Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore - BEST OF 2025: The Martin Family

Episode Date: December 31, 2025

They were the definition of wholesome: Santa suits, candy canes, holiday cards. But in December 1958, the Martin family disappeared without a trace. This week, Morgan and Kaelyn dive into a case full of curious clues—abandoned cars, shifting witness statements, and a station wagon that seemed to vanish into thin air. Head over to our Clues YouTube channel to WATCH this episode: https://www.youtube.com/@CluesPod If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Clues to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Clues is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.  🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals including Crime House Daily, Crimes Of…, Killer Minds, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow us on Social YouTube: @CluesPod | @crimehousestudios Instagram: @cluespodcast | @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia Clues is hosted by Morgan Absher & Kaelyn Moore  Instagram: @morgsyabsher | @itskaelynmoore TikTok: @twohottakes | @heartstartspounding To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Dr. Hrini-Bot, host of Hidden History. Every Monday, I go where history gets uncomfortable, banished civilizations, doomsday prophecies, and events that science still can't fully explain. Listen to and follow Hidden History, available now wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Cluminati. We're going to take a couple weeks off to spend some much-needed time

with friends and family over the holidays. We'll return with new episodes on January 7th. Enjoy our favorite episodes of Clues. Until then, and see you next year. This is Crime House. He actually cleaned the gun off. Cleaned it. Even though it's a bloody gun that looks like it was used to bludgeon someone.

I know this case? I just got chills with that. It looked like it had been jammed. It's hard to think it's just a coincidence. Everything we think we know about this case is wrong. Hi, welcome to clues, where we sneak past the crime scene tape to explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases. And these aren't just ordinary cases.

They're complex puzzles where forensic science, investigative technology, and sheer grit collide in order to uncover the truth and deliver justice. I'm Kayla Moore and I'll be piecing together the timelines and bringing the history to break down the hard facts of these cases. And I'm your internet sleuth, Morgan Abshur. I'll be diving into the theories and pulling out the threads of these cases that may or may not add up. Each week on clues, we'll explore how the smallest pieces of evidence like a microscopic fiber, a partial fingerprint, or even a single strand of hair could lead to groundbreaking discoveries. and could even bring long-awaited justice.

These clues shine a light on stories that have been waiting, sometimes for decades, like the one we're going to talk about today, to finally be heard. So join us as we uncover breakthroughs, the heartbreak, and the relentless pursuit of answers behind these unforgettable investigations. Now, you may not have heard of the Martin family disappearance, but they were a picture-perfect family on a holiday outing until they disappeared without a trace.

For months, it was like this, family just vanished into thin air. But when pieces finally started to reveal themselves, the story only got stranger. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by Grooons. I am really, really prioritizing my health, and I know that I wasn't getting enough vitamins and nutrients, and that is where Grooons came in. Grunes are a convenient, comprehensive formula in one delicious daily pack of gummy bears. This isn't a multivitamin, a greens gummy, or a prebiotic. It's all of those things and then some at a fraction of the price. And a bonus, it tastes great. I have a pack of grunes in my purse pretty much constantly now. It's my little sweet treat, my snack, that also

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And you may even be eligible for reimbursement with HSA-S-F-S-A. And Grooen's ingredients are backed by over 35,000 research publications. If you're ready to try it for yourself, save up to 52% off with code Clues at GrooN's.co. That's Clues at g-r-un-s-dot-C-O. Okay, before we jump in, Morgan, what's new? What's been going on?

We were just talking about this before we hit record, but I am in the thick of wedding planning. I think last we checked in, I was like just trying on dresses and I did find one, so I'm locked in there. Congrats. But now I'm like, okay, I'm like six months out and I'm trying to like figure out flowers and tent rental and for all my friends out there that have gotten married, how did you do this? I'm like, I'm ready to elope. I got like a quote on flowers and like a $70,000 tent rental. And I was like, I can't. I can't. How expensive everything is. I think that's why. So we like semi eloped my husband and I.

You got married in like two months. Yeah. We got engaged and we got married two months later. Yeah. And part of it was we just didn't want to have to labor over any decision making. I also wouldn't necessarily recommend a two-month window because there's a lot you cannot do in two months. Unhinged, Kailen. It was a little crazy. Like, finding a dress was probably the hardest part. But we did it. We had a great weekend.

And we didn't have to labor over any decisions, which was like the best part of the whole thing. That's really nice. Like, I don't feel for, I don't envy being in the position of having to, like, look at all the different tents and all the different flower options. No. So if anyone out there has tips, please send them my way, because I'm probably at home. As you listen to this, cried. How stressful it is. But what's going on with you?

My house is full of boxes. We just moved. We're like finally in L.A. The biggest thing is my dog is just so confused as to where we are. Because we have the furniture. Like he recognizes the smells of all of our furniture, but he has no idea, like where he is. They adapt quickly. He's smart too.

He's smarter than my husband and I. So he'll be fine. Oh, yeah. It probably does think he's smart. than you. Yeah, he does. And he is. He's not wrong. But do you want to jump in to today's Let's do it. I was up until two in the morning going over things for this case. I fell down the rabbit hole and bumped my head quite a few times along the journey. So I'm really excited to dive into this one. Let's do it. All right. So before we get into the timeline, though, do you kind of want to go over who the Martin family was? So the Martin family consisted of six people. We have the dad, Kenneth.

otherwise kind of referred to as Ken, Ken Martin, age 54. He was born in 1904. He worked at Eccles, electric home service. That'll come in a play. You'll hear it throughout this case. So important to note that. But Ken really loved Christmas. This whole family did. But Ken would act as Santa Claus for the neighborhood kids. And he even made these like wooden candy cane decorations for his yard, the neighbor's front yards. And this is what actually got the neighborhood street to be referred to as Candy Cane Lane. Oh, that's cute. There's always like one of those people in every neighborhood. Adorable.

And then there's the mom, Barbara Jean Martin. She was 48. She was born in 1910. The pair got married on the 28th of November in 1929. Barbara loved Christmas too. She sent out the family holiday cards. One of her hobbies, though, that I thought was so, so cool, is Barbara loved to enter sweepstakes, but adorable family.

They ended up moving to the home that they last lived in in 1932, and they referred to it as the Martin Manor. They had four children, the oldest being Donald Kenneth Martin. He was 28 at the time of the Martin family's disappearance, and he was currently living in New York. A little bit about Donald is he served in the Navy, took art courses at night at Hunter College, He taught scuba diving lessons, and he used to work at a Portland department store.

Just to note, too, in some of Multnomah County Detective Walter Graven's research during this case, it's discovered that Donald felt he was gay, and his parents really disapproved of this. But none of this was made public at the time. Yeah, I mean, it was the 50s. But let's talk about the other children. And before we really dive into the Martin Girls, I do want to note that there's a lot of different ages, depending on what source you go through. So sometimes they're 14, 12, and 10, sometimes 14, 13, 11.

We're going to be using what the Associated Press and the New York Times used for the sake of today. So we have the eldest daughter, Barbara Martin, also called Barbie, age 14. Then we have the middle daughter, Virginia Martin, called Jenna, age 13. And then we have Susan Margaret Martin called Susie, age 11. Got it. And I actually did read, it was common for families at the time to have that big age gap between kids because Donald was 28 and then the girls were all in their early teens. And that was because Donald was born around the Great Depression. And so they had to wait until their family could financially recover and then they had more children. There was a lot of speculation on that on Reddit? Oh, really? People went so far as to be like, was he actually their kid? Like why the age gap? Interesting. So as far as, we know and what we saw in the sources like, yes, all biologically their children. Right. Which doesn't change much for me anyways.

Totally. And having an age gap like that was actually pretty common at the time. That's really interesting. And I do just want to know, like we're talking a lot about contacts in year. This case took place in 1958. Yes. Yes. Very important.

So now that we know a little bit about who the Martin family was, let's talk about the day of the disappearance, which was Sunday, December 7th. 1958. So for those of you who are watching, you'll see a map of these points. But if you're listening, you can find the photos on our social media. That's at Clues Podcast on Instagram. And I don't know about you guys listening or watching, but I'm a visual person. So you're going to want to see this map. Be sure to check it out because I really think it does help. Kind of like correlate this story for us. So let's let's break down the day of the disappearance. At 10.30 a.m., the morning before the Martins leave for their ill-fated trip, the Evans family stops by with their children. The Evans are actually second cousins of Barbara Martin, and the families would often spend time

together. They invited the Martins to have dinner together that evening, the night of December 7th, but Barbara declines. She says that she's going on a day trip to collect Christmas greenery. Barbara doesn't really specify where they're going to drive to, though. She just says that they're going up the highway, and that usually means driving out to the Columbia River Gorge on Highway 30. So around 1 to 2 p.m., the precise time has kind of been debated, but around that time, the family

leaves their Portland home in their cream and red 1954 Ford Station wagon. About an hour after leaving, they stopped for gas at Dean's Chevron service station in the small city of Cascade Locks. Around 3 to 4, the Martin stop at a cafe called the Paradise Snack Bar and Hood River, and that's about 20 miles from Cascade Locks. They're just continuing down the road. A waitress comes forward as a witness later on and confirms that she did see the family eating a meal here. And then they left about an hour after they had their meal and they started heading back towards Portland. And that brings us to our very first clue. So at the end of December

1958, a waitress named Clary York came forward and said that she waited on the family late Sunday afternoon, December 7th, before they disappeared. She said that they arrived from the east in their station wagon, ate hamburgers, fries, and dessert, and left after an hour, headed west towards Portland. Yeah. Clara remembered what they ate, what they wore, and even the young girl's hairstyles. And, Kaelan, I know you mentioned this on your episode of Heart Starts Pounding, but the reason why she remembered things so clearly is because she really didn't have any customers that day. Like, the Martin family was kind of all she had. Yeah, it was pretty empty in the place.

There were, however, two men eating at this restaurant at the same time. as the Martin family, and Claire said that they left shortly after the family did and headed in the same direction. In one news clipping, Claire puts the time of their departure around 2 p.m. In another, it says 5.30 p.m. And in another, she says it was around 4.15 at dusk. Yeah, those are all very different times of day. Yeah. Which, yeah. And the fact that there's... And the fact that there's three different times. Yeah. A little confusing. Later, when Detective Graven interviews the staff at Paradise Snack Bar, the owner, Charles Maynard Cody, tells him that the two men in the restaurant the same day were ex-cons, Lester Price and Roy Light. They were dining in the restaurant when the Martins were there and left around the same time, between 415 and 430.

Yeah. And I want you to remember those names because they are going to come back up a little later. But overall, this clue, the witness at the cafe, it's important for placing the family needs. cascade locks as their last known location. Right. And so one thing that was super interesting about December 7th is there was a tip that was reported directly to the FBI. There were two women.

Kelsey and Doris Knutzen, some say Nutson, were out for a sightseeing drive on December 7th when they noticed that there was a light-colored station wagon heading west towards Portland from around the area of the Paradise Snack Bar at about 4.30 p.m. A lot of reason to believe that that was the Martin family. And the station wagon caught their eye because it was traveling at a very fast speed, like abnormally fast. And about 20 minutes later, Kelsey and Doris passed an area called Trotter's Point that was near Cascade Locks, and they saw that that same station wagon was pulled over to the side of the road.

So it had passed them and then it had pulled over. And reportedly, they saw two people in the front seat very close together. it's not really clear from this part of the report if the two people were Ken and Barbara or if it was just other people. And they didn't know if there were kids in the backseat, but they did say that there were two people in the front sitting very close together.

And later that night, the Knutzen's were driving and a car with bright headlights pulled up behind them. And eventually, after repeatedly refusing to pass, they said that the car sped off ahead of them. And a few minutes later, when the Knutzen's arrived at Cascade locks, they saw the station wagon pulled over to the side of the road under a bridge. And they reported that there were two young men standing outside of their car talking to the people inside of the station wagon.

And that's the last time the Knudsen saw the car. There were reports from the same time where people had also seen the two cars together. In one report, a truck driver remembered seeing the two cars and he remembered seeing an abandoned white Chevy parked on Trotter's Point the following day. And so let's talk about the following day because there was a lot going on back in Portland on Monday, December 8th as well. So that morning, at around 7.40 in the morning, Ken Martin's boss, Taylor Eccles, noticed that Ken's service truck wasn't parked out front. And Ken was a very punctual guy. And around the same time that morning, the teachers at Rose City School mark Susan and Virginia absent from their fifth and seventh grade classrooms. their mother hadn't called to give notice that they would be out, which was pretty unusual for the family.

And so that's when Ken's sister, Charlotte Dorsey, who's a second grade teacher at the school, starts to become worried that her nieces are absent without any explanation. So Charlotte called the Martin home, no answer. Next, Charlotte calls Ulysses S. Grant High School, where Barbie is a student, and she discovers that she also hasn't come to her ninth grade class that day. So Charlotte decided to wait until the evening to fully panic because she wants to talk to her husband first and she wants to try to call the Martin's eldest son Donald to see if he knows anything. But at some point during the day, Taylor Eccle's wife, tells a mutual friend, Mrs. Edward Lenz, that the Martins are missing. And the Lenses and the Martins are pretty close friends and they both belong to the Trails Club of Oregon. Mrs. Lenz is really alarmed at this and she begins asking the Martin's neighbors if anyone knows.

where they are. And when she can't find any explanation, she decides to call the Multnomah County Sheriff's office. That night, around 9.30 p.m., Officer Fred Roadnight picks up Mrs. Lenz's call, and he learns that Ken and the Martin family are missing after their trip to Larch Mountain, where they said they were going to get Christmas greenery. And the officer takes down this information, and then he notifies the deputy sheriff, Ard Pratt. Ard sends three cars out to the Larch Mountain area, near the Columbia River Gorge, and another officer's car is sent to the Martin home. And around that time, Ken's sister, Charlotte Dorsey, also calls to report the family missing. About an hour and a half after all of that, so 11 p.m., officers Kutshall and Johnson arrive at the Martin home and they search the grounds, but the house looks dark and totally empty.

Neighbors approach to see what's going on and explain that the Martins would never leave town overnight without telling someone. This is incredibly strange behavior for them. And the officers learn that Ken's sister, Charlotte, lives nearby. So a neighbor calls her and she comes over with her husband to let the officers into the home. And inside the house, it becomes evident that the family was not planning to be gone for very long. There's still dirty dishes in the sink. There's ground beef that's set out on the counter and it's thawing for dinner. And so that is strange enough in itself.

But the thing that really makes this weird is around the same time as the police are going through the Martin's home, several witnesses report seeing an abandoned white 1951 Chevrolet near the highway eight miles east of Cascade Locks. And this car, when the police finally go look at it and they run the plates and they try to figure out whose car it is, it's connected to an ex-convict. Lester Kenneth Price. which maybe you remember hearing that name just a little bit ago. I told you guys to remember those names. He either borrowed or stole this car from a friend in Los Angeles. It's a little unclear how he got it. And he drove it to Hood River, allegedly to visit his wife and child.

But he was also visiting friends. And one of those friends was ex-con Roy Light. This episode is brought to you by Instacart. I have a four-month-old at home, which means I don't leave the house unless I absolutely have to. Going to the grocery store is a really big deal for me these days, which is why I love Instacart so much. I hate grocery shopping. I always forget things. I get overwhelmed. I have decision paralysis or I shop hungry and then I get way too much, which is why I love to use Instacart. Keep me out of the store. I'm going to sit at home reading my book instead. And Summer is all about

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Hey, before we jump back into the show, let's take a quick break. But not just any break. This is a refreshing break with Snapple. We all know about Snapple's iconic real facts, so let's take a minute to go over some of my favorites. Snapple Real Fact, 964, it is illegal in the United Kingdom to handle salmon in suspicious circumstances. Snapple Real Fact 1013, it is illegal to sing off key in North Carolina. Snapple Real Fact 2033. Americans consume 150 million hot dogs on July 4th. Snapple Real Fact 705. Every ton of recycled paper saves about 17 trees.

So grab a Snapple, take a second, and enjoy the moment. Because let's be honest, this might be the most refreshing part of your day. Snapple. Make your break more interesting. All right, now let's get back to clues. On Tuesday, December 9th, the local newspaper, the Oregonian, runs, a front-page story. Quote, Mountain searched for family.

And people begin calling in all sorts of tips, saying they saw cars or people that look like the Martins. But all of these sightings turn out to be dead ends. So officers continue trying to determine exactly where the Martins traveled to and what time they left. The following week, hundreds of people searched for the family in Oregon and Washington. One newspaper estimated that the number of people searching included law enforcement officers, forest servicemen, friends, relatives, and other volunteers.

And it was well over a thousand people. No valuable clues are found at all. It's really like they just vanished into thin air at that point. Then on December 16th, Charlotte Dorsey announces a $500 reward. She gets more contributions from friends and the reward is increased to $1,000. That's in 1958. That's a decent amount of money today. missing posters with the reward are displayed.

And that same day, Detective Graven is investigating the Martin's son, Donald. He visits Donald's former workplace, the department store Meyer and Frank in downtown Portland. And this is a good time to get into Donald a bit more. Yeah. Because this is when Detective Graven starts looking at Donald's employment files. He sees that he did work at this department store several times over the past decade. First, when he was a stock boy in 1948, but he quit three months after to join the Navy. Then he worked as a stock boy from January to June 1950, but quit again.

Then he was rehired as a stock boy and window trimmer in April 1954, and that lasted until September 1955. But the reason this time is because the store actually fired him for stealing over $2,000 in merchandise. And that's got to be a decent amount of money today. That's like almost $30,000 today. That's a lot. It's a lot. That's a lot.

It's, yes. And what's also a lot is one of the items that Donald was accused of stealing is a 38 caliber colt commander pistol. I have friends that have stolen from their jobs and it's always just like food on their break. Like I just can't imagine stealing a gun from your workplace. And when Donald was arrested in 1955, because of this, he said it was because he was having a hard time at home, because his parents didn't approve of his sexuality. But despite his parents' disapproval, they did help him get out of trouble with the store. It was actually Ken that came in and paid the store back for all of Donald's stolen goods. And this is when Donald was released.

And his family really wanted him to go to Trinity Religious College in Connecticut at this time. they were hoping it would really reform Donald, but instead Donald ended up going to New York City. He was forthcoming with the information that he was gay. So it seems like there was maybe a little bit of acceptance within himself, which makes it even more devastating that his family was so not on board with it. So let's jump in to after the family disappears. Detective Graven remained interested in Donald as a suspect. Something of note is that Donald decided not to come up. home to Portland to aid in the search for his family.

Authorities only were able to interview him over the phone, and he wouldn't return to Portland for months. And granted, he's in the Navy. Maybe he wasn't able to get leave, but I still find that a little odd. Like, your whole entire family vanishes. I at least think the United States Navy would have been a little accommodating to send you home. I would be really curious if we have any listeners with military experience or maybe that are married to people with military experience, what that bereavement leave is. I have family members

who are in the military and we had a death in the family that they were able to come back for. But who knows if it like extends to missing. I know. And the fact that he wasn't like stationed abroad, he was in New York, you know, maybe on base. It's, it was just something I found in this case that was a little unusual, almost that level of detachment. And totally. Everyone deals differently, but to not come home for months? I think the thing with Donald is that it's a bunch of little things that kind of add up together because there's like another thing about him where he had a mutual friend with Lester Price. So there is a connection of him and one of the ex-cons.

And that was this guy named Wayne. And Wayne had worked with Donald at Meyer and Frank around the time that Donald was arrested. You have Donald and then he happens to be connected to the two people seen in the cafe. that left shortly after. And then the family was spotted, pulled over on the side of the road, talking to two people. There's a lot of string that starts going up to Donald. We might get lost in the yarn today. I don't know.

We will see. I agree. So on December 28th, news reports start coming out on an ex-convicts abandoned car and the potential connection to the disappearance of the Martin family. So the car is presented as, quote, the most valuable clue in the Martin case yet by Oregonian reporter Jerry Purs. who interviewed a local sheriff. And the sheriff didn't name the ex-con connected with the car, but he said that he'd been in Oregon State Penitentiary for forging a check. And he said that the ex-con was also a hobbyist photographer who may have seen Ken Martin's 8-millimeter film cameras.

And these details aren't super important, but they seemed like they might have been at the time. So on the next day, December 29th, the newspaper publicly names both ex-cons, and it shows the mugshot of a man named Lester Price. So the investigation turns to focus on those ex-cons, Lester Price and Roy Light, the abandoned Chevy and various theories about foul play. Did the ex-cons make the Martins disappear? Did someone hire them to kill the family? And around this time, witnesses in Los Angeles claim they saw Lester Price in town through December 9th,

so he couldn't have been in Oregon to cross paths with the Martin family on Desoling. 7th. And there's more information about what happened to Roy and Lester, but they were ultimately forgotten as suspects in this case. But before we move on, there's one really important note that I want to make. And that's that Roy Light allegedly carjacked someone by hiding in the back seat under a blanket and surprising them. And if that was his M.O., it seems like it could have been something that happened to the Martin family as well, hiding in the back seat, and then the family comes in and you're able to carjack them. Yeah. And I'm, I'm not sure if it was your episode or where I saw it, but I think the person that he carjacked, wasn't it like a sheriff or something?

There, I think it was a woman that he carjacked. I can't remember the specific details, but there was, he, he got in trouble with the law a lot throughout his life. Yeah. So there were probably other times that he ran into sheriff. Okay. Yeah. So at some point in either late December or early January, we get our next major clue. Tire tracks. Tire tracks are discovered by a Portland man named Donald D. Bain, who had been involved in searching for the family. He was familiar with the area and he spent a lot of time roaming the shoreline of the Columbia River. And this is when he noticed those tracks. It looked like a car had come to the very edge of a steep cliff and just gone off. And of course, he did report these tire tracks to authorities, but the officer thought it was an irrelevant tip because the Martins wouldn't have come to that area for Christmas greenery.

So Bain contacted a sheriff in Portland, but he also dismissed this potential evidence as not being from the right location. So the fact that they outright dismissed this is a little wild to me because it's not really the type of place where a car would casually go off the road again, even if they're. they didn't think it was the Martin family. The fact that they didn't feel the need to investigate why a car would have gone off the road into a river at that point is a little beyond, is just beyond me. But it was the bluff was located behind the aluminum plant. It was not really off the side of the road. Cars wouldn't have been driving back there. And when Bain looked down into the bluff past the tire tracks, he saw cream-colored paint scrapings on the rocks.

That to me is wild And I think we're going to have Something like this every episode I need like a little scientist To just like phone a friend Scientist button Yes Because for paint chips to be found

I started going down I'm like okay physics How fast was this car moving If it would have been moving really fast Wouldn't have just flown off And there wouldn't be any chips on the rocks Was it rolled off Was it just at idle

And it slowly went Did they put a brick on the pedal Pushed off I'm just like That's where we need our phone a scientist button. Right. But, I mean, I looked at aerial pictures of this area. And granted, the roads may have changed since 58.

But it definitely does not look like a normal area to just go off the road. So the fact that a car went over the edge there felt pretty intentional. And this is what Bain thought too. Which is why, after being dismissed, he contacted reporters. And the Oregon Journal mentioned his theory in a short article that ran on January 2nd. Quote, Don Bain reported earlier this week

seen a tire track on grass and a tire marked rocks about five miles east of Cascade Locks. Bain said the river at this point is almost 85 feet deep and a car could have plunged over a 20-foot cliff at this juncture, end quote.

And then they paraphrase him and say, I really feel this is where they are going to find the Martin car, said Bain, end quote. The author of Echo of Distant water, notes that the Oregon Journal article does contain a few errors. Bain had actually seen paint on the rocks, not tire tracks, and the place in the Dales was more like 45 miles from

Cascade locks, not five. After this article, however, authorities do come back and accept these tire tracks as evidence. So now that it's evidence, people do start to wonder if the family accidentally backed off the cliff, plunging into water. Detective Graven at this point actually had a plaster cast made of the tracks, and through this determined that the tread of the marks matched the type of tires that the Martin's car actually had on it. There were also bits of cream-colored paint on the rocks near these tire tracks, which was the same color as the Martin's cream and red Ford Station wagon.

And this is a part of this case, and with this clue that really really, blew my mind. The paint chips were actually tested by the FBI, and they matched the car's make and model. And again, 1958, we hadn't been to the moon yet. We're getting close to going there. But like, I'm like the paint chips being tested. I'm really impressed at that aspect. Yeah, they had the science to do it. Yeah, really impressed with that. And because of this, Detective Gravin actually believed that the car went into the water at this spot by the cliff. So I went and looked at the weather. There was no heavy fog. snow or rain on this day. And in the weeks after, there was a lot of light rain, but luckily

no snow. But checking the weather also made me think like, okay, how could you accidentally go off a cliff if you're driving? Regardless of the spot being hard to get to. There was no fog. There was no sleep. There was no snow. On that day in December, in that general location, there was no precipitation. Yeah, full visibility. You could see everything that was going on. It doesn't make sense that they would accidentally go off a road. And again, I went further. I was looking up headlights on this car. I'm like, maybe, you know, this 1954 station wagon, the headlights didn't go as far with light range.

Right. Because if it, one of the times that they maybe left the snack bar was 530. Yeah. It's winter. Sun's going down. Maybe it was really dark out. Yeah. And they somehow, but it doesn't seem like it.

No. And even for a 1954 Ford, the lights were really, they weren't that bad. Like the visibility and the range you got from them was pretty good, but just something to note. I mean, I learned. No seat belts in the car, but other safety mechanisms. Yeah, but I do believe the family actually added their own seatbelts in. Yeah, because you used to have to. They didn't have seatbelts in cars back in.

Yeah. And so that was another thing I found super odd. It's like a family that paid to add seatbelts, despite it not. being regulated, they would be driving erratically and super fast. It just, it was a little surprising for me. Well, one more thing to know about this aluminum plant before we get back to the timeline is a person tied to this case who worked at that very same plant. And that was Roy Light. So we talk about someone needing to know the area very intimately in order to get to that spot and have a car go off. And Roy Light would have been that person. Yeah. And I literally, I know this case.

I just got chills with that. I'm like, what? Again, like, what are the odds? Small world, but it's hard to think it's just a coincidence. One of this week's partners is Peloton. There's a specific kind of joy and freedom that comes from a truly great workout. That feeling where everything just clicks. Peloton is helping you unlock that feeling with the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ. It's cross-training reimagined. Peloton IQ actually personally. personalizes your journey by planning your workouts, tracking your progress, and even correcting your form in real time to help you unlock new versions of yourself. So let yourself run, lift, fail, try, and go. Explore the new Peloton cross-training tread plus at OnePeloton.com.

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Potential savings will vary. So in January of 1959, Detective Graven goes back to the Paradise snack bar and he questions the owner, Charles Maynard Cody. And Cody tells him that the two ex-cons, Lester Price, and Roy Light, were seen in the restaurant around the same time as the Martins and left around the same time. Detective Graven also speaks with a man named Clifford Slim Bennett, who runs a nearby brothel in Dallas, Port Washington. And Slim says that Lester and Roy visited the brothel multiple times between December 7th. and December 10th. And if you remember, one of the ex-cons friends said that they didn't leave California until like December 10th. So clearly they were seen in the area starting the 7th. That's what I thought was a little fishies. What about that alibi in L.A.? Yeah, exactly.

And after the 10th, they don't go back to the brothel. So he doesn't know where they went. And so Detective Graven starts to think that the car was pushed into the river, perhaps by the ex-cons, but that brings us to our next clue, the big one. Yeah, this is the clue that really has my head spinning. In January, 1959, a man named Theodore Hellyer was in an area just west of Cascade Locks when he saw a silversish glimmer coming from underneath a rock. He went to go see what it was, and he actually found a gun. But it wasn't just any gun. This gun was a 38-calibur Colt Commander, serial number 15-861 LW. And I will say, like, the Reddit Rabbit Hole people are like, of how did they have the serial number on guns?

It wasn't mandated at that time, but certain brands did do it. So it wasn't impossible that a gun would have a serial number on it. Yeah, that's interesting context. And when he found this gun, he also noticed there was dried blood on the handle and that the butt of the gun was damaged. Like it had been used to maybe bludgeon something. Wow. And of the nine chambers, there was only one fired shell casing. And Kaelan, I know you had a point in your heart start pounding episode where you talked about how the shell was still in the chamber.

Yeah. And why that could have happened. Yeah. So with this specific kind of gun, if you obstructed it from being fired at all, the shell would just kind of like stay in the chamber and explode. And so that's what it looked like it had been jammed. like maybe someone got in a fight and covered the gun and when it went off, the shell just stayed in the gun. I thought that was really interesting on your episode. So after discovering this gun, Hellyer gave it to the sheriff, who for some unknown reason did not accept the gun as evidence.

Get this. He actually cleaned the gun off. Cleaned it. Blood. Dried blood. It kills me every time because it's like, same with the tire tracks. they're like, oh, this doesn't fit into the Martin family disappearance. I guess it's just not evidence, even though it's a bloody gun that looks like it was used to bludgeon someone.

Like, well, maybe the other person that got bludgeoned needs help and we should still like investigate this a little bit. Also, even just keep it and put it as like catalog it as, hey, found this random gun. It's got blood on it. Like, you give it back to someone who it doesn't belong to them. Like, oh, it's a gun. Yeah. And I get that they didn't have DNA evidence back then. And so, like, they wouldn't need to preserve the blood at all.

But it's just always so funny when they just like, here, I washed the gun you found for you and, like, you can have it back. I mean, I again went down the rabbit hole in this case probably too hard. Like, I was like, did they know DNA existed at this time? And yes, they did. They knew of its existence, but it hadn't been yet used in crime cases. Right. So I get, you know, it might not have been thought to like, oh, preserve this blood. We can test it later.

But they knew of DNA at least. They had fingerprinting, though, and they didn't do that. Yeah. They did nothing. They did nothing with this gun. And something that I think is also really interesting is Detective Graven's grandson, Greg Graven, who is actually the current chief of police in Yamhill, Oregon. He actually tells reporters for the K-O-I-N-6 News podcast. He says, quote, there are protocols that are required to take place even back then regarding the finding of a firearm.

And those protocols were not met. It's a little frustrating. I'm surprising. But Detective Graven does learn about the gun during his investigation in early 1959. And this is when he really starts putting the pieces together and going back to what he learned about Donald Martin. And puts it together that the gun he stole from Meyer and Frank Store was also a 38 caliber handgun. When he found the serial number for that stolen handgun, 158, 6.6.1.5.6.1.5.6. one LW, he realized it was identical to the one found along the highway.

It gets me every time. I think this is something that it's going to come up, you know, from time to time in these cases that we cover. But this is something that feels a little botched to me. And by botched, I mean, carried out badly or carelessly. It just feels like this was a piece of evidence that really could have helped this case back then. And it just wasn't handled as it should have been.

let me know your thoughts on this. Like, is this the botched piece of this case for you? Maybe it's the tire tracks, actually. But I think this is a point in all of our episodes that maybe listeners could help chime in with. And maybe we each pick a piece that we feel was botched when it applies. Yeah. I mean, we did get a really important piece of evidence from it, which was the serial number. Like, at least they did check that.

So we were able to see that it was Donald's. Yeah. At least he put it back together. but I mean, they gave the gun back. I know. Because if we had it today, maybe we would be able to test the DNA evidence and see whose blood it was. Yeah. And a few more things that I want to talk about that really tie into this clue.

In Graven's report, he also says bonfire was discovered near where the gun was found. This makes him wonder if other evidence had been destroyed during that. And based on Graven's notebooks, which were reviewed by the author of Echo of distant water, Graven confronted Donald about the gun during a call in mid-December, 1958. Donald said the following, quote, New York police told me about that, the gun, being found. I have no knowledge of it. Wayne had a buddy who worked in sporting goods. Wayne liked guns. I didn't. I just like nice things, like a girl. I like nice things to make my apartment pretty, end quote. So basically, Donald didn't have much to say about the gun.

He suggests that his friend Wayne might have had it. And nothing seems to come from Graven's investigation of Wayne. But there is more info on him in the book if you want it. Yeah, I mean, I think Wayne is an interesting character here because we know that he was the connective tissue between Donald and Lester Price. So one of the ex-cons. So it just makes Wayne look a little involved in all of this. And as a side note, when I was initially doing the research on this case for heart starts pounding, I did find that there were a lot of rumors about Wayne's involvement with the Martin family disappearance.

Particularly, there was one rumor going around at the time that people still talk about today, that Wayne was involved romantically with Barbie. That's maybe a lightweight of putting it because Barbie was a minor. She was 14. So I couldn't find credible sources to back up that claim. But Wayne would stay at the Martins a lot. he would stay with the family. The rumors and the speculation really, really swirl around this case and the gun and

Wayne was into sporting goods and Wayne liked guns. Yeah, was Wayne the one that actually stole the gun? Yeah. I'm curious what all of you out there listening think about that. Yeah. One comment I found that really started to change my thoughts on this case is a lot of people theorized that Donald actually left the gun in Oregon when he moved to New York, and that maybe the family kept it in the car for safety. So let's just say you have a family leaving a restaurant, going down the highway, car speeds up behind them, flashing lights, refusing to pass.

Martin family thinks, oh, something might be wrong. Let me pull over. Two men outside the car. We know gun was damaged on the butt. Maybe. there was a struggle over it because of one of the casings. Yeah. This is the theory that I tossed and turned over last night. That's, I actually had never thought about that. Yeah, maybe Ken pulled the gun, tried to shoot one of the ex-cons. They grabbed it.

Bullet gets stuck. And then he rips it out of his hand and kind of like bludgeoned him with it. But here's where I would love to hear you guys chime in with your theories. I mean, there's a lot in the rumor mill here and a lot of specular. So please comment what you think. Yes, definitely. I'm curious what everyone thinks. And there was a lot of these little clues popping up, but there wasn't much movement in the case.

And not until May 2, 1959, when there was a tragic discovery. So young fishermen, Ellery Colby, saw two bodies floating downstream near Thunder Island, headed towards Bonneville Dam. And that's in the Columbia River. And then the bodies started to drift apart. So the following day, May 3rd, just before noon, a captain of the R.W. Confer tugboat discovers something in the Columbia River while he's working near the Crown Zellerbach Corporation Paper Factory. And at first, the captain thinks it's just debris mixed in with logs, but then he sees that it's actually a small body covered in grimy clothing. And the captain immediately calls the sheriff and the coroner.

And another man who works on the boat drags the body to shore. the sheriff recognizes the girl's clothing as matching the Martin family daughters, but it's surprising that the body is found so far from where the family was thought to have traveled. So the body's brought to Hamilton's funeral parlor in Vancouver, Washington, and Charlotte Dorsey's husband, that's Ken's sister, her husband, Herschel, goes to identify the body, but the girl's face is no longer recognizable to him because of the damage and deterioration, though the rest of her body is fairly well preserved.

And the bodies eventually moved to the Multnomah County coroner's office and frozen before an autopsy takes place. And during this time, the body is identified officially by dental records as the youngest Martin, Susan. And people speculate that Susan was maybe not wearing a seatbelt. So if the car sank and, say, like, a window or a door popped open because they were in the river, maybe she did float out. The Ford didn't come with seatbelts and the Martins installed them, which we mentioned. And on the next day, May 4th, as the discovery of Susan's body hit the news and re-ignited interest in the case, the second body was found. Around 1115 in the morning, a man named Clarence Haight saw a body floating in the river about 25 miles from where the sister, Susan, was found, on the Oregon side. So it was found kind of near the Washington, Oregon border by this Bonneville dam.

And Clarence is an electrician who worked for the U.S. Army engineers, and he was checking equipment. on gantry cranes when he spotted the body among debris and trash. And the body was lifted out of the water by a crane. Same thing. They see it's a girl. She has jeans, a sweatshirt, a white shirt. She even has an M&M wrapper in the pocket of her jeans, which I thought was just a really sad detail. And dental records do determine that this is Virginia, Martin, Jenny, the middle daughter.

The location of this body once again makes authorities wonder where exactly the Martin car went into the water because it now seems likely that it actually went in near Cascade Locks. Remember, Cascade Locks is where the car was pulled over. They were talking to people outside of the car, the two guys. And that is just upriver from the dam. So if it went in there, it makes sense that the bodies maybe floated out and then went down to the dam. Yeah, based on our map and where they're finding these bodies, it does seem likely. And I know in this case the reason that they believe the bodies actually surfaced is because a rig or some sort of boat actually dropped anchor and it got stuck. Yeah, the day-

And that dislodged or maybe opened a door, broke a window, and that's maybe how the bodies got to the surface. The day before the bodies were first seen floating down the river, there was an oil boat on the river that dropped this big anchor and they hit something. And when they hit it, they even felt like it was a car. They couldn't see it. Yeah, they said like steel or something. It was steel, but they get their anchor down again because they actually want to pull it out of the water. So they attach onto whatever it is and they start pulling it out. But right before it gets to the surface where they can see what it is, it dislodges and falls.

And so maybe in that process, they hit a window. And that also just timed with the girls floating out. So it seems likely that the day before they did actually hit the car. But the discoveries of these girls, does lead us to our fourth and final clue, the autopsies of Susan and Virginia Martin. So Susan's cause of death was determined to be drowning. The death occurred no more than two hours after she had eaten. I assume the contents of her stomach were similar to that of Virginia's, which is what the book Echo of Distant Water says. The condition of her body suggested it had been

held down in cold, deep water for a considerable length of time, before eventually coming to the surface and floating down the river. This is true of Virginia's too. Virginia's cause of death was also determined to be drowning. There was no evidence of any injury or disease. The body was fairly well preserved, suggesting it hadn't been floating on the surface of the water for very long, and as mentioned, she had eaten prior to her death. Her stomach contained hamburger, potatoes, and citrus fruit. And this would corroborate with the details that the waitress gave. Now, this is a point I think is interesting and where there's some mixed information here. In some reports about the autopsy, it says that she had a hole in the side of her head.

It was something that the deputy sheriff actually told a journalist, he was the person who photographed and fingerprinted both girls. And he said in a 1999 interview, quote, both girls had holes in their skulls, identical holes, above and behind their right ears. I thought they were either from a gunshot or a blow. Wow. If this is true, though, it's not clear why it was omitted from the autopsy. And again, like, there's some discrepancy here because in the K-O-I-N-6 News podcast, they have a quote, an autopsy technician who took pictures of the bodies thought both girls had bullet holes in their skulls. The medical examiner ruled otherwise.

There was even a picture of the autopsy that the author of Echo of Distant Water saw, but it was too small and blurry to see whether or not Virginia's had actually had a hole in it. Yeah. And because both remains were eventually cremated, there's no way to check on it now. So in the weeks that followed, the area of Cascade Locks and the Bonneville Dam, which they're about five miles apart along the Columbia River, it's repeatedly searched by boats and cars and helicopters. The water is dragged and searched with grappling hooks. No trace of the Martin family is found. They do not find the car. On May 23rd, there's a memorial service for Susan and Virginia.

Donald does not attend this. He later claimed that he mixed up the date and actually didn't mean to miss it. Which, yeah. He didn't help in the search either and then to not come. You don't show up for months. Yeah. There's finally a service and you don't make it there. Like, it's very odd.

But one photo I did see of Donald was a picture of him holding. in a photo of his family. Yeah, and looking at it. Sadly, glancing at it. So. I mean, some people, it's just the hurt is so much. They can't even. Yeah.

Like, they just can't do it. And again, the context of, you know, his sexuality and maybe disapproval from parents. Right. Maybe he was no contact. We, you know. There's a lot of complicated feelings there. A lot there. Yes. Absolutely.

The girls are eventually cremated. And Donald does not claim their remains. No one claims the remains. for 10 years. They just sit in the funeral home until 1969 when an unnamed relative or family friend, we know that it was not Donald, collects them and buries them alongside their paternal grandmother. Yeah. And again, this is where I find Donald's behavior so puzzling. I think regardless of maybe being strained and distant from your family, wouldn't you at least collect the remains and have them buried or, you know, just ensure that they had a resting place.

There's just, there's just so much going on with him throughout the entire investigation. I agree. And, you know, maybe money was a concern and why he didn't. But I know you're going to get into this right now. So let's talk about the estate. Exactly. So on June 3rd, Donald finally arrives in Portland from New York, having missed months of searching and the memorial for his sisters. But he is there. He does arrive promptly on time to settle his family. family's estate. And when you do the conversion, in today's cash, it's nearly $400,000. That is life-changing money. Absolutely. It's completely life-changing money. So Donald starts cooperating with the investigation when he's asked to. He answers calls from

detectives. And in December, he meets with Detective Graven while he's in Portland. But he, other than that, doesn't really go out of his way to help. Remember, some of his family members are still missing at this point. He stays in town for about a week. And during his meeting with Detective Graven, he reportedly says, quote, I know of no one who would murder my folks or no reason for it, but I don't see how it could have been an accident. So he also doesn't think it's an accident. To me, it doesn't look like an accident.

Again, I need some scientists or physics experts to chime in on speed of the car and how it got over the cliff. But it is interesting that if he was involved, he would be. you know, say that and say, I don't think it was an accident. It must have been foul play. It, you know, why blow your spot? Yeah, yeah, right. So that again is where I go back to the two cons. Exactly. So this case basically goes cold by the end of 1959. At that point, most people just believed it was a tragic accident, but the rumors and the legends of this case still remained. Detective Graven continued to, pursue all of these theories because he was convinced that there was foul play. And the case of the missing family would go on to haunt him for the rest of his life. The fact that he couldn't solve this really tortured him.

And one of his notebooks, he wrote that the case, quote, will be solved if I live long enough for the car and the bodies to be found. And in another entry in that notebook, he seems to directly express who he thinks did it, but crosses the name out. There's a spot in the notebook where he wrote out in black pen, had to be planned by blank. No one else with motive. And then the blank is just scribbled out.

So years later, someone actually went into Photoshop to see if they could restore the word that was written under his scribbled black ink. And they were able to retrieve a name. And it did say Donald. And another file from Graven, a copy of a letter he sent to another officer was there. And he wrote, quote, I also want to call your attention that Donald Martin is the sole.

beneficiary to the Martin estate insurance, etc. And that the whole family would have to die to make this so. Because if dad dies, it goes to mom. If mom dies and you're no contact with your son, maybe it just goes to the girls. Also, at the time, Donald Martin was caught stealing from Meyer and Frank Co. He gave as his excuse that he was a homosexual. And he gave as his excuse for being one that his mom was a fat slob and his father wasn't much better and stated he was afraid that the girls would be just like them.

This shows that he did not like his family. Yeah, there's a lot to unpack here. I think it's clear that he had some level of, I don't know, maybe disdain is the right word for his parents, if not the whole family. Yeah. I do find it interesting that the detective, though, did cross out his name. He was captivated by this case. It was the one that haunted him, you know, maybe the one that was getting away or unsolvable. And so for someone who knew every detail who was so close to it,

he did cross it out. Yeah. So it does feel like he got to a point that he even thought it's not him. Let's say Donald did do this or maybe he enlisted Roy Light and Lester Price to help him take out his family. This did all happen again, 1958. It's not like Donald had find my iPhone enabled. He couldn't track his parents. I even saw on one thread on Reddit that long distance phone calls at that time could

have been like $100 for just three minutes. Yeah, wow. So how does he even find out this plan, this Sunday trip to go find greenery? Right. How does he organize it? I mean, maybe they do it the same weekend every year. Maybe he knows like the first Saturday of December. That's when my parents go get all their greens for Christmas. But I agree. At the time, it's hard for me to wrap my mind around how people made plans in the 50s, but they did. And so I don't know exactly how he would have orchestrated all of this, but it seems like he would have been able to, I think. I don't know. It's just something that it's a hole in this one for me. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Donald doesn't necessarily have a clear alibi either, but he was stationed in New York while he was on active duty in the Navy.

So it would have been hard for him to have been the person to physically do it. But I, Regardless, I don't think he was one to physically do it. I think there are some people online who believe that, you know, maybe he actually just flew back and did it himself. But I just don't think there's any way that he would have been able to do that. Yeah, that's an interesting point. I know there are some sources that mention a car, a taxi, waiting outside the family home for about an hour. Yeah. It might have been your episode.

It was. It was the day after they disappeared. There was a car idling outside of their house at 7 in the morning. So there's that. There's that. Ken had a important, I actually just thought about this. He had a meeting at 8 a.m. So maybe the car was coming to get him for the day.

You never know? I don't know. It's so strange. You never know. And you know, he could have done that long distance call because if in his mind he knows that he's about to inherit thousands of dollars, like $300, $100, $100 to make a long distance call, doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. Yeah, this is a point.

I was also kind of curious about. because he was in the Navy, you know, maybe he's on base, maybe phone calls, no matter if they're long distance or not, maybe it's free. But the inheritance in the estate is obviously talked about for motive quite a bit. And motive is kind of everything in these cases. Like, what is the reason behind it? But I saw in one source that he actually didn't get his estate for a couple years after the disappearance. Yeah. Which granted, he might not have known that at the time. In my head, I don't know. You hear about things like probate, but I wouldn't, I don't know, maybe the average bear doesn't know how long it takes.

So maybe that wasn't a part of his plan or he knew about it. But ultimately, there's no other developments in this case. Right. Detective Graven retired in 1966. He kept all of his case files about the Martins, which his family preserved for him later on. And he did pass away in 1988. Okay. So in the years that follow, Donald did marry a woman name?

Helen and he moved to Hawaii. He goes on to have four kids and he teaches at a high school. And Donald did pass away in 2004. He was a suspect in the investigation but was never charged with anything. And that leads us to today where there's actually been a pretty big update in this case. A crazy update that happened just a few months ago. So in February of this year, 2025 amateur investigator slash professional sculptor slash diver Archer Mayo pinpointed

where the Martin family's car disappeared and he led a mission to find it and Archer notified authorities that he found the place in the Columbia River where the Martin car sank and it was near Cascade locks which is where it was estimated that they went in

and so Mayo takes a video of the car during a dive and he shows that it matches the type of Ford the family drove, and he also films the license plate. On March 6th, law enforcement arranged for a crew to start pulling the car out of the river, and a barge with a crane attached begins the process of uncovering the vehicle. It's ultimately a two-day process. On March 7th, pieces of the car are finally removed from the water out of the Columbia River near Cascade Locks, Marine Park, and Oregon.

So portions of the car, including the chassis, rear axle, and engine were pulled out of the water, but the cabin of the car separated from the rest and it remained stuck underwater. No human remains were found in the car and it's now undergoing forensic analysis. And for context, this location is about 20 miles west of the cafe where a waitress saw the Martins before they disappeared. So it would fit the theory that they were headed home towards Portland when their car was. went off a cliff into the water. Yeah, something I found really interesting too. Mayo noted that there were actually other cars under water in the area too.

Right. Which, again, like, this whole case just feels like what are the odds? Like, what are the odds? Well, was that an area where cars went off the cliff accidentally into the locks? Or was it a known dumping area? Yeah. Or was it a known dumping area? Yeah, it's like, I feel like there's certain stories you hear where a town has a bridge and there's so many guns that people find with magnets in the water below.

Like, you know, some places, some towns have those areas that are just, you go there to be discreet or get away with things. Right. You know, could it have been one of those areas? What do you think happened? What is the theory you keep going back to? I feel like we're going to have a lot of takes, a lot of comments, and I want to see them all. I'm not sold on one thing or another, but as of right now,

I'm in the boat that Donald did not do it. Wow. You and Archer Mayo. I really do think that there was a struggle. And I do think that the two, you know, ex-cons are connected, especially given that one went on to have a carjacking, you know, similar feel to it. No, and I forget who it was that mentioned that Ken might have had photography equipment in the car. And so maybe it was something where like one of the ex-cons saw that there was valuable equipment in the car, followed them, was trying to rob them. It escalated because there was a gun in the vehicle.

They did something and then dumped the car. There was a struggle. Yeah. Gun went off. Ken got killed. Yeah. We can't have murder on our hands. We can't have witnesses.

Yeah. Let's drive this family off the cliff. I mean, there's a few theories that I saw that. And this is dark. This is really dark. family annihilator theories. That Ken did it. That Ken did it.

Wow. But again, given the witnesses and the weird circumstances, I don't know. It is interesting. Like, maybe he threw the gun out the window as he was driving and then the car went in the river. But I at least feel somewhat good saying I don't think Donald did it. I know his behavior is so odd and not showing up to help. search, not coming back for the funerals, not picking up the remains. Like, there are so many things that have you really side-eyeing him. But I think that really could just be a strained relationship with

a family. Yeah. So why wouldn't Donald have said that, well, when I stole the gun, my family kept the gun in the car? Because he goes on to say that it was probably Wayne that stole the gun. And that is interesting. And given Wayne being involved with the family and over at their house and close and maybe he brought it over and maybe Ken caught Wayne and said, hey, you're too young for a gun. I'm keeping it. I'm not sure, but it is interesting. I just don't think it was Donald. Could it have been Wayne? Could it have been the Barbie pregnancy conspiracy of this? Maybe. But I feel like given the fact that people were lying for Lester and Roy, oh, they were in L.A. Meanwhile, they were at brothels? Like, were they able to afford the brothels because of money that

they got from the Martins? True. I mean, there's a lot. You can, we could speculate till the cows come home. I know, absolutely. It does seem like Archer, the diver that found the car, thinks it was an accident, a total accident. He went on, so he made like this little five-minute YouTube video explaining how he found the car, like all the models he built in his house to figure out exactly where the car went in. And he is, really staunchly, like everything we think we know about this case is wrong and everything that Detective Graven wrote in his notebook is wrong. And so he alludes to the fact that it was probably an accident in the area that it was in. I think the locks were really close to the road and so maybe they could have swerved off. Yeah. But he also says that he's writing a book about it.

And if you want to know what he really thinks, you have to buy the book. Read the book. Yeah. Which, hey, the man spent seven years of his life. I know. He deserves. to write a book about it. Yeah. I'm like, make a YouTube video like the rest of us. I just want to know. It is, the whole thing is really, really peculiar. It's a head scratcher.

Where do you land? Where do you finally come on this one? The thing that, so this is always what I like to ask the audience to is like, what is the one piece you keep going back to when you try to like explain, when you try to walk through the other theories, what is the one piece that you can't explain away? And for me, it's the gun. The gun, I know. Why was Donald's gun?

there. But was it Donald's? The only thing that makes me not hung up on that is what you brought up that maybe they just had it in the car. In the glove box. And the glove box. And so if you're enlisting in the Navy, you're going off to basic, you're going off and you're living on base, you don't just take your gun with you. No, it would have had to have been coordinated. Like maybe Wayne went over and got it. And it would have had to be like really planned out. So I don't know. I'm curious what the audience thinks, what the piece that they keep going back to to be like, it had to have been this person or it had to have been the ex-cons or Donald or Wayne. I'm really excited to see all of your comments on this one. Yeah. Really. This is a tough one. And I think, you know,

given 1958, the evidence was so different back then, technology and right. Everything. So I do feel like a case like this would have been solved immediately today. Yeah. We had the blood. We had the gun. We had the. I think so too. So it's really tough. And I think even if they did go in accidentally, I don't think there was any chance the family would have gotten out given how heavy the car was, how quickly it probably submerged. So this is my one little PSA to everyone out there. Please have on your side door one of those window breakers. Yes. Like if you ever end up in water, the pressure from the water, it's hard to open a door or roll down a window.

So please have like a little safety kit in your car of like a seatbelt window. It's like a seatbelt rip at a window breaker combo. Slash the seatbelt and breaks it. Just have that. I mean, they're so cheap to get. You can get them on Amazon. You can get them from the guy who makes the TikTok videos going out and finding these victims and helping these families get closure. He actually sells one.

Oh my gosh. Just get one for your car. I think that's my bottom line today. Then that's the lesson we learned in today's episode. Always have one of those tools ready. A window breaker. So even though we're not completely sure what happened, we're going to be. going to close this case file for now. I'm really curious to see how this story is going to continue

to unfold. And if there's any new developments on this case, we will talk about it on our Instagram at Clues Podcast. We really hope you enjoyed unraveling this case with us. And we're going to be back next week, opening a new case file. And as always, we want to hear from you guys. Tell us your theories on this one. Let us know what part you think is botched. Maybe other theories you came across while diving down the Reddit rabbit hole. And any feedback you have. So it makes this community so special. It helps ensure we're doing these cases justice and giving you information that you actually want to hear. So let the comments fly. And at Crime House, we value your support. So share your thoughts on social media. And remember to

rate, review, and follow clues to help others discover the show. And if you're watching on YouTube, don't forget to hit that subscribe button. Subscribe, follow. Whatever button you see. Hit it. Whichever one is there. And if you're hungry for even more content, We've got you covered. Join our Crime House Plus community on Apple Podcasts. We'll be back next week with another new case on clues. Bye guys. Bye. Capture your favorite summer feeling with Pandora jewelry. Discover a collection inspired by the sunshine, freedom, and moments that make the season unforgettable. From sun-kissed metals to personalized pieces, ready to be engraved with your summer mantra. Each design moves

with you, from beach days to golden nights and every memory in between. Shop Pandora Jewelries new summer collection, in store or online at pandora.net, and let your summer unfold. When someone goes missing, the headlines focus on what happened, but the truth often lives in the smallest details. I'm Sarah Turney. After my sister disappeared, I learned how those final hours, the last conversations, the last decisions can haunt families forever. And I'm Courtney Nicole. After seeing crime impact my own family, I've learned how overlooked moments, missed red flags, and unanswered questions can change everything. Together, we're bringing those lived experiences into the work. This is the final hours, a crimehouse original powered by Pave Studios, a podcast that puts the moments before a

disappearance under a microscope. Listen to and follow the final hours wherever you get your podcasts, new episodes every Monday.