The gunmen entered through an unlocked door while the bowling alley was still closed to the public. One pulled a pistol on cook Ida Holguin in the kitchen and forced her into the manager's office, where Senac, Repass, and Houser were already being held at gunpoint by the second man. The robbers ordered everyone to lie on the floor while they emptied the safe, taking approximately $4,000 to $5,000. Then Steve Teran arrived. The 26-year-old pin mechanic had been unable to find a babysitter for his two daughters -- six-year-old Paula Holguin (no relation to Ida) and two-year-old Valerie Teran -- and planned to drop them at the bowling alley's day care before starting his shift. Instead, he walked into a robbery in progress. All seven people in that office were shot. The gunmen then set fire to a desk and left.

Melissia Repass, 12 years old, had been shot five times. But she was alive, and she could reach the office phone. Her call to 911 brought emergency services within minutes, saving her life along with her mother's and Ida Holguin's. But Steve Teran died at the scene, as did both of his daughters and young Amy Houser. Stephanie Senac survived her wounds initially but died in August 1999 from complications related to her injuries, bringing the final death toll to five. The crime scene was both brutal and puzzling: the robbers had taken less than $5,000, yet they had executed seven people, including toddlers. They had set a fire that failed to destroy evidence. And despite being seen by multiple witnesses before entering the bowling alley, they had vanished completely.

Las Cruces police set up ten roadblocks around the city within an hour of the shooting, screening everyone attempting to leave. The U.S. Customs Service, Army, and Border Patrol joined the search, sweeping the area with planes and helicopters. The Mexican border lay just 45 miles to the south, and investigators feared the killers had already crossed. No arrests were made. The case was featured on Unsolved Mysteries just two and a half months after the murders, then on America's Most Wanted three separate times -- in 1995, 2004, and 2010. A documentary film called A Nightmare in Las Cruces was released on the twentieth anniversary of the massacre, using actual crime scene footage and interviews with family members in hopes of generating new leads. Tips have continued to come in, but none have led to an arrest.

The case remains open and under active investigation by the Las Cruces Police Department more than three decades later. In 2016, Steven Teran's brother Anthony spoke to the Las Cruces Sun-News about the case. His words captured the frustration of every family member still waiting for justice: 'In this day and age, things like this don't go unsolved. How did we not get these guys? That's the question I ask myself every day. Numerous people saw these gunmen, so someone out there knows something, and they need to come forward.' The bowling alley itself closed years ago. East Amador Avenue carries on as a busy commercial strip. But for the survivors and the families of the dead, February 10, 1990 has never ended. Someone, somewhere, knows who walked into that bowling alley and murdered five people over pocket change. They have kept that secret for more than thirty years.