History

The two criminals who shot down Michael Carmen at his gas station in July, 1976, didn't realize that they would be responsible for a world-wide anti-crime movement that has resulted in the solution of more than 425,000 major crimes.

They didn't realize that as a result of their cold-blooded killing, more than 75,000 criminals would find themselves behind bars. Nor did they realize that their crime would become the model of two major television network shows. No, the two criminals who shot Michael Carmen at point-blank range with a .12-gauge shotgun did not realize that their crime would serve as the catalyst for the creation of Crime Stoppers.

Michael Carmen was a young University of New Mexico student who was working at a small gas station in Albuquerque's Northeast Height in July of 1976. He was only two weeks away from marrying his high school sweetheart. On the night he was killed, he was working an extra shift because one of his friends needed the night off.

On that fateful Friday night, two men robbed Michael's gas station and then — for no apparent reason — fired a shotgun blast from less than 10 feet into his abdomen.

Remarkably, Michael lived for more than four hours after the shooting. Several times he tried to tell detectives who shot him, but he didn't have the strength. He died on the operating table without being able to make a dying declaration.

Detective Greg MacAleese was one of the detectives working that case. The murder seemed so senseless at the time. It remains senseless today. Detective MacAleese told Michael's mother that he would bring Michael's killers to justice. And yet, after six weeks of trying to piece evidence together to solve the murder, they were no closer to a solution than they were the night he was killed.

Detective MacAleese believed there was an eyewitness to Michael's murder somewhere in the community. A reenactment of the crime, might trigger the memory of any eyewitnesses: someone who might have seen part of the crime committed, but did not understand what he or she was witnessing. But how to get the information out to the public? Detective MacAleese approached Max Sklower, then general manager of KOAT-TV in Albuquerque, and asked him if he could reenact the crime for one of his newscasts.