# The Becca Jane Doe Case Has Been SOLVED (Becca Mallekoote) | 189

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 18 Mar 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO6093403254.mp3

Find out how the Becca Jane Doe case was solved, and how Becca Mallekoote got her name back. Episode 189 of the true crime podcast btw. 👇 Youtube links: Lazy Chill History Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillHistory Lazy Chill Zone Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillZone 👇 Support My Work: 🛍️ Merch: https://lazy-chill-zone-shop.fourthwall.com ❤️ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lazychillzone 👇Social Media Links: https://www.instagram.com/lazychillzone/ 👇 Podcast links: ⚡History Video Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/7km5pLWpYWEj1mrPpEfRUr?si=0FHYnZf-Qs2FY1GyLevfig ⚡True Crime Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/0klIz08pAr7wR4we0Ia4sk?si=68qZxCeAQkysXzMZrHE0Iw 🍏 True Crime Podcast on Apple 🍎: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lazy-chill-true-crime/id1815534472 Becca Jane Doe, Becca Doe case, unidentified woman case, Jane Doe mystery, true crime unsolved, cold case investigation, missing identity case, unidentified victim, forensic investigation, DNA identification case, unsolved death mystery, true crime podcast, chilling mysteries, unidentified remains, crime storytelling, unsolved crimes podcast, mysterious death case, forensic files style, cold case files, crime documentary audio, dark true crime, real life mysteries, unsolved case analysis, human remains identification, investigative storytelling, haunting true crime, long form mystery podcast, crime history case, unknown victim story, true crime deep dive

## Transcript

[0:00] For 35 years, she was known only by a first name and a borrowed
[0:05] label, the Becca Jane Doe. That's what investigators in
[0:10] Albuquerque, NM, eventually called the young woman found
[0:14] deceased in a motel room in June of 1991.
[0:18] They found her body hanging from a shower head by a suitcase
[0:21] strap. Her identity a complete mystery.
[0:25] She had no identification of any kind, but what she did have
[0:29] would spark the interest of both the authorities and much later,
[0:33] the Internet as a whole. She had a photo booth picture
[0:37] showing her alive beside an unidentified man, $500 in cash,
[0:42] a digital scale with a stranger's name on it, and a
[0:45] suitcase full of clothing. For over 3 decades, those items
[0:49] were the sum total of what anyone knew about her.
[0:52] Then on March 5th, 2026, what would have been her 53rd
[0:57] birthday, the Albuquerque Police Department announced that the
[1:01] Becca Jane Doe had a real name. She was Becca Malacoot, born in
[1:07] Tacoma, WA in 1973, and she was 18 years old when she died.
[1:14] This is the story of how her name was lost and how after more
[1:18] than three decades, it was finally found.
[1:23] But now that Becca has her name back, there's still more
[1:26] questions than answers in her case.
[1:29] On the evening of June 3rd, 1991, a man named Eduardo Collin
[1:34] walked into the Super 8 Motel at 2500 University Blvd.
[1:39] NE in Albuquerque and rented Room 233.
[1:43] He paid in cash, registered for two guests, and listed
[1:47] legitimate personal information on the registration slip, with
[1:50] one exception, a false license plate number.
[1:54] Collin was described as a local car mechanic.
[1:57] He was expected to check out by 11 the following morning, but he
[2:01] didn't. By June 5th, motel staff
[2:05] realized no one had vacated the room and a security guard was
[2:09] sent to investigate. The door was dead bolted from
[2:12] the inside and the windows were locked.
[2:16] The guard used a screwdriver to force his way in.
[2:19] The room didn't look alarming at first.
[2:22] Alcohol bottles sat on the table alongside a purse, a pocketbook,
[2:26] A suitcase, and a photograph. But when the guard stepped into
[2:30] the bathroom, he found a young woman with curly strawberry
[2:34] blonde hair hanging from the metal shower head.
[2:38] She'd been dead for approximately 2 days, her body
[2:41] already decomposing in the dry Albuquerque heat.
[2:45] The air conditioning in the room hadn't been turned on, which
[2:49] accelerated the process significantly.
[2:53] The medical examiner ruled that she had done it herself while
[2:56] under the influence of heroin. Minor abrasions on her face and
[3:00] leg had already begun healing before she passed, suggesting
[3:05] that these weren't related to any sort of recent attack.
[3:09] The room showed no signs of a struggle, no blood and no
[3:13] disruption to suggest anything other than a solitary act.
[3:18] Investigators catalogued the scene carefully.
[3:21] The woman stood about 5 feet 7 and weighed roughly 140 lbs.
[3:26] She had Hazel or Gray eyes and wore a multi colored tie dye
[3:30] tank top from a brand called Trends, white denim Guess jeans
[3:34] with zippers near the ankles and a wide metal bracelet.
[3:39] Her belongings included a dark blue suede purse, a Gray woven
[3:44] pocketbook, the $500 in cash and a digital scale bearing the
[3:50] handwritten name George Martinez.
[3:54] The now famous photograph appeared to have been taken in a
[3:57] mall photo booth. It showed the woman making a
[4:00] face at the camera beside a young Hispanic man who offered a
[4:04] slight smile. Motel staff identified the man
[4:08] as Eduardo Collin, the person who'd rented the room.
[4:12] But when police finally located Collins family several years
[4:16] later, they learned he'd already died of natural causes or
[4:20] perhaps an overdose. But then things got even more
[4:23] unusual. His relatives confirmed the
[4:26] handwriting on the registration slip was his, but stated that
[4:30] the man in the photograph wasn't Eduardo.
[4:33] Unfortunately, they had no idea who the woman was either, or
[4:37] whether Eduardo had any meaningful connection to these
[4:40] two individuals. The motel clerk had only seen
[4:45] Colin briefly at check in and couldn't recall with certainty
[4:49] whether a woman had been with him, making the earlier
[4:53] identification unreliable. The name George Martinez on the
[4:58] digital scale unsurprisingly LED absolutely nowhere.
[5:03] It's an extraordinarily common name in New Mexico, and the
[5:06] scale was the type commonly used for weighing substances.
[5:11] There was no evidence linking any particular person by that
[5:14] name to the case. Some theorized the name might
[5:17] have been a street alias scrawled on the scale by a
[5:20] dealer, while others believed it had nothing to do with Becca's
[5:24] death at all. Compounding the mystery, by the
[5:27] time a new detective was eventually assigned to the case,
[5:31] much of the original physical evidence had been destroyed.
[5:35] The detective believed the case could have been solved far
[5:38] earlier if those materials had survived.
[5:42] Instead, the woman remained nameless.
[5:45] At least 16 missing women were ruled out as potential matches
[5:49] over the years, and the case went cold.
[5:54] The case sat dormant for decades, but never entirely
[5:57] disappeared from public consciousness, largely due to
[6:00] the haunting circumstances in the photograph.
[6:03] Amateur true crime buffs kept the story circulating, debating
[6:09] whether the death was truly self-inflicted or not and
[6:12] speculating about who this woman might have been.
[6:16] These intrepid investigators would end up filing extensive
[6:19] records requests for the case. Podcasts and YouTube videos
[6:23] flourished discussing her case. And if you're a longtime viewer,
[6:28] you may remember that I covered this case back in the hazy days
[6:31] of 2024. This sustained public attention
[6:35] may well have played a role in what happened next, though
[6:38] clearly I can't say that for certain without confirmation
[6:41] from detectives. In March of 2021, investigators
[6:47] announced a significant break. The man in the photograph had
[6:51] been identified and had come forward anonymously.
[6:55] He told police the woman's first name was likely Becca or
[6:58] Rebecca, and that she was possibly from the Reseda or
[7:02] Sylmar areas of Los Angeles County, California.
[7:06] He said she'd flown to Albuquerque from Los Angeles or
[7:09] Burbank shortly before her death.
[7:12] The nameless Jane Doe suddenly had a first name and a probable
[7:16] city of origin. Investigators began referring to
[7:20] her publicly as Becca Doe in official communications and
[7:23] appeals for information, but a first name and rough geography
[7:28] weren't enough to make an identification, and he was
[7:30] generally unsure of details about her.
[7:35] The genetic angle would ultimately solve Becca's case,
[7:38] an angle that got off to a rocky start in the second decade of
[7:42] the investigation. In 2009, the New Mexico Office
[7:47] of the Medical Investigator had submitted A genetic sample to
[7:51] the CADDIS system, but no matches were found.
[7:55] The system relies on a limited number of genetic markers, and
[7:59] without a family member already in the database, there's no
[8:02] chance of a hit. The comparison, unfortunately,
[8:05] couldn't bridge the gap between this anonymous young woman and
[8:09] anyone who might have been looking for her.
[8:12] What changed everything was investigative genetic genealogy,
[8:16] a relatively new forensic discipline.
[8:19] Unlike COTIS, this approach uses whole genome sequencing to
[8:23] compare DNA against publicly available genealogy databases.
[8:29] It's a far more powerful tool, capable of identifying distant
[8:32] relatives and building family trees that narrow down a
[8:35] subject's identity. It's also extremely expensive,
[8:39] which is precisely why many smaller law enforcement agencies
[8:43] have been unable to pursue it on their own.
[8:47] In December of 2025, an investigator contacted the
[8:51] Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center at Ramapo College of New
[8:55] Jersey. Founded in late 2022, the center
[9:00] was the first of its kind in the nation, offering pro bono
[9:04] casework, research, and hands on education in the discipline.
[9:09] It had already resolved numerous cold cases across the country,
[9:13] identifying individuals whose remains had gone unnamed for
[9:17] years or even decades. Critically, Ramapo performed the
[9:22] work entirely free of charge, removing the financial barrier
[9:26] that had stalled many agencies. But of course, being a free
[9:29] service and there being 10s of thousands of Doe cases in
[9:32] America, the demand is exceptional.
[9:36] But Becca's case had become so widely known and talked about
[9:40] that her case was able to be fast tracked.
[9:43] While genetic genealogy used to take years of painstaking manual
[9:47] research, modern technology has now changed the game.
[9:51] And the results came remarkably fast.
[9:55] By January of 2026, the investigation had produced leads
[9:59] pointing to 1/2 brother and indirectly A stepfather living
[10:03] in California. The Feds worked alongside
[10:07] Albuquerque police to locate the stepfather in Ventura, CA.
[10:12] He confirmed he'd had a stepdaughter and that the last
[10:15] time he'd seen her was in 1991 when she left the Los Angeles
[10:19] area. A Sergeant from the Ventura
[10:22] Police Department then located the half brother who agreed to
[10:26] provide a genetic sample. The comparison confirmed with
[10:30] 100% confidence that the mystery woman was his long lost half
[10:34] sister. On March 5th, 2026, the
[10:38] Albuquerque Police Department announced that Becca Doe was
[10:42] Becca Malacoot. Her family, after 35 years of
[10:46] silence, finally had an answer. With identification came
[10:51] context, though less than one might hope, and it turned out
[10:55] that Becca was living in Los Angeles at the time of her
[10:58] death. She'd been dating a man there
[11:00] and they'd taken that photo booth picture together.
[11:04] Although they broke up, they stayed friends.
[11:08] The man's brother-in-law, Eduardo Collin, developed
[11:11] feelings for Becca, a situation that could lead to some
[11:14] bitterness potentially. However, that doesn't seem to
[11:18] have been the case here given what allegedly happened next.
[11:22] With her ex boyfriend's knowledge, she made plans to fly
[11:25] to Albuquerque to meet Eduardo. Her ex dropped her off at Los
[11:29] Angeles International Airport. This fills in key structural
[11:33] gaps, since we now know Eduardo Cullen wasn't a random stranger.
[11:38] The man in the photograph was her ex-boyfriend, the same
[11:41] person who came forward in 2021 with the anonymous tip that
[11:45] ultimately cracked the case open.
[11:48] The photo was a keepsake from their relationship, carried
[11:52] across state lines and placed on a motel room table, perhaps the
[11:56] last thing she looked at before she died, but vast stretches of
[12:00] her life remain unknown. It doesn't appear she was ever
[12:04] reported missing, which is staggering for an 18 year old.
[12:09] Unconfirmed account suggests she may have aged out of the foster
[12:12] care system, which could explain why no family came looking for
[12:17] her. If true, it paints A devastating
[12:21] picture of a young woman moving through the world without anyone
[12:24] positioned to notice when she vanished.
[12:29] Becca Mallikut's identification answers the fundamental question
[12:32] of who she was, but it opens a cascade of others.
[12:37] Eduardo Collin remains an enigma.
[12:40] He rented the room, listed a false plate number and vanished.
[12:45] He never checked out and never came forward.
[12:48] Some have speculated he may not have known Becca died in 1991.
[12:54] Without the Internet or widespread media coverage, it's
[12:57] plausible he simply left and never learned what happened
[13:00] afterward. Others point to the false
[13:03] license plate as evidence he wanted to avoid being traced.
[13:07] The locked room has generally been taken as strong physical
[13:10] evidence that Becca was alone when she died, but the
[13:13] circumstantial questions linger. Nonetheless, the official ruling
[13:18] remains that she did it herself and the available physical
[13:22] evidence does support it. Personally, I think this is
[13:27] likely the end of the line on Becca's case and we are unlikely
[13:31] to ever know much more. Based on the strong evidence to
[13:34] indicate she was alone when she perished.
[13:37] I don't believe there was any foul play here.
[13:41] If the foster home story is true, Becca's case is yet
[13:44] another case all too common of someone who just slipped through
[13:48] the cracks in the transition to adulthood.

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