The former head housekeeper of the historic Plains Hotel in downtown Cheyenne is accused of stealing about $26,000 worth of coins from a guest’s room and having other people sell them to coin dealers for cash.
Rene Maria Manzanares, 46, faces one count of felony theft, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $10,000 in fines. Her case rose last week to the felony-level Laramie County District Court.
The case started in May, when Cheyenne Police Department Detective Matthew Freeman was contacted by a coin dealer in Cheyenne.
The dealer said that two weeks prior, a pair of women came into his shop with a tote full of silver and gold coins. He knew one as “Candace,” and the other called herself “Marty Apodaca,” he said.
Police later identified the pair as Martha Salazar, 42, and Candace Miller, 36, says an evidentiary affidavit Freeman filed in the case. They each face a theft charge as well, court documents say.
Miller’s preliminary hearing is set for Dec. 30.
Salazar sold the coin dealer about $600 in silver proof quarters, but she had about $20,000 worth of gold coins, Freeman wrote from the coin dealer’s interview.
Freeman didn’t have the cash to buy the gold. He also had a suspicion it may have been stolen, he told the detective.
The women returned May 7, and the coin dealer bought two pieces worth about $2,900 together, the affidavit says. Again, he couldn’t buy the rest of the coins.
The women left with the understanding that the dealer would call Salazar when he was ready to buy more coins, the affidavit says.
Freeman used an online database and learned Salazar had also sold $850 in gold and silver to a pawn shop in Cheyenne, he wrote.
In The Car
Another Cheyenne officer conducted a traffic stop on Salazar in a Ford passenger vehicle May 22, Freeman continued.
The detective came to the traffic stop to ask Salazar about the coins, and she claimed to have bought them from another woman, who was recently arrested in a non-related burglary, the detective wrote.
Salazar said she still had some coins left, and she showed the detective a bag of gold coins in her purse. The officer also searched her purse and found about $7,000 in cash, in tightly rolled $100 bills, says the document.
Freeman interviewed Salazar at the Cheyenne Police Department. She changed her narrative during that interview, he wrote, and said the coins came from her cousin Miller, who in turn got the coins from her girlfriend Rene Manzanares.
Salazar said Manzanares found the coins in a lost and found at the Plains Hotel, and that they’d been there several years, the affidavit says.
Salazar had used a false name when selling the coins, she clarified, because she didn’t want to pay taxes on the money she made.
Next Up
Freeman interviewed Miller next on May 29 at the police department.
Miller said she received a box of silver and gold coins from her girlfriend, Manzanares, Freeman related from that interview.
Miller didn’t know anything about the coins, so she teamed up with Salazar to sell them, the affidavit says, adding that the women made multiple sales, making $3,600 on one, $3,400 on another, then $1,000 and $7,425.
Miller said she had another cousin sell the rest of the coins for her. She claimed to have spent all the coin money already on bills and “gambling,” says the document.
And The Housekeeping Manager
When Freeman interviewed Manzanares that same day, she said she’s been the housekeeping manager at the Plains Hotel. Two years ago, Manzanares reportedly said she found a plastic tote under a bed in a room she was cleaning with coins inside it.
She put the box in the lost and found under her desk, she said. There they sat for two years, the woman added, according to the affidavit.
About a month ago she was cleaning her office and found the coins, then gave them to Miller, the document relates from her interview.
Manzanares told Freeman Miller gave her $500 for the coins, the document says.
Jail Call
Freeman reviewed a phone call Salazar placed from jail to Miller on May 28.
The affidavit says Miller said she didn’t have the money to bond Salazar out.
“Do you know the rest of those things? Where are those at?” asked Salazar in Freeman’s account of the call. “Why don’t you go get rid of them? Not here in town, but somewhere.”
Salazar stressed that that was the only way to get her out of jail. She said she hadn’t said “too much” to anyone, but the longer she was in jail the less likely she’d be to keep Miller’s name out of the matter, the document relates.
“(I) would already done that shit for you dude,” Salazar said, according to the affidavit.
Hotel
On June 31, Freeman interviewed the owner of the Plains Hotel, who confirmed that Manzanares was at that time in charge of housekeeping.
The owner also confirmed that if anyone found a high-dollar item left in a room, they were supposed to report it to her so there could be an effort to get the item back to its owner.
The hotel owner told Cowboy State Daily on Thursday that she only learned of the alleged theft recently, and that Manzanares no longer works for the hotel.
Colorado Woman
On Aug. 5, the hotel owner’s 74-year-old friend spoke with Freeman. The friend said she lived out of state but knew the hotel owner, and believed the stolen coins were hers.
The friend came to help with the hotel during the Cheyenne Frontier Days rush in July 2022, she told Freeman. She brought her box of silver and gold coins with her, and stored them under her bed, she said.
At some point, the friend switched from one hotel room to another. She believed at that time that she forgot to move the coins out from under the bed when she switched.
The friend asked Manzanares if she’d left anything in her old room when she switched, and Manzanares said nothing was left behind, says the affidavit.
The friend trusted Manzanares at that time, and figured maybe she’d left the coins behind in Colorado, she added.
But back in Colorado the woman couldn’t find the coins either.
She later concluded Manzanares stole the coins while cleaning her room, the document says.
The Colorado woman gave Freeman an inventory of her coins, the document says, which included many that police had recovered, but didn’t list some of the other coins recovered from Salazar.
Searching online, Freeman estimated the coins’ value at $26,000, but noted that they could be much more valuable depending on their years and conditions
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
