After two days of dredging, a crane on Friday pulled a Ford station wagon from the Columbia River that officers imagine belonged to an Oregon household who disappeared whereas on a visit 66 years in the past to gather Christmas greenery.
The car got here aside within the course of and solely the body with wheels connected got here out because the crane lifted it out of the water. The physique, which was seen in diving movies, got here off the body within the retrieval course of, which began about 3:44 p.m. Friday and took about 10 minutes.
The automotive shall be wrapped and despatched to a warehouse the place a forensic crew will attempt to study extra about its house owners, stated Pete Hughes, a Hood River County Sheriff’s deputy. However officers felt sure the discovered the automotive they have been on the lookout for, he stated.
“Every part matches,” he stated. “It seems to be the colour, make and mannequin of the Martin car,” Hughes stated.
The seek for the Martin household was a nationwide information story on the time and led some to invest about the opportunity of foul play, with a $1,000 reward provided for data. “The place do you search in the event you’ve already searched each place logic and fragmentary clues would counsel?” an Related Press article questioned in 1959, months after the disappearance.
Two of the household’s youngsters have been discovered within the river later that yr, although the remaining members by no means turned up.
Salvage efforts have been referred to as off simply earlier than darkish on Thursday and resumed early Friday as crews tried to clear mud that buried a lot of the automotive.
The station wagon thought to belong to Ken and Barbara Martin was discovered final fall by Archer Mayo, a diver who had been on the lookout for it for seven years, stated Mayo’s consultant, Ian Costello. Mayo pinpointed the probably location and dove a number of occasions earlier than discovering the automotive upside-down about 50 ft (15 meters) deep, lined in mud, salmon guts, silt and mussel shells, Costello stated.
“It is a very massive improvement in a case that’s been on the again of Portland’s thoughts for 66 years,” Costello advised The Related Press.
Mayo discovered different vehicles close by, Costello stated. Hughes, the Hood River County sheriff’s deputy, stated one automotive had been beforehand recognized and the second was an unknown Volkswagen.
The Martins took their daughters — Barbara, 14; Virginia, 13; and Sue, 11 — on a journey to the mountains on Dec. 7, 1958, to gather Christmas greenery, in response to AP tales from the time. The kids left the Sunday newspaper comics scattered about. Dishes remained within the sink and a load of laundry within the washer.
They by no means returned. Officers narrowed their seek for the household after studying that Ken Martin had used a bank card to purchase fuel at a station close to Cascade Locks, a small Columbia River neighborhood about 40 miles (64 kilometers) east of Portland.
“Police have speculated that Martin’s purple and white station wagon may need plunged into an remoted canyon or river,” the AP reported. “The bank card buy was the one factor to pin-point the household’s actions.”
A waitress reported seeing a household that might have been the Martins on the Paradise Snack Bar, east of Cascade Locks, simply earlier than sundown. The household had been out on the lookout for a Christmas tree. They ordered hamburgers, fries, milk and dessert. It got here to $4.15.
5 months after their disappearance, the physique of the youngest daughter was discovered “bobbing in a Columbia River slough,” in response to the AP. “The physique of Susan apparently floated freed from the wreckage within the spring present and was washed to a again water slough close to Camas, Washington,” the AP wrote.
Virginia Martin’s physique was discovered the subsequent day about 25 miles (40 kilometers) upstream from the place her sister’s was situated. The opposite relations have been by no means discovered, however the search continued.
The Martins had a 28-year-old son, Don, who was a Marine veteran and graduate pupil at Columbia College in New York on the time and advised the AP he believed his household was lifeless.
“It’s been a excessive public curiosity case,” Hughes advised the AP on Thursday. After Mayo supplied a part of the license plate quantity and different car identifiers, the sheriff’s workplace and the Columbia Gorge main crimes crew, together with the Oregon State Crime Lab, organized to have the automotive pulled out, he stated.
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Mayo runs a enterprise that finds issues that have been misplaced within the river, like watches and rings, but additionally helps with the restoration of drowning victims, Costello stated. He had been on the lookout for a analysis vessel that sank in 2017 when he realized concerning the Martin household, Costello stated.
Mayo started digging up materials on the household and used modeling to pinpoint the doable location, he stated.