Rio Rancho police today identified a murdered woman found in the desert Saturday as a Corrales teen who recently moved to Belen.

She was Amber Turberville, 18. So far detectives are not saying how she was killed or whether they have any suspects.

And there are other questions that her family is anxious to have answered.

Turberville''s mother said Amber was raised in Corrales but recently moved to Belen.

Her family reported her missing last week and on Sunday learned she had been murdered.

"The first night was the hardest night that I''ve ever experienced in my life," Kimberly Sheafe, Turberville''s mother, told KRQE News 13. "My heart is broken, and I just wonder what happened to my daughter."

Sheafe said her daughter called her almost every day. When she hadn''t heard from Amber for a week she started getting worried.

"I had feelings that something was wrong, but you hope that nothing is wrong," Sheafe said.

Sheafe called hospitals, police and Amber''s friends. On Thursday Amber''s father officially reported her missing.

Then on Saturday they saw the story on the news about a young woman found murdered in a remote Rio Rancho arroyo near Southern and Rainbow.

Sunday afternoon police came to her home, and she positively identified her daughter as the victim.

"She was adventurous," Sheafe said of her daughter who had gotten her GED and was on her own at 16. "She was a free spirit; she was independent."

Sheafe said she has no idea where her daughter was or what she was doing in the days leading up to her death.

News 13 located Turberville''s page on the MySpace Web site. It makes reference to drug use and is filled with obscenities.

Her mother writes it off as a teen-ager just being a teen-ager.

"Teen-agers put a lot of stuff on their MySpace pages that are not reflective," Sheafe said.

Turberville''s car is still missing, and Rio Rancho police said finding it could provide important clues about who killed her.

That car is a maroon 1992 Dodge Shadow with front-end damage, a missing driver''s window and New Mexico license plate of JLP-213.

Sheafe has planned a memorial for her daughter Wednesday night at French''s Mortuary on Albuquerque''s West Side.