CASCADE LOCKS, Ore. (KPTV/Gray News) – A crane resumed dredging on the Columbia River on Friday as it tried to clear a way to pull out a station wagon that is believed to have belonged to an Oregon family of five who disappeared nearly 70 years ago while they were out searching for Christmas greenery.
Police recovered the car’s frame and investigators said they are going to use that to confirm if the car belonged to the Martin family.
The search for family was a national news story at the time and led some to speculate about the possibility of foul play, with a $1,000 reward offered for information about their whereabouts.
Salvage efforts were called off just before dark on Thursday and resumed early Friday. While attempting to recover the car, the chassis became detached due to debris. Crews were able to recover the chassis and the car’s engine, around 3:50 p.m. on Friday.
No human remains were found, but investigators are looking to find an identification number from the chassis and engine to confirm if it is the Martin’s car.
The station wagon, thought to belong to Ken and Barbara Martin, was found last fall by Archer Mayo, a diver who had been looking for it for seven years, said Mayo’s representative, Ian Costello. Mayo pinpointed the likely location and dove several times before finding the car upside-down about 50 feet (15 meters) deep, covered in mud, salmon guts, silt and mussel shells, Costello said.
“This is a very big development in a case that’s been on the back of Portland’s mind for 66 years,” Costello told The Associated Press.
The Martins took their daughters Barbara, 14, Virginia, 13, and Sue, 11, on a ride to the mountains on Dec. 7, 1958, to collect Christmas greenery, according to Associated Press stories from the time. They never returned. Officials narrowed their search for the family after learning that Ken Martin had used a credit card to buy gas at a station near Cascade Locks, a small Columbia River community about 40 miles (64 kilometers) east of Portland.
“Police have speculated that Martin’s red and white station wagon might have plunged into an isolated canyon or river,” the AP reported. “The credit card purchase was the only thing to pinpoint the family’s movements.”
Five months after their disappearance, the body of the youngest daughter was found “bobbing in a Columbia River slough,” the Associated Press wrote. “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 (40 kilometers) 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 Associated Press he believed his family was dead.
“It’s been a high public interest case,” Hughes told the Associated Press on Thursday. 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.
“We’re not 100% sure it’s the car,” Hughes said. “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 business that finds things that were 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.
Mayo began digging up material on the family and used modeling to pinpoint the possible location, he said.
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