Going West: True Crime - The Martin Family Disappearance // 97

Episode Date: December 2, 2020

*In December 1958, a family of 5 went missing after going on a trip for holiday decorations. After a bloody gun was found in the area and word of ex-cons eating at the same establishment as the family, police became suspicious that foul play was involved in whatever happened to them. This is The Martin Family Disappearance.* *BONUS EPISODES* patreon.com/goingwestpodcast *MERCH* teespring.com/stores/goingwestpodcast Use code BADSANTA for 15% until 12/7/20 *CASE SOURCES* https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/f2qalp/the_1958_disappearance_of_the_martin_family_two/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2lmHQxm80Y http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/2847dfor.html https://www.koin.com/news/martin-familys-1958-disappearance-remains-a-mystery/ http://charleyproject.org/case/kenneth-r-martin https://www.amazon.com/Echo-Distant-Water-Disappearance-Portlands/dp/1634242408 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/46877169/virginia-martin https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/46877170/susan-margaret-martin https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/168921487/barbara-martin https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/72586383/donald-kenneth-martin https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/168921636/barbara-aileen-martin https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/168921965/kenneth-r.-martin Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans? I'm your host Heath, and I'm your other host, Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. Little announcement here, I just added some more merch into our merch store and we're doing a holiday discount. So if you want 15% off of our merch, head over to our website goingwestpod.com, hit the shop tab and use code badsanta, one word, and check out for 15% off. We have mugs, sweatshirts, t-shirts, one word, and check out for 15% off. We have Mugs, Sweat Shirts, T-shirts, Long Sleeves, Beanie's, Hats, Stickers, Phone Cases. We have so much stuff, so this is a really great time to get

presents for your fellow going West listeners, and you wanna do it this week. This code is only gonna be active until December 7th. So make sure you use it this week and get your merch so that it can arrive before Christmas because there's a lot of shipping delays these days. Yeah, it takes a couple of weeks to ship out those items. So just make sure if you want to buy a gift for a family member or something like that,

make sure you use that code that's bad Santa in our store going west pod.com for 15% off any item in the store. Also, we just released a new bonus episode for our Justice soldier tier on Patreon, and if you join that tier, you also get 25% off of merch. So if you would rather have 25% off and you want 29 and counting bonus episodes, head over to patreon.com slash going west podcast and join the Justice Soldier Tier. Pretty good deal, 29 episodes, and counting there's two a month, and you get a huge discount on merch. Yeah, the one that we just released is really interesting. It's on the murder of the Richard Sin family.

That's a crazy one too. Very, very crazy case out of Canada. Yeah, so if you guys want to join, do that. If not, we're still offering the 15% off just for all listeners under bad Santa. So good shopping. Alright guys, this is episode 97 of Going after going on a trip for holiday decorations. After a bloody gun was found in the area, and word of ex-cons eating at the same establishment as the family, police became suspicious that foul play was involved in whatever happened to them. This is the Martin Family Disappearance. The Martin family consisted of 54-year-old Ken Martin, his 48-year-old wife Barbara and

their four children, 28-year-old Donald, 15-year-old Barbie, 13-year-old Virginia who went by Gina, and 11-year- old Susan who went by Susie. Ken Martin worked at Eccles Electric Home Service Company in Portland, Oregon, but there was another job that he had that he preferred much more. And that was dressing as Santa during the holiday season. I'm sure he liked his job too because there's good reports on that, but he loved being Santa. Yeah, who doesn't like dressing up as Santa? Yeah. And he didn't work as Santa, but he absolutely loved this time of year. So he took any chance he could get to get more people into the spirit.

And one way he did that was by putting on a beautiful, authentic home made Santa Claus suit on his partly self. And he put on a jolly act for the neighborhood kids. on his portly self and he put on a jolly act for the neighborhood kids. Also, Ken would create these painted wooden candy canes to decorate the outside of their house each year, and he always made sure to give some to the neighbors so that everyone could feel festive. It was like his thing and everyone just knew Ken for being the Christmas guy. Ken just loves Christmas. Yeah, and he was so known by it locally

that people called their block of the street Candy Lane, thanks to all the candy canes that Ken made to line the street. So in early December 1958, it was finally that time to start decorating for the holidays and join together with loved ones. So first on Saturday, December 6th, 1958, Ken and Barbara headed over to a nearby friend's home for Christmas party. Then the next day,

Sunday, December 7th, 1958, the family was getting ready at what they called Martin Manor, which is their two-story tutor-style house in the Roseway neighborhood of Portland, and they even had this really cute wooden sign outside that said Martin Panner out on their front porch. And they planned to spend this Sunday afternoon fetching Christmas decorations. Ken and Barbara's eldest son Donald, who again was 28, was in the Navy and stationed in New York at this time. So he wasn't present for the day's events. It was just Ken, Barbara, and their three daughters. Here in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest in general,

there is a lot of Douglas fir trees everywhere, which means we have a lot of gorgeous Christmas tree farms and tree lots to choose our trees from locally. But in the 1950s, they didn't just run out to the store and buy fake Garland for their mantle like we do these days, they got the real thing for their whole house. So on this particular Sunday, the family planned to buy Christmas greens to make the house beautiful for the whole month of December.

Donald loved Christmas too, but since he couldn't be there, he recommended an area for the family to go, and they were all really excited. But before they left, they all sat around the breakfast table for butter toast and poached eggs while reading the funnies in the newspaper, and then had some friends come over to hang out around 10.30am. These friends were the Evans family. Their two kids played with the girls while the parents chatted in the living room, and one thing that was discussed amongst them was Sunday dinner.

The two families often had Sunday dinner together with other friends, but when Barbara was asked if they planned to join them that evening at another family's house in southeast Portland, she said no because they were going up the highway for Christmas greens later that day. And the Evans knew what she meant by up the highway, which in this area usually meant that they were going up Highway 30 to the Columbia River Gorge area, which is absolutely stunning. A bit later, the Evans asked if they would please come to dinner, but Ken replied, we better stick to the plan. To which Mr. Evans asked, what's the plan, Ken?

And Ken then said, oh, just going for a ride. It wasn't too cold this day in Portland, so the family got dressed in the appropriate clothes for their days excursion, packed snacks for the road, which was walnuts and oranges, and loaded into the family's cream and red Ford Country Squire station wagon at around 2 p.m. and headed east. The following morning, which was a very cold and rainy Monday, Ken Martin didn't arrive to work. And this wasn't like Ken at all, like he was very responsible and reliable, and he even liked showing up early to work. He also had a very important meeting that morning that he didn't show up for, so that was really strange. And we always talk about this how when somebody doesn't show up to work,

it's like when they're that type of person that is always on time, red flags immediately go up. Right, and I mean it's weird for anyone, like if you're at work and someone's not there and they didn't call out, you're automatically gonna be like, okay, where is this person? But then, of course, especially Ken, it's like, well, he's never does this. Exactly. So, on top of that, none of the girls arrived at school. 13-year-old Gina was in seventh grade while 11-year-old Suzie was in fifth grade at Rose City School.

And when one of the teachers, who is Charlotte Dorsey, who happens to be Ken's sister, realized that neither of them were in class, and that Barbara hadn't called to inform the school, she became worried. So she decided to call over to Barbie School to see if she was in class. 15-year-old Barbie was in 9th grade at Ulysses S. Grant High School, but she hadn't shown up for her classes either. And this concerned Charlotte, but she also knew that her brother Ken was a very fun dad, so she just hoped that maybe they had taken a trip over the weekend and were out having a great time and forgot to call the schools. But later that night, another person close to the family would hear

from Ken's employer and learn that he didn't show up for work. So around 9 p.m. that evening a man named Edward called the Multnomah County Police Headquarters and told an officer that his friends family hadn't been heard from since 2 p.m. the previous day when they were leaving to get Christmas decorations. And first of all, the Multnomah County Police Headquarters is in Portland, so Portland is in Multnomah County. And also, I do wonder why they left around 2 p.m. for the Christmas decoration outing because the area in which they were headed was about 45 minutes to an hour away.

And on this very day in Portland, Oregon, the sun set at 4.27 pm. So that doesn't give them very much daylight at all to like go out and forage decorations. Because by the time they would have gotten to this area, the sun would be actively setting. So I just think that's very strange. Yeah, that's extremely strange to me too. Like, why would you leave it to pm? If you know, the sun is going to be setting soon. And you're going to be out in the forest where it's probably a lot darker because there's no city lights. So seems kind of sketchy to me. And the time that they left isn't a for sure thing because there's a lot of discrepancies here, but it was determined that they more than likely left at around two or a little before two.

So still this seems like an outing you would do in the morning, you know. Yeah, definitely something you would probably want to leave at least before noon. So I'm guessing that police were able to figure out that they left at some time after noon. Right. Because we do know that the Evans were there or they got there around 10 30 and they hung out for a little while, they had snacks, they just hung out at the house. So you can imagine that went till past noon and then they got ready and then they left. So still, seems a little late. The first step that police took was asking all the neighbors if they knew about the Martin's going out of town. The neighborhood was incredibly close and the Martin's had actually lived in that very house for 25 years, so all the neighbors said that they always told each other when the others were going out of town.

But the Martins never mentioned anything about going on a trip. All anyone did know was that they were going to get Christmas decorations for the day. After inspecting the Martins home, it was clear that they weren't meant to be gone for too long. There was ground beef thawing on the counter, breakfast dishes in the sink, wet clean laundry sitting in the washer, and the basement heater was still warm, as though it had gone out shortly before police arrived. The following day, there was still no sign of the Martin family, so police tried to trace their steps.

Many believe that the Martins were headed to Larch Mountain, so police started driving and stopped along the way at business after business, asking people if they had seen the family. And Larch Mountain is like North East of Portland, so that's definitely a kind of foresty area that they could have gone and gotten that stuff. So since nobody knew exactly where the family was headed, everyone was just kind of like, I think they went here, that's where they've gone before. And so that's where police were going to start their search. Their first stop was a place called Martin's Acrage, owned by a man who was not related to this Martin family, and

the owner, along with other witnesses, stated that they believed to have seen the family after 2 p.m. on Sunday, and they were headed on Larch Mountain Road, seemingly on the way to a local Christmas tree farm, about one mile up the road. When police arrived at the tree lot, multiple witnesses came forward stating that they believed to have seen the family in their station wagon that Sunday. But after viewing photos, no one could be really sure. So these witness sightings couldn't be counted

as reliable because everyone saw the photos are like, I think that he looks familiar, but they don't. Like nobody ever said yes, I saw that entire family. Yeah, it wasn't like a definitive thing. Right, which obviously to police then, they're like, how can I trust that they were actually here then? And to make matters even more confusing, during this part of the investigation,

a few families actually came forward and said that they had a very similar car to the Martins and three daughters and were driving in this general area at that same time. So it could have very well been one of these other families and not the Martins. So as the days and weeks went on, police had a very difficult time investigating this disappearance and there were no clear signs as to where the family could be. Not to mention this whole area is very wooded and it was 1958 so resources were limited but regardless police searched by boat, helicopter, car and foot looking for this missing family. On December 16th less than 10 days before Christmas, Ken's sister Charlotte announced that she was offering a $500 reward, which is equivalent to about $4,000 today, for any information regarding her brother's family's whereabouts.

Thanks to help of other family and friends, this reward was quickly doubled, but it didn't lead to any answers. But on December 23rd, so about two weeks after the Martins went missing, a letter arrived at the Martins' home. Charlotte went to the house very often to check on everything and noticed this newly received letter, so she decided to open it. And inside was a credit card bill addressed to Ken. It was from Dean's Chevron Service Station along the Columbia River and Cascade Locks, which is a super small town about 40 minutes east of the Martin's Portland home. The bill stated that on December 7, 1958, the very day that the family disappeared, Ken bought five gallons of gasoline.

And this was super important because this helps give police an idea of what particular area the Martins were in that day. And they realized they'd been searching the wrong area because large mountain where they'd been looking is on the other side of the Columbia River and north of Cascade Locks. So the Martins wouldn't have gone up in that area that the police had been investigating.

So this was really important because it helped me like, wait, the family was in this area the day they disappeared. So let's start there now. Yeah. With this new discovery, Charlotte urgently went to the police to tell them that they needed to check the Cascade Locks area. So the following morning, which was Christmas Eve, the Sheriff of Hood River headed over to the gas station to question the owner. And by the way,

Cascade Locks is just outside of Hood River, but it's in the same county. So this is why the Hood River Sheriff went and not Portland police. But the only information that the owner could give was that the gas purchase was made around or a few hours after 12 p.m. So it doesn't help us that much, it's just a general ballpark. But the man was able to tell the sheriff that he remembered seeing them drive east towards Hood River after leaving his gas station. Soon after, it was reported that the Martin family had dined at the Paradise

snack bar in Hood River, which is about 20 miles or 32 kilometers east of Cascade locks, so they're still going the opposite direction of their home. The woman who came forward with this information was Clara York, and she had been their server that day and remembered giving them burgers and fries. Unfortunately, even with this information, they weren't able to find anything at this time. There was absolutely no sign of this family, so please start thinking of some other possibilities for their whereabouts. And one of the thoughts that they came up with was that their car could have driven off of one of the cliffs in the area. Obviously cliffs are very dangerous to search, but they decided to focus on some of them in that general area, as well as

just cascade locks in general. And in February of 1959, so over two months after the disappearance, one of the searchers found some tire tracks near a cliff by the Dalles. And the Dalles is just a city that's east of Hood River, so it's very possible that the Martins were in the Dal's. The tire tracks he found went straight off the cliff, and down towards the River Gorge, as if someone had just gone right off of it without breaking or swerving. While this area was investigated, it was determined that the tire tracks were consistent with those of the Martin station wagon. On top of that, they also found paint chips on the side of the bluff that were caused by the car scraping against the rocks.

And after further analysis, it was confirmed to be the same paint for the make and model of the Martens station wagon. This area of the river was near the Bonneville Dam, so since this was such a dangerous area to search, they decided to lower the river by 5 feet to see if they could see any sign of a car. But unfortunately, nothing was found. They even attempted to have divers look into that area, but someone almost drowned in the process, so they had to call the whole thing off. And the water in this particular area is very treacherous,

so definitely not a place you can swim, meaning that they just felt hopeless regarding this particular search. But around this same time, just outside of cascade locks, a man discovered a bloody 38 caliber cult commander automatic handgun under a rock. The gun was pretty beat up and the blood was dried and covering the entire gun. But because it looked like it was used to possibly hit someone, the man took it to the police.

And because it was covered in blood, so he was like, this is just looked really suspicious. Yeah, that's a good call. Like, he and his wife agreed that it looked like it was used in blood. So he was like, this is, it just looked really suspicious. Yeah, that's a good call. Like he and his wife agreed that it looked like it was used to hurt someone. But it being 1958, they didn't take any evidence off the gun and they actually just returned it back to the man who found it. That's a really weird thing to do.

Like the guys like, I found this gun, there's blood on it and they're like, well, there's nothing we can do about that. Here's your gun back. He's like, it's not even my gun. Yeah, they were just kind of like, you can keep it because you found it. And I mean, this is probably done since there was no evidence that the Martin family had been murdered.

So the sheriff likely just didn't think it could be connected to their case, and it didn't even come to his mind. But the weird thing is that it was very obvious to the man who found the gun that something just wasn't right about it and that it looked like someone had been severely beaten with this gun, which is why he turned it into police in the first place. So for the police to just kind of look at and be like, well, we don't know what this is, is really irresponsible. And this really upset the detectives in Portland

because this was out of their jurisdiction. So if they had found this gun, they would have pursued it. But Hood River police were like, well, we don't know anything. So the guy who originally turned the gun into the Hood River Sheriff's Department, did he not think about taking it to the Portland Police? Well, he didn't know that,

oh, this could be connected to the Martin Family Disappearance, especially since this was a totally different area. He just was really confused that they didn't look into it because to him, he was like, this could be a murder weapon. Okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. But to add to the strangeness of this finding, there was also a burn site where the gun was found, which may mean that whoever put the gun under the rock had burned other evidence.

But then you have to wonder why the gun wasn't gotten rid of, too. A big problem in this case, like Daphne just mentioned, is that a lot of pieces to the puzzle were across multiple jurisdictions. And the main detective on the case whose name was Walter Graven wanted to be able to look into the bloody gun, but couldn't because he was a detective in Portland, and this gun wasn't found in Portland or in Multnomah County. And obviously this is where the Martins lived, they lived in Portland, but most of this case was taking place in Hood River County

and they weren't working together on this case, so that was a really frustrating part. Yeah, for some reason, it wasn't like, hey, Hood River Sheriff, I work in Portland. You got this gun, let's figure this out together. It was like they were working separately on the same case and they weren't sharing information. So the detective in Portland detective Graven, he was just like, oh my god, like why isn't Hood River helping? And it's a huge, huge disappointment here.

So all detective Graven could really do at this point is look further into the Martin's lives and see if anyone could have possibly wanted them dead. Although there was evidence that the Martin family could have driven off a cliff, Detective Graven didn't believe it was that simple. He thoroughly believed that foul play was involved somehow. It was just all too strange for him. Like, it just didn't make sense that they just went straight off a cliff and it was an accident, and that was all it was. As he was thinking of other suspects,

Donald Martin popped into his mind, who remember is the Martin's eldest son, who was 28 years old and serving in the Navy at the time this all unfolded. Even months after the disappearance, Donald still hadn't come home. But when Donald was asked about this, he said it was because his aunt Charlotte,

his dad, Ken's sister, had been keeping him up to date and told him that he didn't need to leave the Navy since there wasn't anything he could do to help find them here in Oregon. However, when Charlotte was asked to confirm this later, she outright denied ever saying any of that, and she had no idea why he hadn't come home, especially considering his entire family was missing. So this was a very strange discovery, especially since Donald was set to inherit all of the family's money, which was equivalent to over $300,000 today. So Detective Graven in Portland decided to look into Donald and see if he could have had

anything to do with what happened to his family. At first, this kind of seemed like a stretch since he hadn't even been in town at the time of the disappearance, but there were definitely some red flags. Over three years earlier in 1955, 24-year-old Donald was fired from his job at a Meyer and Frank department store in Portland for stealing thousands of dollars worth of inventory. And Donald didn't deny doing any of this, but he did tell them that the reason he stole the stuff is because he was having a lot of problems with his home life because he didn't get along with his parents at all, and in turn, he was acting out.

And the reason that he and his parents argued so much was supposedly regarding the fact that Ken and Barbara found out that Donald was gay and they didn't agree with this. And this was in the 1950s, so people in that day had a very different view on being gay. These were the days when people were sent to mental institutions and conversion camps to try to cure them from being gay. These were the days when people were sent to mental institutions and conversion

camps to try to cure them from being gay. And this actually happened to Donald. He was actually sent to a religious college across the country and the state of Connecticut, and hopes of curing him. And after being there for some time, Donald was then encouraged by his parents to join the Navy. So there was a lot of animosity here because Donald knew his parents didn't accept him for who he was, and they argued about this a lot. And Donald didn't actually come out to them. They walked in on him with another guy and were just horrified. So despite them having seen that and knowing this, they loved him and wanted him in their lives,

so it's not like they shunned him from the family, and he was estranged. He just had a lot of anger towards them, rightfully so, for everything that had happened. So of course, in Detective Graven's mind, this gave him motive, but there was still the matter of him being in New York while this happened. So Detective Graven decided to search a little deeper into the theft that happened at Donald's work. And he found that Donald didn't get arrested for this theft, but he did have to pay back the store for everything he stole, which his parents helped him out with. So it's not like he just returned everything. I didn't

didn't seem like that's what happened. It seemed like they paid the store the money of what he owed and he kept all the items. I don't know why it happened that way though. But get this. One of the items that was stolen and not returned by Donald was a handgun that had the exact same serial number and was the exact same kind of gun that was found under that rock outside of cascade locks and turned into police. A 38 caliber cult commander automatic handgun. Ooh, this, this, oh, this just took a twist.

And this isn't even just the same kind of gun. It is literally the exact same gun because it has the same serial number. Yeah, that's crazy. Unfortunately at this point, the gun had already been returned back to that man, and he had it fully cleaned, so there was no getting any evidence off of this gun. It was pretty much useless at this point. Which is so frustrating. Yeah, that's shitty.

But it was just way too strange, not to have some sort of connection, especially now that police knew Donald had stolen the gun himself. However, since this was all in a different jurisdiction, once again Detective Graven couldn't do anything, so the months passed on and still there was no sign of the Martin family. But on May 1st, 1959, nearly five months after the Martin's went missing, and three months after the tire tracks were found in Hood River and the Dalles, something big happened. A man was near the Dalles down in a boat on the river with a drilling rig, doing work completely unrelated to the

case. While this man was on the river, he reported that his anchor had caught on something that was very heavy and definitely made of metal. He wasn't able to pull whatever it was to the surface, though, because it became dislodged from the anchor grip. So, he kind of just thought nothing of it and continued his work. The next day in the early morning of May 2, 1959, a fisherman was out with his wife near Cascade Locks when they noticed something in the water. It appeared to be two bodies. Sadly, since it was a running river, by the time police arrived, the bodies were gone. But the next day at May 3, a body was spotted again on the north bank of the Columbia River near Washington,

a whole 70 miles or 110 kilometers from where a body had been seen the day before. When police arrived, they were able to pull the body out of the water and determine that it was a young girl. The body was pretty well preserved because of the cold water, and dental records would confirm that it was the body of Susie Martin, the 11-year-old daughter. Then, the following day, May 4, a few miles further down, the body of 13-year-old Gina Martin was discovered. Since both bodies were very well preserved, it was determined that both girls had been kept in deep cold water all this time, which is consistent with their car having driven off the cliff and into the Columbia River. It's believed that the man who had been in the boat on the river with the drilling rig

had come across the Martin's car and somehow by him moving the car a bit with his anchor, the two girls bodies were released from the vehicle. And it's believed he could have dislodged one of the car doors and that's how the bodies were released from the car. And this man actually came forward after having heard about the bodies being found thinking that it could have been because of him that they were discovered. And he was able to help police locate the exact spot.

So with this, they felt they had a good chance of finding the other bodies. But after using sonar equipment and helicopters, nothing came up. When the autopsies of Susie and Gina were done, the medical examiner determined that both girls had eaten oranges and a burger and fries within two hours of their deaths. And we know that they had eaten those things because at the Paradise Snack Bar, the server came forward with that information, so we now know this for sure. The medical examiner also ruled that both girls officially died from probable drowning. But a different technician noticed that both girls had a very similar hole above their

right ear that indicated to him that they had either suffered from a gunshot wound or blunt force to that part of their head. And this was never confirmed, but he did make an official statement regarding this saying that he fully believes that these holes had something to do with their cause of death. But this was stated after the medical examiner had finished the autopsy, and no reports regarding these holes were made in their report. So this technician has gone on to ask people to kind of like help confirm that these holes exist, but all he can do is show people these really old photos, and the photos are

not enough to prove anything. But if these holes do exist, they could confirm that Donald's gun was in fact used on them, and that the Martins were possibly forced off of the cliff, either by Donald or someone he sent. About three weeks after Susie and Gina's bodies were found, there were several reports of body sightings in the water near the Bonneville Dam, which is close to where the girls' bodies were found. But again, by the time police arrived, the bodies were gone, and unfortunately, they never turned up. But it is believed that these could very well be the bodies of Barbie, Ken, and Barbara Martin, and if they were, they probably are gone forever now. But even with two bodies, police didn't feel like they were any closer

to figuring out what happened to this family. Right after the Martin's car went missing, there was a car found in Hood River that was abandoned, and it was confirmed to have been stolen by two ex-cons from Southern California. So some believe that these men could have tried to rob the Martin family and in turn force them off a cliff. One of the men was named Roy Light, and he and his partner in crime fled the area just after the Martin's disappearance. The weirdest part though is that the owner of the Paradise Snack Bar in Hood River, knew Roy Light, and he later told police that Roy was at the cafe at the same time that

the Martin's were and that they left around the very same time as well. But this still doesn't help conclude why a gun that Donald stole three years prior was found beat up and covered in dry blood in the area after the disappearances. So going back to Donald, he arrived back in Portland, Oregon on June 3rd, 1959, so about one month after the bodies of his sisters were found. He didn't make it to their funeral though, and he claimed that this was because of schedule misunderstanding. And the real reason he came back was to help settle his inheritance, now that the family was presumed dead.

Hmm, suspect. Yeah, for sure. But, since the estate had to be probated, it took a really long time to go through the judicial process. A whole seven years, in fact. So Donald, if he did, or was somehow involved in these crimes, he probably was thinking that he was going to get this inheritance pretty quickly, but that didn't happen. Well, either way, he would get it within seven years, which obviously is a long time by then he'd be like 35. So yeah it's gonna take a minute Don. Before that happened in June of 1959 Detective Graven wanted to have his first face-to-face conversation with Donald to see if he had

any information. And that's when Donald brought up the fact that while he was going through the family home looking for various financial documents, he noticed that some of them appeared to be missing. And were unclear which documents these were and how he knew that they were missing, like as if he had to have known that they were previously there, which is kind of odd. But Donald made it seem like he was concerned someone had possibly been inside the house and taken these documents after the family went missing, indicating that whoever did that could be responsible for what happened. So it's kind of weird that he's almost directing blame towards this unknown person who may have gone through the family's documents. Yes, and it does get weirder right now. So Detective Graven went around to the neighbors

and asked again if anyone had seen anything suspicious or seen anyone entering the house, and that's when a neighbor mentioned that they remembered seeing a black taxi pull into the Martin's driveway the morning after they disappeared. At the time that they saw this, it didn't mean anything to them because they didn't know the Martin's were missing.

And for some reason, this information didn't seem relevant until six months later. Which is a big deal, but this happened to come to light when Donald said, some of these documents are missing, did somebody go into the house and take them? Like insinuating that someone had been in the house, and then suddenly this neighbor is saying, oh well, I saw a black taxi go into their driveway. But the neighbor didn't see who was in the taxi or how long they were inside, but that's really weird. And that is really weird considering that it was a taxi and not just like a regular car,

because taxis often times come from the airport. So obviously we know Donald was in the Navy, but I'm just the whole taxi thing weirds me out. I agree, and it's frustrating because there's obviously so many different taxi services, and this was six months later. So to be able to find a taxi, that happened to go to their house on that very day. At that point was just like, there's no chance that we're going to figure this out and they never did. Yeah, that'd be close to impossible to know exactly what taxi was there the day after the Martins went missing.

Right, so there's this huge question mark regarding this taxi, which is a huge, huge frustrating piece of this case. Donald was also questioned about the gun, but he claimed not to know anything about it. He said he didn't like guns, nor did he have any. And the problem with this is that there's nowhere this whole gun thing can really go because of the fact that the gun was cleaned, so no evidence was able to be collected from it. And technically, although Donald had stolen this gun years cleaned, so no evidence was able to be collected from it. And technically, although Donald had stolen this gun years prior, it could have ended up in someone else's hands throughout that time.

And Donald actually also mentioned that his friend Wayne loved guns and he owned guns. So kind of saying like, well, I don't like guns, but my friend Wayne does, which is kind of random. It kind of seems like Donald is pointing police in every direction away from him. I agree with that. And as far as this went, he just kind of said, I don't know anything about it.

And speaking of Wayne, he had always been on Detective Gravins radar ever since this case started. But again, since there was so much limited information on this case and what happened to the family, he didn't really have grounds to question Wayne as any kind of suspect, very frustrating once again, but we'll get more into Wayne in a minute here. And I will say that during Detective Graven

and Donald's talk, Donald said, 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 in accident. So Donald told the detective that he felt like foul play was involved too, which I don't know why he would say that if he was the one who was behind the crime.

Well, definitely to throw police off, because if he makes it seem like he's on the same page with investigators, then that makes him look like a good person, and that makes him look less like a suspect. So I think that's definitely like some sort of reverse psychology tactic he's using. Like definitely possible. If in fact he is involved in this crime. At this point, authorities just felt like the Martins had driven off a cliff and died

accidentally, especially since both Susie and Gina's deaths were ruled as drownings and they didn't see any real point to investigate further. The only person that seemed to really care about finding out what happened to this family was Detective Graven. And even after the discovery of the two girls' bodies, he still felt strongly that foul play was involved. But since the evidence at hand didn't prove that foul play was involved, the case was closed. Seven years after the disappearances, Donald inherited what would now be worth around $350,000. And he married a woman named Helen, and they had four kids together. But Donald never told them about what happened to his family.

Susie and Gina's bodies were cremated shortly after the bodies were found, and they were placed into urns and held it a mausoleum for a whole 10 years, meaning that Donald never claimed the ashes. So that's weird that he didn't claim them. It's also really frustrating that they cremated the bodies because now we will literally never know if there really were holes in their heads. Yeah, that's really, really frustrating. And I don't even know why he wouldn't claim his little sister's ashes. Like, that's fucked up.

It's very odd. And so I'm so sorry. And he, he didn't tell his family about any of this as if he was just trying to shove it under the rug. Yeah, that seems suspicious to me. Like you would think, like you would say, you know, explain to your wife, at least what happens to your family

or what you believe happened to your family. Yeah, it's very odd. And the only reason these ashes were claimed was because the kid's grandmother had died on December 29, 1969, and the day after, while someone unknown was arranging what to do with her remains, they claimed Susie and Gina's remains and buried them all together. In February of 1988, Detective Walter Graven died at the age of 79 in Oregon, never knowing what really happened to the Martin family, and leaving his wife Geraldine and their children. The next time a search was done to try and find the Martin's car and possible remains,

was done in July of 1999, so nearly 41 years after the fact. A journalist for the Oregonian had actually set up this search herself, since the police were no longer working on the case, and new sonar equipment was used and divers attempted dives. But in the end, nothing was found. But this isn't just because the area is dangerous, but because it's incredibly deep. In many areas over 150 feet deep, and there are even areas that have caves and dangerous debris.

So this is a tough area to search for bodies. In 2008, when the Martin family disappearance was nearing its 50th anniversary, Wayne reached out to reporters with Coin Six in Portland, which is a news station, to interview him for a feature. Wayne was the very same age as Donald and they met in college in Portland in 1953, five years before the tragedy. He claimed to have been very close to the family and very close to the girls as well, as if he were an uncle self-proclaimed. He also mentioned to reporters that he was in cascade locks the day the family went missing

since he was teaching a PE class, which is kind of strange that he would be teaching Jim class on a Sunday afternoon, but that's what he said he was doing on that day. And he's saying this 50 years later so there's no way to check up on it. And by the way, he was a PE coach for a high school. But police had never been informed that he was in the area on this day, or they surely would have questioned him about this. But Wayne claimed that he was interviewed at the time by the detective on the case. However, there are no records or notes in Detective Gravon's extensive book stating that such

an interview actually took place. Which is weird because Detective Gravon took notes about literally everything and he didn't talk about an interview with Wayne. Yeah, again, he was pretty much the only one who really cared about this case. And yeah, he took a lot of notes. And if there was no notes that Wayne was interviewed, then it probably never took place. And I totally agree. And at this point of Wayne's interview, by the way,

Donald had been dead for a couple years. So Wayne had to be at least in his 70s at this point. And I just think it's so odd that he chose that time to come forward and to come forward at all Like it just seems so weird so like 50 years later and we know that sometimes killers like to insert themselves into cases for crimes They committed and I'm just kind of getting that vibe a little bit here But there's absolutely no evidence that ties him to this case. It's just heavy speculation Yeah, I mean that is so fucking strange though. Why would you come? Come forward 50 fucking years later. I mean it almost seems like like a deathbed confession or something like he's you know

He's 70 years old. That's what I was thinking doesn't have a whole lot of life left and he wants to like somehow kind of admit that he did something but not admit that he did something, I just get that feeling. That's exactly what I was thinking because he reached out to them. Reporters didn't come to him. He was not a part of this case. He was only speculated to be possibly involved by Detective Graven who at this point is dead. So for him to say, hey, I knew the Martin family wanted to interview me for the 50-year piece,

like what the hell? Yeah, and like you said, you know, he was initially on Detective Graven's radar, so I'm really curious why he was on that radar, and we know that he was friends with Donald, so how easy would it have been for him to get the gun from Donald? It just, I don't know. Well, actually right now, we're going to get into that about why Wayne is a possible suspect. So it's actually all very interesting because Wayne also mentioned in his 2008 interview with reporters that Donald acted extremely cold when he returned from New York after Susie and Gina's bodies

were found, but he didn't seem to feel remorse or sorry for the horrible tragedy at all, according to Wayne. And by cold he doesn't mean sad, he just means that Donald was completely ignoring him and wouldn't return his calls or requests to hang out, despite the fact that they were great friends. And although we clearly have stated possible suspicions about Donald, you have to also wonder if Wayne was just trying to get reporters to think it was Donald instead of him, even though no one was really suspecting him at this time.

Yeah, and this was years and years and years later. But in Detective Graven's notes, he wrote that he had strong suspicions of one of these two possibilities regarding Wayne. One, that he, like Donald, was gay, and since he was at this point in time married to a woman, he killed the Martins so his wife wouldn't find out. Or, he got 15-year-old Barbie pregnant, and again was worried the Martins would out him to his wife, so he killed them. Wow, those are oddly specific. Oddly specific, but two very different scenarios.

So, let's kind of talk about this pregnancy theory. So again, this is all speculation, but it's important to note, because this is something detective Graven felt could be possible, and he knew everything about this case. So there's a lot of weird speculations surrounding Barbie possibly having been pregnant at 15 and the family wanting to cover it up. But this is in no way confirmed like I said since her body has never been found, so we may never know. So the server at Paradise Snack Bar remembers a conversation about the eldest looking girl not being allowed to have a burger and fries like her sister, but her mom ordering her a tuna sandwich.

And also, Barbie had recently visited a doctor in Vancouver, Washington, which is just outside of Portland, instead of her usual doctor, and the reasons for her visit were unknown. So when the detective found this out, he was kind of like, well, why would she go to a completely different doctor than their local family doctor and why wasn't she allowed to have a burger and fries? And I feel like a tuna sandwich is a very pregnant thing, you know? Yeah, I mean, that could be a connection or it could not. I mean, it could very a connection or it could not. I mean, it could very well just be Barbara not wanting her to have something so unhealthy

because she was a little bit older. I really don't know. But a lot of people wonder if this could have been the reason for the family's outing that day. Like, were they meeting with someone for something relating to this possible pregnancy? Some wonder if they were maybe going to get a secret abortion, but I mean, then why bring the whole family? Maybe were they meeting up with whoever the father was,

possibly Wayne to settle something? Like, there's a million possibilities and no answers. And of course, no evidence that she was pregnant. It just leaves you wondering why Detective Graven thought this was a possible scenario. I think he just had so little to go off of that he just was like, what could have happened? Let me just think of every possible scenario. So do you think that it's possible he was maybe coming up with scenarios that may have

not been too plausible? Oh, I mean, this is a total stretch. Like, this is such a stretch, but it's not impossible. I think, I mean, he's just such a good detective. He really is trying to think outside the box because he doesn't have a lot to go off of. His whole thing was, once I find the rest of the bodies and the car, I will solve this case if I live long enough.

And unfortunately, he didn't, and still to this day, 32 years after he died, we still don't know. But let's also revisit the Black Taxi thing for just a sec. Whoever was in this Black Taxi wasn't seen by the neighbors, but there was no sign of a break-in at the Martin's home. So either this person had a key or the Martin's didn't lock their doors. So this was the 50's that they lived in that neighborhood for 25 years, so it's possible that they just didn't lock their door, but if Barbie was potentially pregnant,

was the person in the black taxi, the person who killed the family, and they went inside to take any documents out of the home that stated that Barbie was pregnant, so police wouldn't find them. I mean, that could be a possibility. Totally, because I don't know this whole black tax anything is so weird to me. Because if it was someone in the family checking on them, surely they would have come forward and said, oh yeah, that was me.

But it was the next morning, and by that time, the only person that figured that they were missing possibly was Charlotte, and she didn't go to their house that day. So, and it wasn't Ken's boss. So, who the hell was it? Yeah, I'm really stuck on the black taxi thing too, because obviously somebody was dropped off

at that house the day after the Martins went missing. That black taxi, I feel like, holds the key to a lot of information. Totally agree. So even now, local detectives and law enforcement do believe that the Martin family was met with foul play. The area in which the Martin's car believed to have driven off the cliff just isn't an area where that could have logically happened on accident. Like it's super rocky. There's no reason for their car to have been in that area anyway. So it's like, I watched this new segment from 2008 when they revisited the scene and they were

just like, yeah, this is not the place where you just accidentally drive off. Yeah, that's so weird to me. And there's no swerve marks, no break marks. So it's like, okay, they just drove straight off. So what, so yeah, they were just driving straight off a cliff. Exactly. So this leaves police to believe that they had to have been forced to their deaths. Indetective Gravins notes it states how he believes that the family possibly stopped to look at the view when maybe they were held at gunpoint and while in the car, Ken was shot in the head and the car went over the cliff and into the water.

Donald died in 2004 in Hawaii and assuming he's innocent of the crime, he also died not knowing what happened to his family. Although many people believe that even if he didn't commit the crime, if he really was in New York, he probably knew more than he would say, and that's why he didn't ever bring this up to his own children, because maybe he just wanted to bury the past. Over 10 years ago, Portland police were hoping to put together yet another search of the area for the car, if it proved to be safe, but there hasn't been any updates

regarding the case, and to this day, the car has never been found. I don't really know what to think about this case, because I feel like when I look at Wayne, I'm like, he looks weird when I look at Donald, I'm like, you're suspicious. But then I think about this Roy Light character. Remember Roy Light was the ex-con, and I don't know, I think it's just so weird that they were at the restaurant together, and I couldn't find Roy's criminal history, but I do know that he had committed a lot of theft. To me, it's really possible that he followed the family and forced them off the cliff

after trying to rob them and maybe it being unsuccessful. And another thing I do want to bring up, though, is in Detective Graven's book. He also wrote, got to be blank. And then either he or somebody else scratched it out like really hard. And a lot of people think that it says got to be Donald that he scratched out just because of the letters you can kind of tell that it says Donald. But did he cross it out because he no longer thought it was Donald? We can't really say. Yeah, that's really strange too. I feel like I feel-

It's all three. Yeah, honestly, I feel like there is motive, potentially, for all three of these suspicious characters. But it's just which one of them did it? There's one other theory I wanna bring up. So there are a lot of suspicions regarding a possible blackmail situation, but again since it's just speculation we can't say for sure what that blackmail would be about.

But there's still that very strange fact that a black taxi was in their driveway the morning after their disappearance, and that Donald said papers and documents were missing from the house. Because if it wasn't related to Barbie possibly being pregnant, what was it related to? You know, it just seems kind of strange looking back at the conversations the day they went missing with the Evans. Because remember when they were talking to them about dinner that night and Ken and Barbara wouldn't give them information about where they were going? All Barbara said was, we're getting Christmas greens and then when they were pressed

about their plans, all Ken said was, oh we're just going for a ride. Yeah, and he also said we'd better stick to the plan. Yes, which for some reason when you just said that I got chills. So were they actually going to go meet up with someone for some other reason and they were met with foul play? I mean, I don't know, I just can't. I think they were being kind of weird that day. Yeah, I think that one of the only ways we're going to know any other information about this case is if the bodies of any of the missing family members are found, which that's probably never going to happen. Or the car is found or someone comes forward with information regarding the black taxi or the missing documents from the home. But honestly, it's been so long I just don't know how that would happen.

Well, if any of you have any information regarding this case, please call the Multnomah County 5-0-3-9-8-8-6-7-8-8. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode, and next week we'll have an all-new episode for you guys to dive into. As always, the source is that we did the research for or in the description below, but I will say that I was able to get a lot of details from the book, Echo of Distant Water by JB Fisher. He was actually given all of Detective Gravins'

personal notes on the case. And from what I was able to read this past week, it was so well written, so I definitely recommend everybody who's interested in this case, go pick it up for a lot more information. Yeah, and if you guys are interested in having a conversation about this case, we have some social media sites where you guys can talk to us, so you can find us over on our Instagram,

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