The Martin family of Portland, Oregon, United States vanished on December 7, 1958 in the Columbia River Gorge during a road trip to accumulate greenery for Christmas embellishments. Amid the missing were whole Martin Family who were on the road trip at that time, including Kenneth Martin and his better half, Barbara Martin along with their three baby girls, Barbie who was 14 at that time, Virginia, 13 and Susan, 11.
During the time when Martin Family was mysteriously vanished, the oldest child of Martin Family, Donald, was in the United States Navy and positioned in New York. A while after their vanishing, the assemblages of Susan and Virginia were found downstream on the shores of the Columbia River, approximately 30 miles (48 km) aside from one another.
At first, police theorized the vehicle of Martin Family that it may have accidentally collided with the stream. However the conditions encompassing the occasion couldn’t be completely clarified. Further entangling the case was the revelation of a taken handgun and the capture of two ex-convicts in the region the day after the family’s vanishing; specialists couldn’t decide whether the episodes were in any capacity associated.
The whereabouts of Kenneth, Barbara, and Barbie stay obscure till the date, and the vehicle of Martin Family has never been recuperated. The Martin family’s tragic yet mysterious vanishing has been portrayed as one of the “most bewildering” secrets in the history of Oregon and started the best manhunt the state had embraced at that point.
What happened the day when Martin’s Family cryptically disappeared?
The couple of Martin Family, Kenneth and Barbara Martin of Portland, Oregon, gone to a Christmas celebration on the night of 1958, December 6 prior to getting back to their home at 1715 N.E. 56th Avenue in the Roseway neighborhood of upper east Portland. The couple had made arrangements for a road trip into the nation for the next day.
Martin Family left their home for Christmas Road trip
As per their plan, the next day in the late morning of December 7, Mr. and Mrs. Martin left their home with their three little baby girls, Barbie, Susan, and Virginia, in their 1954 cream and red-shaded Ford Country Squire station wagon. Barbie was the oldest little girl, she was a rookie at Grant High School. The Martin family’s oldest child, Donald, at that point matured 28, was in the United States Navy and positioned in New York.
The time-to-time appearances of Martin family before being vanished
The Martin family traveled east for a crash into the Columbia River Gorge, where they proposed to accumulate greenery to make Christmas wreaths and decorations. The information on where the Martin Family were explicitly for the duration of the day is inadequate. Senior member Baxter, service station owner, announced that he experienced the family when they bought 5 US gallons of gas from his store in Cascade Locks around 4 p.m., roughly 40 miles away from their home in Portland.
According to Baxter, he reviewed their vehicle proceeding with east after they had bought gasoline. The Martin family was seen again not long after at the Paradise Snack Bar in Hood River, around 20 miles away from east of Cascade Locks, where a server named Clara York expressed that she served the Martin family.
While the other reports from passing drivers showed that the family was found in a vague area on the north bank of the Columbia River, in Washington State, at dusk. As per onlookers who saw the Martin family that day, Kenneth was supposedly wearing a tan zoom up coat and dull slacks while Barbara wore a naval force blue coat, a plaid coat, and a dark printed dress and Barbie was reportedly outfitted in jeans with rolled cuffs and a beige coat.
Martin Family was reported disappeared and missing when people related to the family noticed their constant absence
After two days, On December 9, Mr. Martin, Kenneth neglected to answer to his position at Eccles Electric Home Service Company, while Barbara was also noted missing from her morning classes at Grant High School. Both Susan and Virginia were likewise detailed missing by their instructors at Rose City School. Martin the family was formally revealed missing that night by Kenneth’s chief, Taylor Eccles. Police examined their home at around 11:00 p.m. where they went looking for any indications of foul play. The house had been left undisturbed, a heap of clothing was as yet in the clothes washer, and dishes from the earlier day were left on a drying rack in the kitchen. However, there was additionally a significant measure of cash in the bank accounts of Martins.
The case had a new lead after three months
Three months after the cryptic disappearance of Martin Family, On May 1, 1959, the tire tracks were founded by a volunteer searcher that led off of a cliff near The Dalles, Oregon, which reportedly matched the tires on the Martins’ Ford Squire. The tire tracks were accounted for a stream boring apparatus close to The Dalles supposedly snared something of considerable load to its anchor, be that as it may. However, it got removed before it very well may be pulled to the surface.
Two days after the tire tracking, On May 3, the dead body of Susan was found on the north bank of the Columbia River, close to Camas, Washington, around 70 miles away from The Dalles. The next day, the assortment of Virginia was found close to Bonneville Dam, approximately 46 miles from The Dalles. The identity of both of the girls was positively confirmed via dental records. The reason for death for both of girls was authoritatively pronounced as suffocating in the water.
The case remain undiscovered and unfruitful after years of researches and investigations
According to Rupert Gillmouthe, the sheriff of Hood River County at that point, suspected that the penetrating apparatus had upset the Martins’ vehicle at the lower part of the waterway, and unstuck one of the entryways, permitting the assortments of Susan and Virginia to get away and surface downstream. Further ventures of the water were embraced by both sonar and helicopter, yet were unfruitful. The quest for Kenneth, Barbara, and Barbie was thusly suspended after a hunt jumper almost suffocated.
The police couldn’t gather enough evidences to conclude the case
Police conjectured that the Martin family may have kicked the bucket because of Kenneth slamming their vehicle right into the waterway, while another hypothesis held that the family may had been stole and constrained off of a cliffside into the river.
In 1961, three years after the mysterious Martin family’s vanishing, an inhabitant of Camas composed a letter to The Oregon Journal expressing that they were left with a friend in Cascade Locks on December 7, 1958, and had seen a vehicle continuing under the railroad tracks driving toward the locks. Moments later, they heard shouting, however after examining, discovered nothing.
The disappearance of Martin family was also suspected as ‘Foul Play’ for years by Police, based on the evidence of the tire tracks. But the last sightings of the Martin family at dusk on the north bank of the river in Washington State, while the tire tracks positioned them on the south side of the river in Oregon; this would suggest that their car would have fallen over the cliff after nightfall.
Eight years after the Martin family’s cryptic vanishing, in December 1966, oldest child of Martin Family Donald, the solitary enduring individual from the Martin family who acquired the family’s “unobtrusive” domains, which had been in ordered probate for a very long time.
For the last end of the twentieth century, search endeavors to recuperate the remaining three missing family members were not made. In July 1999, in any case, Oregonian columnist Margie Boulé, who had gotten inspired by the case, coordinated a plunge search of the Columbia River close to Cascade Locks, looking for the Martins’ car. This hunt used new sonar, Global Positioning System (GPS), and lidar submerged acoustic innovation, but the case demonstrated unsuccessful.
As of today, the remains of half of the Martin Family Kenneth, Barbara, and Barbie stay undiscovered, and their vehicle has not been found still.