A man was arrested in the US for keeping about 20 skulls at home (5 photo)

Sometimes life is scarier than any horror movie.





There is a tiny town of Jala in the arid southeastern corner of New Mexico, with a population of just over 2,000 people. The Texas border is just a stone's throw away. Life there flows measuredly, and almost nothing happens.

But in May 2019, 43-year-old Angela McMains went missing. A respectable mother of 3 daughters and a loving wife. According to her sister, Chris Kelton, Ms. McMains' children were 18, 16, and 14 when she disappeared, leaving behind her wallet, phone, cigarettes, and diabetes medication. The entire town searched for her for years, but to no avail.



Angela McMains

And the incident would have been forgotten if a few weeks ago, a local resident had not given a man named Cecil Villanueva a ride to his half-collapsed home after a fire. The man talked nonsense the entire way, and after he got out of the car, the driver found a bone on the seat. Having decided to observe the strange character, he was horrified to discover that he had not entered the house, but had opened the door of a truck parked nearby and thrown a couple more bones out of the interior.



The driver's nerves gave out and he called the sheriff's office. A couple of days later, during subsequent searches of the house and the area, fragments of human bones were found, which, as the pathologist later confirmed, belonged to several people. Human skulls were also found in the house, not all of them were preserved in their original condition, some were broken. Preliminary estimates put the number at about 20.



That house.

Lee County Sheriff Cory Helton said the bones and skulls have been sent to a state lab for testing and potential identification, which could take up to a month. He said investigators don't know if the bones were ancient or if they could be connected to missing persons or homicides. It's also possible that Villanueva may have purchased the remains legally online.



Sheriff Helton also said investigators are looking into whether some of the skull fragments could be linked to McMains' disappearance. The undersheriff also said the Albuquerque Medical Investigator's Office is examining the bone fragments and working to reconstruct the skulls.

The owner of the home with the skulls has been detained and is currently in custody.