The Hood River Sheriff’s Office announced early Thursday it will attempt to recover a nine-passenger Ford station wagon from the Columbia River that could be linked to a Portland family missing since 1958.
In December of that year, Ken and Barbara Martin and their three daughters headed east for the mountains to collect Christmas greenery. The family never returned.
The Portland family’s disappearance was major news at the time and for years baffled investigators. A year after the family vanished, the bodies of the two youngest Martin girls were found near Bonneville Dam. They had drowned.
The fate of the rest of the family remained a mystery.
The sheriff’s office said an independent diver discovered what they suspect is the Martins’ station wagon near Cascade Locks. The agency released no other information.
The independent diver, Archer Mayo, of White Salmon, has spent seven years searching for the Martin vehicle, his spokesperson Ian Costello told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Last fall, he found a vehicle matching its description about 60 feet from shore buried deep in the riverbed.
Costello said the station wagon is nearly 90% buried and in “pretty good shape,” given the length of time it has been in the water.
He said Mayo used “predictive modeling” and his own “deep research” of the case to zero in on the location. He identified the likely location last fall and “dove to that location and found a car matching the Martin car description within a couple feet” of where he suspected he would find it, Costello said.
Mayo is helping direct Hood River authorities today as they attempt to recover the station wagon, Costello said. He said Mayo could not determine if the bodies of the Martins and their other daughter are in the car.
Costello said Mayo believes the Martins accidentally ended up in the river from the Cascade Locks parking lot.
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