Major clue discovered in mystery of family-of-five who vanished 67 years ago

Police could be one step closer to discovering why a family-of-five mysteriously disappeared in 1958.

Ken and Barbara Martin and their three daughters – Barbara, 14; Virginia, 13; and Sue, 11 – vanished in Oregon in the US after taking a day trip to the mountains to collect Christmas greenery.

Now, 67 years later, a car has been pulled out of Columbia River that officials believe belonged to the family.

The Ford estate was discovered by a diver last year and after two days of dredging the frame and the wheels of vehicle were lifted out by a crane on Friday.

The body of the car came off in the process and remains in the water.

The frame will be wrapped and sent to a warehouse where a forensic team will examine it, said Pete Hughes, a Hood River County Sheriff’s deputy.

But officials feel certain they’ve found the car they were looking for, he said.

‘Everything matches,’ Hughes said. ‘It appears to be the color, make and model of the Martin vehicle.’

The Martin family’s disappearance was a huge story at the time, making national news.

The bodies of two of the children, Susan and Virginia were found in the river later that year, but those of Ken and Barbara, and the younger Barbara, were never found.

Some speculated foul play, with a $1,000 reward offered for information.

A few months after they vanished, an article posed the question: ‘Where do you search if you’ve already searched every place logic and fragmentary clues would suggest?’

Salvage efforts this week took a couple of days as crews had to clear mud that had buried much of the car.

Diver Archer Mayo discovered the vehicle in the autumn after spending seven years looking for it, according to Archer’s representative, Ian Costello.

He pinpointed the likely location and dove several times before eventually finding the car upside-down about 50 feet (15 meters) deep, Costello said.

‘This is a very big development in a case that’s been on the back of Portland’s mind for 66 years,’ he added.

Mayo found two other cars nearby, one of which had been previously identified and a second an unknown Volkswagen.

The Martins took their daughters on a ride to the mountains on December 7, 1958, to collect Christmas greenery.

The children left their Sunday newspaper comics scattered around. Dishes remained in the sink and a load of laundry in the washing machine.

They never returned. Officials narrowed their search for the family after learning that Ken Martin had used a credit card to buy petrol at a station near Cascade Locks, a small Columbia River community about 40 miles east of Portland.

‘Police have speculated that Martin’s red and white station wagon might have plunged into an isolated canyon or river,’ the Associated Press (AP) reported at the time.

‘The credit card purchase was the only thing to pinpoint the family’s movements.’

A waitress said she had seen a family that may have been the Martins atParadise Snack Bar, east of Cascade Locks, just before sunset.

She recalled that the family had been out looking for a Christmas tree.

They ordered hamburgers, fries, milk and dessert. It came to $4.15.

Five months after their disappearance, the body of the youngest daughter was found ‘bobbing in a Columbia River slough,’ according to the AP.

‘The body of Susan apparently floated free of the wreckage in the spring current and was washed to a back water slough near Camas, Washington.’

Virginia Martin’s body was found the next day about 25 miles upstream from where her sister’s was located. The other family members were never found, but the search continued.

The Martins had a 28-year-old son, Don, who was a Marine veteran and graduate student at Columbia University in New York at the time and told the AP he believed his family was dead.

Speaking on Thursday, he said: ‘It’s been a high public interest case.’

After Mayo provided part of the license plate number and other vehicle identifiers, the sheriff’s office and the Columbia Gorge major crimes team, along with the Oregon State Crime Lab, arranged to have the car pulled out, he said.

Mayo runs a business that finds things that have been lost in the river, like watches and rings, but also helps with the recovery of drowning victims, Costello said.

He had been looking for a research vessel that sank in 2017 when he learned about the Martin family, Costello said.

He began digging up material on the family and used modeling to pinpoint the possible location.

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