was convicted of violating Byrd’s civil rights. All three men were sentenced to a year.

Cricket’s murder investigation was going cold until one year later when Las Cruces attorney Edwin L. Mechem ran for governor. “Who killed Cricket Coogler?” was a major plank in his platform and he vowed to solve the case. Despite scant evidence, Mechem targeted Nuzum.

At Nuzum’s trial for her murder, which started at the end of June 1951, prosecutors had little to present to the court.

“There is a complete lack of evidence to connect Nuzum with the death as charged,” said Judge Charles Fowler as he gave the defendant a directed verdict of acquittal. It never went to a jury.

Although cleared of the charges, the case tainted Nuzum’s life. Legal fees left him saddled with debt. He died in 1973.

Mechem won the election and served three additional two-year terms as governor despite failing to keep his first campaign promise.

Whoever killed Cricket Coogler remains a mystery.