In 2022, investigators successfully identified the woman who was found stabbed to death years earlier. Remarkably, they also located her two children, who had been abandoned in a restroom nearly 400 miles away two days after their mother’s murder.
Reports from the Arizona Republic stated that the deceased, a woman found without clothes, was discovered in Mohave County on December 12, 1989. Investigators struggled to identify her initially, and no suspects were identified at the time.
A breakthrough came in 2022 when a DNA sample matched a shoplifting suspect named Maria Ortiz. Further DNA analysis led to a cousin, who was unaware of anyone by that name but mentioned a cousin named Marina Ramos who had been missing since 1989.
Detectives then learned that Ortiz was an alias used by Ramos.
The mystery grew more complex when authorities discovered that Ramos was last seen with her young daughters, Jasmin and Elizabeth, then aged 2 years and 14 months, who were themselves unaccounted for.
This year, DNA analysis identified the missing daughters as two sisters discovered abandoned in a park restroom in Oxnard, California, just days after Ramos’s body was found. The girls were taken in by Child Protective Services and were subsequently adopted and raised together in Ventura County.
As reported by KNXV, detectives also uncovered that Ramos had another, older daughter who was raised by her grandparents. DNA provided by this daughter played a crucial role in locating her missing sisters.
They spoke with the station, giving permission to share their adopted names — Melissa (Elizabeth) and Tina (Jasmin) — who said they’d long wondered about their biological family.
“This is what I’ve been searching for and wanting for a very, very long time, and to figure out where I came from and who my family was,” said Tina, who now lives in Oregon.
“I was sad to know that my mom is gone, and I will never be able to see her,” she said. “Sorry. It still hits me a little bit because she was taken from me, you know, and, like, that’s not right. But at the same time, I was happy to know that she’s not suffering. She’s not in a bad situation. I was happy to know that all those, like, abandonment issues that I dealt with when I was a kid was, like, automatically released for me.”
Melissa, who recently moved from California to Arizona, said she still has questions.
“I want everyone to know that I’m okay,” she said. “I’m here. I have lived a beautiful life. I have a wonderful husband.”
Tina said she has spoken with some members of her biological family by phone, while Melissa said she is waiting for an in person meeting. And, she said, she hopes her family’s story can lead to more discoveries.
“May the search continue for the next missing person, and hopefully they find some more success stories,” said Melissa.
Police still have no suspects in the case, although witnesses provided a description of three people seen at the park where the children were found.
Anyone with information should call the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office at 928-753-0753, ext. 4408.
