Marilyn Ranae Benham

Marilyn Ranae Benham, remembered by those who knew her as a mother and member of the Rio Rancho community, was 36 when she died on June 30, 2023. Public records and contemporary news reports identify her residence as Rio Rancho, New Mexico. Available sources confirm that she was living locally at the time of her death and that her life involved close family relationships.

Though full details of her personal life are limited in the public record, accounts of the day of her passing note that she shared her home with others and that her death affected people in her neighborhood and the broader Sandoval County community. News reporting about the event also documents that law enforcement identified and later charged a suspect; that factual information is included here only to place the date and location of her death in context, not to define who she was.

Because no family-published obituary or funeral-home notice matching her full name and the exact date of death could be located in reliable public sources, many of Marilyn’s private qualities, relationships, and daily rhythms remain out of the public record. That absence does not lessen the fact that she was a real person whose life mattered to loved ones. Even where records are sparse, it is clear she was part of a local family network and a neighborhood in Rio Rancho that remembers the loss.

Those who wish to honor Marilyn can do so by holding close the human details that public documents rarely capture: the ordinary kindnesses, the laughter in family rooms, and the small, private acts of care that make up a life. Her memory lives on through the relationships she had and the community that continues to mourn her loss.