CASCADE LOCKS, Ore. (AP) — Authorities deliberate to tug a number of autos from the Columbia River on Thursday, together with a automotive believed to have belonged to a Portland couple who vanished in 1958 whereas out for a drive with their three daughters, together with two whose our bodies washed up at a dam the next yr.
The station wagon believed to belong to Ken and Barbara Martin was discovered final fall by Archer Mayo, a diver who had been on the lookout for the automotive for seven years, stated Mayo’s consultant, Ian Costello. Mayo pinpointed the doubtless location and dove a number of instances earlier than discovering the automotive upside-down about 50 toes (15 meters) deep, coated in mud, salmon guts, silt and mussel shells, he stated.
“This is a very big development in a case that’s been on the back of Portland’s mind for 66 years,” Costello instructed The Related Press.
The Martins took their three daughters on a automotive experience to the mountains in December 1958 to gather Christmas greenery, the Oregonian/OregonLive reported. They by no means returned. The our bodies of two daughters had been discovered the next yr close to the Bonneville Dam, however the remainder of the household was by no means situated.
“It’s been a high public interest case,” Pete Hughes, a Hood River County sheriff’s deputy, instructed the AP. After Mayo offered a part of the license plate quantity and different automobile identifiers, the sheriff’s workplace and the Columbia Gorge main crimes staff, together with the Oregon State Crime Lab, organized to have the automotive pulled out, he stated.
“We’re not 100% sure it’s the car,” Hughes stated. “It’s mostly encased in mud and debris, so we don’t know what to expect when we pull it out of the water today.”
Mayo runs a enterprise that finds issues that had 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 in regards to the Martin household, Costello stated.
Mayo started digging up materials on the household and used modeling to pinpoint the potential location, he stated. Mayo discovered different vehicles close by, which might want to come out earlier than the development firm pulls out the station wagon and authorities get solutions to a 66-year-old thriller, Costello stated.
There’s a street close to the place the vehicles had been discovered underwater. Authorities haven’t stated whether or not they suppose they may discover the stays of every other lacking folks in any of the opposite autos being pulled from the river.