Daughters of a murder victim discovered alive after 36 years

Identification of 1989 Murder Victim and Missing Daughters

More than three decades after her tragic death, investigators have finally identified a woman who was murdered in the Arizona Desert in 1989 and have located her two young daughters who went missing around that time.

The victim, Marina Ramos from Bakersfield, California, was discovered naked and multiple times stabbed on December 12, 1989, in Mohave County, Arizona, which is situated about 50 miles from Las Vegas.

While detectives concluded that she was killed at the scene, they initially struggled to identify her, as her DNA did not lead to any matches.

In February 2022, the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office Special Investigation Unit took another look at the case, resubmitting fingerprints to a national database. They found a match for the alias Maria Ortiz, which Ramos had used when she was arrested for shoplifting in 1989.

Missing Young Girls Found

In the same year, survivors from Ramos’s family reported seeing her last along with her daughters, Elizabeth and Jasmine, at the ages of 14 months and 2 months, respectively.

For over two years, the Sheriff’s Office has actively issued updates through press releases, social media, and television reports. They’ve also tested the DNA of Ramos’s family in attempts to piece together the situation surrounding the two girls.

In August, investigators successfully located her daughters through DNA analysis. They learned that Elizabeth and Jasmine had been discovered abandoned in a park in Oxnard, California, in December 1989.

Police reports indicated that passersby had heard children crying in a public restroom and found one girl on a wet floor, alone.

The girls spent time in foster care before being adopted by a family in Ventura County.

Ongoing Investigation

“We are pleased to resolve part of this 36-year-old mystery, but the search for the person responsible for Marina Ramos’s murder continues,” officials from the sheriff’s office stated.

Witnesses recalled seeing a Hispanic woman accompanied by two Hispanic men and the two girls in the park. They also mentioned that the woman had a baby wrapped in a yellow blanket, while one of the men carried an older child. A black mini pickup was reportedly seen leaving the area.