Following over thirty years, authorities managed to identify a woman discovered stabbed to death in Arizona’s desert in 1989 and found her two baby daughters who disappeared at the time of her murder.
Marina Ramos, hailing from Bakersfield, California, was found without clothes and bearing multiple stab injuries on December 12, 1989, in Mohave County, Arizona, roughly 50 miles south of Las Vegas.
While detectives determined she was killed at that location, they were unable to identify her because Ramos’ DNA did not yield any matches.
In February 2022, the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office Special Investigations Unit resubmitted fingerprints from the case file to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, enabling the FBI to match the prints to “Maria Ortiz,” an alias Ramos had used when arrested for shoplifting in Bakersfield in 1989.
“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,” sheriff’s office officials expressed in a statement.
A witness in the area told officers she saw a Hispanic woman and two Hispanic men with the two girls at the park.
Authorities utilized DNA to trace Ramos’ two daughters, who were placed in foster care after being discovered in a California park restroom. (Mohave County Sheriff’s Office via Facebook)
The woman carried the younger child in a yellow blanket, and one of the men held the older child, as per the witness. They were observed traveling in a black pickup truck.
Anyone with information about the investigation is asked to contact the sheriff’s office.
