Girls Missing for 36 Years Found; Mother Was Stabbed to Death South of Las Vegas

Back in 1989, in Las Vegas, two young sisters were abandoned and found crying in a park restroom. They have recently discovered the names they were given at birth by a mother they likely don’t remember.

A decades-old homicide case took a significant turn in February 2022. Forensic teams managed to obtain fingerprints that assisted in identifying a woman who had been found stabbed in a desert area, approximately 50 miles from Las Vegas. Coupled with DNA evidence from 1989, this led to the identification of the victim as Marina Ramos.

Detectives continued their investigation, spurred by information from a relative who disclosed that Ramos had a 2-month-old and a 14-month-old daughter at the time she went missing.

The unfolding narrative of Ramos and her daughters — Jasmin and Elizabeth — was further illuminated when the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office announced that two women had been identified as her daughters. DNA results confirmed the connection.

The case details revealed that the girls were discovered roughly 400 miles from where their mother’s body was located. They were found on a wet restroom floor in Oxnard, California, on December 14, 1989, two days after their mother was found on Old Temple Bar Road off White Hills Road in Mohave County.

Investigators reported that a passerby heard crying in the women’s restroom and asked someone to check. Inside, a woman found the girls alone and led them to the authorities. They were subsequently handed over to the Child Protective Services.

After that, the girls were placed into foster care and stayed there for “a significant amount of time.” The girls were eventually adopted by a couple in Ventura County and were raised together.

Few details were released about the grown sisters. One lives in Tennessee. They kept newspaper clippings and photos from the Oxnard Press-Courier. An article about the case was posted on MissingKids.org.

8 News Now has followed the case, posting stories about Marina Ramos’s identification in 2023 and a story containing “age-processed” images of the girls last month.

Updates on the case have come through the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office Special Investigations Unit.

Investigators did not say how they were able to connect the two women to the case. It’s possible that they saw media reports about the effort to find the daughters.

“While we are excited to announce that one part of this 36-year-old mystery has been solved, the search for the suspects involved in the homicide of Marina Ramos continues,” according to the sheriff’s office.

“A witness in the area told officers that she had observed a woman and two men with the children at the park. They were observed driving a black mini pickup. The witness saw the woman carrying the smaller child in a yellow blanket and one of the males carrying the older child. The woman was described as a Hispanic female wearing a long red skirt and white boots. The two males were only described as Hispanic,” the sheriff’s office said.

Anyone with information on this incident is encouraged to call the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office at 928-753-0753 ext. 4408.