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Nearly 36 years after a California woman was found murdered in an Arizona desert, her two missing daughters have been found alive.
The Mohave County Sheriff’s Office revealed on Sept. 22 that sisters Elizabeth and Jasmin Ramos had been living for many years under new identities after they were abandoned in a California park shortly after their mother, Marina Ramos, passed away.
They were adopted by a caring family in Ventura County, California, growing up unaware of their sorrowful past. That was the case until investigators unveiled their real identities in August.
What happened to Marina Ramos?
The cold case originated more than thirty years ago on Dec. 12, 1989, when the unclothed body of a woman was discovered with numerous stab wounds in Arizona’s Mohave County desert.
According to the sheriff’s office, “It appeared that she had been killed at the scene where she was found.”
The woman’s identity remained a mystery for years until in February 2022, when her fingerprints were submitted to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System as part of the ongoing identification efforts.
That same month, the Sheriff’s office learned that the fingerprints matched a woman named Maria Ortiz from Bakersfield, California. Her prints had been entered into the system in 1989 after she was arrested by the Kern County Sheriff’s Office for shoplifting. The arrest records listed an address where Ortiz reportedly lived with two friends.
When investigators from the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office reached out to one of those friends—now residing in Tennessee—they discovered that while the woman did not know Maria Ortiz, she had a cousin named Marina Ramos, who used to live there and had been missing since 1989.
Marina matched the physical description of the desert victim and investigators determined that “Maria Ortiz” had been an alias.
How were Marina Ramos missing daughters identified and found?
The mystery deepened when investigators learned that Marina had last been seen with her two daughters, 14-month-old Elizabeth and 2-month-old Jasmin.
In 2023, the sheriff’s office made a renewed effort to find the missing children through social media. At the same time, Marina’s family members agreed to submit DNA samples to CODIS, a national law enforcement database, as well as commercial DNA sites to locate the girls.
The breakthrough came in August 2025 when the sheriff’s office said they found a woman with a “high DNA match” to a member of the Ramos family. With the help of a genetic genealogist, they located both of Marina’s daughters, who provided DNA samples to confirm their identities.
Law enforcement authorities soon learned what happened after Marina’s death. Just two days after her body was discovered, her daughters were abandoned inside an Oxnard, California park restroom. A witness, according to the sheriff’s office, said she heard the babies cry and walked in to find the girls “laying on the wet floor with no adult nearby.”
The children, whose discovery was reported on by the local media, were taken into the care of Child Protective Services and later foster care. They were ultimately adopted by a couple from Ventura County.
Where are Elizabeth Ramos and Jasmin Ramos today?
Jasmin Ramos, who now goes by Tina and lives in Oregon, told KNXV-TV that learning of her true identity has helped answer questions the sisters have long had about their past.
“This is what I’ve been searching for and wanting for a very, very long time,” she shared, “to figure out where I came from and who my family was.”
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Ramos, who grew up as Melissa, recently moved to Arizona.
“I want everyone to know that I’m okay,” she told the news outlet. ”I’m here. I have lived a beautiful life. I have a wonderful husband.”
Melissa detailed the moment homicide investigator Lori Miller called her.
“Whether it was my mom or dad, she knew something,” she explained. “And I don’t know, I just ran out of the room and didn’t even know how to process what was being said.”
For Tina, the news has been bittersweet.
“I was sad to know that my mom is gone, and I will never be able to see her,” she said. “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.”
Who killed Marina Ramos?
With the sisters’ identities confirmed, the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office has now shifted their focus to finding out who killed Marina.
“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,” authorities said. “A witness in the area told officers that she had observed a woman and two men with the children at the park.”
According to the witness, the trio was seen in a black mini pickup. They also reported seeing the suspects carrying the children at the park, with the woman described as a Hispanic female wearing a long red skirt and white boots. The two men were also described as Hispanic.
Homicide investigator Miller told KNXV-TV that authorities believe the suspects were “indirectly or directly” involved in Marina’s death.
Anyone with information about the case is urged to contact the sheriff’s office at 928-753-0753 ext. 4408.
