Authorities in Oregon are hoping that an underwater discovery could present some solutions as to what occurred to a household that went lacking almost 70 years in the past, in a case that gripped the nation.
Investigators with the Hood River County Sheriff’s Workplace introduced on Thursday that they’d obtained a tip from a diver who claimed to have discovered the 1954 Ford station wagon belonging to the Martin household, who vanished in 1958.
After matching a partial plate, authorities say they’re now 99 p.c certain it’s the automotive the Martin household was driving in once they went lacking greater than six many years in the past, KOIN reports.
Ken and Barbara Martin had instructed relations and their neighbors in Northeast Portland they had been taking their daughters – Barbara, 14; Virginia, 13 and Susan Margaret, 11 – to the Columbia River Gorge to gather greenery to make Christmas wreaths on December 7, 1958.
The household would by no means be seen once more, and their disappearance sparked an intense search that led to nationwide consideration, with individuals throughout the nation claiming to have noticed the household of 5, according to the Oregonian.
However hope was misplaced one 12 months later, when the our bodies of the 2 youngest women had been discovered floating within the Columbia River, lifeless from drowning.
At that time, officers dominated that the 5 relations accidently drove into the Columbia River and died.
The case was declared closed – regardless of the invention of a gun and a Multnomah County post-mortem technician claiming there was a possible gunshot wound to the pinnacle of one of many women’ our bodies.
The Martin household, from Portland, Oregon, went lacking on December 7, 1958
One 12 months later, the our bodies of the 2 youngest women had been discovered floating within the Columbia River, lifeless from drowning
Even because the many years previous, the thriller grew to become a ‘deep obsession’ for Archer Mayo, the diver who discovered the automobile, he told KGW.
The diver determined to start his personal seek for the household again in 2018, and primarily based on the place the 2 women had been discovered lifeless in 1959 and utilizing laptop predictive modeling, Mayo began scouring within the Cascade Locks of the Columbia River.
‘I’ve virtually give up so many occasions and type of cannot imagine I am standing right here as we speak,’ he mentioned.
The breakthrough got here a few months in the past when he situated the automobile ‘about 50 toes underneath the floor of the water [and] seven toes underneath the bottom,’ he instructed the Oregonian.
‘As I went additional on, I noticed, “Oh my gosh, that is the automotive! It is a ’54 wagon,”‘ Mayo recounted.
He then alerted authorities, and along with the Military Corps of Engineers, they began to dig.
Quickly, the automotive started to take form out of the rubble.
It’s the other way up and there may be particles mendacity on high of it, authorities mentioned, however the automobile continues to be principally intact.
Diver Archer Mayo mentioned the thriller grew to become a ‘deep obsession’ for him
![He started his own search for the family in 2018 - and struck gold a couple of months ago when he located the vehicle 'about 50 feet under the surface of the water [and] seven feet under the ground'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/03/07/01/95935365-14471165-image-a-10_1741309526045.jpg)
He began his personal seek for the household in 2018 – and struck gold a few months in the past when he situated the automobile ‘about 50 toes underneath the floor of the water [and] seven toes underneath the bottom’
Authorities say the automobile continues to be principally intact, and they’re 99 p.c certain it’s the 1954 Ford station wagon belonging to the Martin household
It stays unclear whether or not the three remaining relations our bodies could also be within the automobile as authorities work to tug the automotive out of the river.
‘We need to protect this automobile the most effective that we are able to to make sure that any proof that comes out is ready to be saved,’ Sheriff Matt English mentioned, noting that the case is ‘depending on what’s in that automotive.’
He and Deputy Pete Hughes added that the Sheriff’s Division are treating the decades-old chilly case as some other investigation.
‘We’re moving into with the mindset of getting any preconceived concepts about what occurred,’ Hughes defined.
‘So we’ll have the crime lab, we’ll have detectives and so they’ll be investigating this identical to they might examine any case, a identified case at this level.’
Authorities are working to tug the automobile out of the depths of the Columbia River
They mentioned they might deal with the decades-old chilly case as some other investigation
Within the meantime, English mentioned he’s retaining the surviving members of the Martin household ‘within the loop.’
‘Clearly, there was a variety of hypothesis through the years,’ he famous, together with foul play.
However Mayo instructed the Oregonian he believes Ken merely misjudged house and distance whereas driving within the Cascade Locks car parking zone, and the automotive toppled into the water.
‘I am actually hoping the survivors of this, of the individuals concerned, the Martins, can have some closure,’ he mentioned.
