Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: 1958 MYSTERY SOLVED! The Martin Family Disappearance

Transcript

Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: 1958 MYSTERY SOLVED! The Martin Family Disappearance · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:01
Speaker 1: Quody bats that Joseph's gotten more. I haven't traveled everywhere
0:07
Speaker 1: in the US that I would like to go to.
0:10
Speaker 1: I'm ashamed to say that I've never been further north
0:13
Speaker 1: on the in the Northeastern corridor than Boston. And I
0:18
Speaker 1: love Boston, but I've always wanted to go to New
0:22
Speaker 1: Hampshire and Vermont and Maine and take that trip. I've
0:27
Speaker 1: been to most. I've been to most of the Western
0:31
Speaker 1: States with exception of Montana, and there are other places
0:36
Speaker 1: I'd like to go to in the US that I
0:38
Speaker 1: have yet to make it. We love to travel. Keimy
0:40
Speaker 1: and I both do. One thing that I have born
0:44
Speaker 1: witness to though, that really stuck with me was many
0:51
Speaker 1: years ago. I got to pay a visit to Oregon
0:55
Speaker 1: and literally did an entire circle around the tiri around
1:01
Speaker 1: the interior of the state. While I was there, I
1:05
Speaker 1: got to experience something that was quite remarkable. It's what's
1:10
Speaker 1: referred to as the salmon run, and it's when the
1:14
Speaker 1: salmon are moving up and down the Columbia River. First off,
1:20
Speaker 1: being an old Southern boy, and you know, thinking about
1:23
Speaker 1: rivers in terms of the Mississippi River, you know, you
1:27
Speaker 1: think about you know, kind of slow moving Old Man River,
1:31
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. Columbia Rivers is nothing like that.
1:34
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, just standing on the shore
1:37
Speaker 1: of the Columbia River, and this is going to make
1:39
Speaker 1: me sound very unmanly, it was a bit terrifying because
1:46
Speaker 1: of the current the rapids. Thats you now, beautiful it is,
1:50
Speaker 1: but I got to see the movement of the water
1:53
Speaker 1: from the interior all the way to the mouth where
1:56
Speaker 1: it dumps in to the Pacific. Today, on Bodybacks, I
2:04
Speaker 1: want to discuss a case that started all the way
2:08
Speaker 1: back in nineteen fifty eight, and it's not about a
2:14
Speaker 1: disappearance or a homicide of a single person. It has
2:23
Speaker 1: to do with the disappearance of an entire family that
2:29
Speaker 1: just vanished. But you know what, we now have answers
2:36
Speaker 1: and we now have all that remains of that family.
2:44
Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks, Dave. I
2:50
Speaker 1: know it came to you with this case week and
2:55
Speaker 1: a half, maybe two weeks ago. I've been wanting to
2:57
Speaker 1: cover it and for a number of reason since first off,
3:01
Speaker 1: we've never covered anything like this, and secondly, of course
3:05
Speaker 1: that's going to be at the forefront of what I'm
3:06
Speaker 1: going to say this is courtesy of our dear friends
3:10
Speaker 1: at AUTHROM and it just goes to show you that
3:14
Speaker 1: I think that you never can tell where information is
3:20
Speaker 1: going to pop up, and not just in the sense
3:22
Speaker 1: of incoming data from a report or something like that.
3:27
Speaker 1: I'm actually talking about where you might recover a human
3:31
Speaker 1: remain that might be the key to a great mystery,
3:35
Speaker 1: a mystery that certainly impacted the Portland, Oregon area loathed
3:40
Speaker 1: these many years. Again since nineteen fifty eight, if my
3:44
Speaker 1: math is right, I think that's sixty seven years ago. Dave.
3:49
Speaker 2: You know the shocking part about this, Joe is from
3:53
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty eight. I think about Christmas vacation. Yea, how
4:00
Speaker 2: they go the Griswolds go out to find the Griswold
4:03
Speaker 2: family Christmas tree. And that's kind of what the Martin
4:05
Speaker 2: family was doing. You know, they were actually together, now,
4:10
Speaker 2: Kenneth Martin and his wife, Barbara. Kenneth is fifty four,
4:13
Speaker 2: Barbara is forty eight, and they have three daughters, Barbie
4:17
Speaker 2: who is fourteen, Virginia's thirteen, and Susan is eleven. They
4:21
Speaker 2: do have an older son, but he was not with
4:24
Speaker 2: them on this Christmas opportunity. He's in the US Navy
4:28
Speaker 2: at the time and was stationed in New York. But
4:31
Speaker 2: what they were doing, the family actually went to go
4:35
Speaker 2: out together to gather up greenery to create their home
4:39
Speaker 2: for the Christmas holidays. And I thought, I mean this, Joe,
4:43
Speaker 2: this is like something out of a fairy tale or
4:46
Speaker 2: a book. I mean, this is what movies get done,
4:52
Speaker 2: you know, the romance of a family and this togetherness
4:55
Speaker 2: of going out. I mean, all I could think of
4:57
Speaker 2: is I wish I was like that.
4:59
Speaker 1: You know, it's almost it's almost a Hallmark like movie
5:05
Speaker 1: type thing, only without the hidden romance thing it is.
5:10
Speaker 1: It's probably it's Norman Rockwell what it is, you know.
5:13
Speaker 1: And they go out in their in their old old
5:17
Speaker 1: family car, which essentially looks like well it's it looks
5:22
Speaker 1: like a wood panel wood panel station wagon. And it's
5:26
Speaker 1: exactly you know, in a few years a few years
5:28
Speaker 1: after this, you know, the beach Boys, you know, with Woody,
5:32
Speaker 1: you know, and it kind of looks like that, and
5:34
Speaker 1: you think about, you know, the safety of that, and
5:37
Speaker 1: and how and what this what this pretends, I think
5:41
Speaker 1: relative to the family going out together. And so the
5:44
Speaker 1: family would have had to have been very comfortable together.
5:47
Speaker 1: This is the area that they knock around in. But
5:49
Speaker 1: you know the thing about it is is that not
5:52
Speaker 1: only did they disappear, Dave, their car disappeared. Lots of
5:57
Speaker 1: times where we where we'll cover cases where we have
6:00
Speaker 1: a missing person, you might find a car, right and
6:03
Speaker 1: there's always like, you know, something like, yeah, well we
6:06
Speaker 1: found the car, can't find the person, but there's blood
6:09
Speaker 1: inside of the car, or it looks like something has
6:12
Speaker 1: gone on inside of the car. That's not the case.
6:15
Speaker 1: We're not talking about. We're not talking about just a
6:18
Speaker 1: family disappearing. We're talking about a vehicle that certainly back
6:22
Speaker 1: then is several thousand pounds and then all of a
6:26
Speaker 1: sudden they go out to collect greenery and they're never
6:32
Speaker 1: ever seen again. I can't do the arithmetic off the
6:50
Speaker 1: top of my head, but I can tell you it's
6:53
Speaker 1: nothing to sniff at, you know, Dave. When the family
6:59
Speaker 1: turned up missing, mean, there was almost immediately like and
7:03
Speaker 1: this is nineteen fifty eight, there was like, you know,
7:08
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars reward offered. I think that for many
7:11
Speaker 1: people that's like back then, I might be misspeaking. I
7:14
Speaker 1: think that's like half a year's salary essentially on the average.
7:17
Speaker 1: It wasn't it like twenty two hundred and twenty four
7:19
Speaker 1: hundred dollars per year that some people were making in
7:23
Speaker 1: like the middle class range. They offered a thousand bucks,
7:27
Speaker 1: you know, for information and nothing, nothing presented. However, if
7:34
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, it was just a bit after the
7:38
Speaker 1: initial disappearance where we actually have a bit of evidence,
7:41
Speaker 1: and not just evidence, we have bodies. Didn't they find
7:46
Speaker 1: a couple of the family members not too long after
7:49
Speaker 1: they had disappeared.
7:50
Speaker 2: Joe, the way this worked out, May first, nineteen fifty nine,
7:58
Speaker 2: this is happening. I want to back up for a second,
8:00
Speaker 2: because during the search for the family, they tire tracks
8:04
Speaker 2: were found that led to belief that the family had
8:11
Speaker 2: been near a drilling rig along this area. And on
8:17
Speaker 2: May first, nineteen fifty nine, this drilling rig hooked something
8:24
Speaker 2: of substantial weight to its anchor. It became dislodged before
8:28
Speaker 2: it could be pulled to the surface, and in the
8:32
Speaker 2: early morning hours of the next morning, a fisherman and
8:35
Speaker 2: his wife reported seeing what appeared to be two bodies
8:39
Speaker 2: floating downstream near Cascade Locks. They later encountered the bodies
8:45
Speaker 2: near Bonneville Dam. So what the thought is here is
8:49
Speaker 2: that this drilling rig hooked on to the car that
8:59
Speaker 2: the Mark and family vehicle winning the river submerged, and
9:04
Speaker 2: when it got hooked on this rig, it moved it
9:07
Speaker 2: around enough that two of the bodies came out. On
9:12
Speaker 2: May third, Susan's body was recovered first. It says on
9:17
Speaker 2: the north bank of the Columbia River near it is
9:20
Speaker 2: it Camus or Camas Washington?
9:22
Speaker 1: Do you know? I think it's Cavas.
9:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I only you know why I know a
9:27
Speaker 2: lot of these names. It's from amaz Old Hooks and
9:30
Speaker 2: really right of the Pacific Northwest, that's right. Yeah, now
9:35
Speaker 2: that that area is about seventy miles west of the
9:40
Speaker 2: area they were actually looking at the time.
9:43
Speaker 1: Can we pause just a moment, and because I can
9:47
Speaker 1: to tell you, Dave, I don't want to keep beating
9:50
Speaker 1: this drum, But this goes to how ferocious this current is?
9:55
Speaker 1: This this river? I mean, it's it's absolutely brew. When
10:00
Speaker 1: you're talking about if you've got a single entry point
10:04
Speaker 1: for a car and it kind of submits something to you,
10:08
Speaker 1: it would not take this river. This river could take
10:14
Speaker 1: a car the size and easily move it along, even subsurface,
10:19
Speaker 1: it's just going to kind of be rolling along almost
10:22
Speaker 1: like it's in a tumble dryer.
10:23
Speaker 2: Man, that's scary, you know, that's scary to think about.
10:30
Speaker 2: But here's the other part, Joe, is that if you remember,
10:35
Speaker 2: the first thing we see in that in May, right
10:39
Speaker 2: is the husband and white fishing team where they spot
10:42
Speaker 2: two bodies in the water. But these bodies are not
10:48
Speaker 2: found next to one another the next day, we're talking,
10:51
Speaker 2: in one day's time, to go from being seen together
10:55
Speaker 2: floating downstream in one day's time to end up roughly
11:02
Speaker 2: seventy miles away. And that was where they couldn't even
11:08
Speaker 2: identify the body's Joe. And that's what I was worried about,
11:11
Speaker 2: because when a body is submerged in water like this
11:17
Speaker 2: in a car with the windows rolled up, as you
11:21
Speaker 2: would think. You know that if they all drowned inside
11:23
Speaker 2: the car, the car would take a beating on the outside,
11:25
Speaker 2: I would think. But if you were inside that vehicle,
11:29
Speaker 2: would your body deteriorate the way it would outside of
11:36
Speaker 2: the car. You're not getting banged around by rocks and
11:39
Speaker 2: trees and everything else. But I guess I'm trying to
11:41
Speaker 2: figure out, how is it possible that in a couple
11:45
Speaker 2: of months time they could not determine this was the
11:50
Speaker 2: body of Susan Martin without dental records.
11:55
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so outside of the cabin of the vehicle,
12:02
Speaker 1: you're subjected your remains or their remains would be subjected
12:09
Speaker 1: to not just the velocity with which the river would
12:14
Speaker 1: move you along, you know, which is going to have
12:18
Speaker 1: You're going to have impact trauma, post mortem impact trauma
12:22
Speaker 1: on the on the bodies. Okay, So you know how
12:26
Speaker 1: I told you about you know, the speed with which
12:29
Speaker 1: this river flows, any kind of subsurface rocks that might
12:35
Speaker 1: be there, also, anything that's on top of the water,
12:38
Speaker 1: you know, rocks protruding out of the water. You have
12:40
Speaker 1: to think about the speed at which the water is
12:43
Speaker 1: propelling the bodies down range. You're not going to have
12:47
Speaker 1: hemorrhage on the bodies. However, you can have bodies that
12:49
Speaker 1: are smashed in to rocks. Okay, Now here's another thing.
12:54
Speaker 1: All right, if the bodies go subsurface and they're along them,
13:00
Speaker 1: you know the river bottom. Now, in addition to being
13:06
Speaker 1: sustaining post wartem trauma, you're going to have you're going
13:12
Speaker 1: to have crustaceans that are in these waters. Did you know.
13:16
Speaker 1: I don't know if anybody has ever seen. You know,
13:21
Speaker 1: we think about Alaskan king crabs and they're really big.
13:24
Speaker 1: We think about our blue crabs that we have down
13:26
Speaker 1: here in South and up to Maryland. You know that
13:29
Speaker 1: Maryland Course is famous for. We have them all along
13:33
Speaker 1: Gulf Coast. I'm talking about. These are dungeness crabs. Well,
13:36
Speaker 1: dungeenous crabs have this gigantic body and these gigantic claws.
13:40
Speaker 1: Guess what they like to eat, Well, anything that can
13:43
Speaker 1: come across on the bottom of a river. All right,
13:46
Speaker 1: there's actually a dungeness crab season that takes place on
13:50
Speaker 1: the Columbia River, Okay, because you have to understand the
13:53
Speaker 1: Columbia River dumps into the Pacific Ocean, so you've got
13:58
Speaker 1: crabbers that walk work all along this area. These crabs
14:02
Speaker 1: are gigantic. So if I think probably the closer you
14:08
Speaker 1: get to the mouth, the more practiced the water gets,
14:11
Speaker 1: and of course you're going to have these these crabs
14:13
Speaker 1: that are there. In addition to if there's any kind
14:16
Speaker 1: of indigenous crawfish or crayfish, as some other people say,
14:21
Speaker 1: we also run into things like turtles. Turtles are notorious
14:25
Speaker 1: for getting on bodies, and I don't know what species
14:28
Speaker 1: they have up there, but you know, you couple all
14:30
Speaker 1: of that, it makes it really different, difficult for the
14:35
Speaker 1: medical examiner corner when you recover a human remain that
14:40
Speaker 1: has been subjected to all of this. And then on
14:45
Speaker 1: top of that, even though the Columbia River is very cool,
14:48
Speaker 1: it's very cold. Remember they went missing back in December.
14:53
Speaker 1: They're now found. I think it's in May, right, yeah,
14:57
Speaker 1: and so we're moving down range. Shall almost have half
15:00
Speaker 1: a year, all right? I guess in what July would
15:03
Speaker 1: be half a year since they'd gone missing. You're still
15:07
Speaker 1: going to have decompositional changes because you cannot slow You
15:17
Speaker 1: can slow it, but you cannot make it cease at
15:19
Speaker 1: a cellular level of the body breaking down. So what
15:23
Speaker 1: do you relying upon. Well, the teeth and the jaws
15:27
Speaker 1: many times are very very resilient, Dave. So with a
15:30
Speaker 1: body that you pull out of water, you can have
15:33
Speaker 1: like these huge deings on the head. You're going to
15:37
Speaker 1: have horrible trauma to the face, bone fractures and everything.
15:42
Speaker 1: But guess what, in this short period of time, the
15:45
Speaker 1: teeth would actually be intact, you would still have enough
15:50
Speaker 1: there to do a dental ID on both these kids,
15:55
Speaker 1: and I think that's what they wound up doing, wasn't it, Dave.
15:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, That's the part that got me was that in
16:02
Speaker 2: my head I was trying to figure out how it
16:04
Speaker 2: transpired that first of all, the girls were seen together,
16:07
Speaker 2: you know, in the river by the couple, and then
16:10
Speaker 2: their bodies are found within twenty four hours, but they're
16:13
Speaker 2: thirty miles apart on the rock. Because you were talking
16:16
Speaker 2: about how you know, how rough the water is and
16:19
Speaker 2: how majestic this whole thing is. But both of the
16:22
Speaker 2: bodies were so damaged that they had to use dental
16:28
Speaker 2: identification on the girls, and yet they didn't find the
16:31
Speaker 2: other three. You've got two girls, but not the other
16:33
Speaker 2: three people. You still got mom, dad in Barbie and
16:36
Speaker 2: can't find them. And there was a report of a
16:40
Speaker 2: couple of different things along here, Joe, and I wanted
16:41
Speaker 2: to ask you about this because as they were being
16:45
Speaker 2: as the bodies were coming out, a worker suggested that
16:50
Speaker 2: they notice bullet holes, possible bullet holes, and when it
16:55
Speaker 2: got to the autopsy, that's dance. Any bullet holes. They
16:59
Speaker 2: then damage like that from rocks and things like that
17:01
Speaker 2: in the water.
17:02
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, yeah, yeah, go ahead.
17:07
Speaker 2: Well I was just say, okay, I mentioned the tire
17:09
Speaker 2: tracks that were seeing. There were tire tracks that were
17:12
Speaker 2: seeing going off a cliff and some other things like
17:16
Speaker 2: that along this river. And one of the things that
17:19
Speaker 2: was found within the girls clothing aluminum chips. And that
17:26
Speaker 2: seemed odd until you go back and look at where
17:31
Speaker 2: that rig in the river looked onto something heavy duty.
17:36
Speaker 2: And then the next day you've got there, well twelve
17:38
Speaker 2: hours later, you've got the bodies in the river. Okay,
17:40
Speaker 2: Well that rig right across the river from that wasn't
17:44
Speaker 2: amin where they melt aluminum down? Wow? Yeah. And so
17:49
Speaker 2: you start putting these little things together and you're going, Okay,
17:52
Speaker 2: we know they were all well know, we can assume
17:54
Speaker 2: they were all in the car, right, but if and
17:59
Speaker 2: assuming they were all in the car, up until the
18:01
Speaker 2: time that that rig hooked it the heavy thing, nobody
18:05
Speaker 2: knew what it was. Two of the girls come out
18:08
Speaker 2: with the other three, don't. I mean, that's still really
18:11
Speaker 2: in my head, I'm thinking somebody killed those girls and
18:15
Speaker 2: stole the you know, in my head, I mean thinking
18:18
Speaker 2: like that in nineteen fifty eight, nineteen fifty nine, because
18:22
Speaker 2: again you mentioned the months here, Joe, December seventh, nineteen
18:25
Speaker 2: fifty eight. They go out looking for greenery. The girls
18:27
Speaker 2: were found the first week of May nineteen fifty nine.
18:32
Speaker 1: Do you think about that? And yeah, I think that
18:35
Speaker 1: any reasonable listen, nothing would be off the table. Kind
18:38
Speaker 1: of go back to the bullet hole comment just for
18:41
Speaker 1: a second. In no report that I write or have
18:48
Speaker 1: written in the past, and those that I train, I
18:52
Speaker 1: encourage people never ever to use the term bullet wound
18:58
Speaker 1: or bullet hole because you're painting yourself into a major
19:02
Speaker 1: corner here, Because there are many things out there that
19:06
Speaker 1: can insult a human body that will leave behind a say,
19:12
Speaker 1: for instance, a there is no perfect circle, but a
19:15
Speaker 1: perfect to the to the unaided eye, a perfectly circle
19:20
Speaker 1: circular hole. And I've actually seen people that will see
19:24
Speaker 1: holes in bodies, defects in bodies. And I'm talking about cops.
19:28
Speaker 1: He'll say that's a nine millimeter, or that's a thirty
19:31
Speaker 1: eight special, or that's a twenty two. There's no way
19:34
Speaker 1: to tell by merely eyeballing. So, Dave, one of the
19:39
Speaker 1: reasons I stay away from that is because I don't
19:41
Speaker 1: want to be painted into a corner. You know, when
19:44
Speaker 1: you talk about from the forensic standpoint, when you're talking
19:47
Speaker 1: about trying to remain scientifically accurate, I will always use
19:53
Speaker 1: circular or you read a regular defect until I can
19:57
Speaker 1: prove it otherwise, and I'll allow the forensic pathologists to
20:01
Speaker 1: finally make that determination. Because if you've got a bullet hole, say,
20:05
Speaker 1: for instance, you're going to have to have a bullet track. Well,
20:08
Speaker 1: if you've got a hole that just punctures in to
20:12
Speaker 1: the surface of the skin, okay, is there an underlying track,
20:17
Speaker 1: where does it go? And oh the bye, is there
20:19
Speaker 1: also a lead core projectile that's embedded down range in
20:22
Speaker 1: that bullet track. Well, if there's not, and you've got,
20:26
Speaker 1: say a bullet hole that's only maybe half an inch steep,
20:32
Speaker 1: you're really sticking your fanny out in the air there.
20:34
Speaker 1: I mean, you're going to look like a fool at
20:37
Speaker 1: the end of the day. So you have to be very,
20:39
Speaker 1: very careful. But I can tell you this, when it
20:42
Speaker 1: comes to a family who is missing along with their vehicle, nothing,
20:51
Speaker 1: and I mean nothing should be taken for granted. The
20:55
Speaker 1: answers should always rest in the science. So Dave let
21:13
Speaker 1: me get this straight. We've got within less than six months,
21:19
Speaker 1: we've got two bodies, right of this family, the Martin family.
21:24
Speaker 1: And just so folks understand, the two bodies that were
21:28
Speaker 1: found were the two youngest members of the family. I
21:33
Speaker 1: have thoughts about that. You're talking about Virginia who was thirteen,
21:38
Speaker 1: Susan who was eleven. How did they get out of
21:43
Speaker 1: the car? And understand, I don't necessarily believe they got
21:47
Speaker 1: out of the car in the sense of they got
21:50
Speaker 1: out of the car in order to swim ashore. I
21:52
Speaker 1: think that probably, particularly if they were the diminutive of
21:56
Speaker 1: the family, the two diminutive members of the family, it
22:01
Speaker 1: is within reason that if that car broke up in
22:05
Speaker 1: some way, if it even went into the river, that
22:10
Speaker 1: those bodies could potentially float free of the of the vehicle.
22:16
Speaker 1: All right, and so, but that still leaves us with
22:21
Speaker 1: a huge mystery. Here you've got two where the the
22:25
Speaker 1: three is the car in the river? Or did Dad
22:29
Speaker 1: get rid of these two for whatever reason and wanted
22:32
Speaker 1: to go start a new life? Is it? I don't know,
22:36
Speaker 1: little Green men, I have no idea, but it is
22:41
Speaker 1: I can only imagine that back in fifty nine when
22:43
Speaker 1: these two young children were found. The rest of the
22:46
Speaker 1: community is sitting there thinking, where in the world is
22:49
Speaker 1: everybody else? How do you just vanish? And I would
22:52
Speaker 1: assume that all eyes would have gone to the Columbia
22:55
Speaker 1: River at that point in time.
22:56
Speaker 2: There was a there was a huge investigation, obviously, and
23:03
Speaker 2: I was looking over some of the reporting at the time.
23:05
Speaker 2: You know, there were newspapers and things like that, and
23:09
Speaker 2: there were a number of reports being written up about
23:14
Speaker 2: evidence found in the area, suggesting that a gun with
23:20
Speaker 2: blood dried blood was found near the river, and it
23:23
Speaker 2: was the same gun that was stolen two years earlier
23:27
Speaker 2: from a sporting goods store where the oldest son of
23:30
Speaker 2: the Martin family, who was in the Navy station in
23:33
Speaker 2: New York at the time of this, that he had
23:35
Speaker 2: stolen this from the sporting goods store he was working
23:38
Speaker 2: at at the time. Those were the type of reports
23:41
Speaker 2: that were coming out of the area because they had
23:43
Speaker 2: no answers. Show there were no answers when they find
23:46
Speaker 2: the two girls' bodies. I go back to that big
23:50
Speaker 2: the rig hooking onto something in the water, and then
23:54
Speaker 2: within twelve hours of this big thing being hooked, the
23:58
Speaker 2: two bodies are found in the river. They're seen together,
24:01
Speaker 2: but they're found thirty miles apart the next day. I mean,
24:05
Speaker 2: which I'm so glad you pointed out the strength of
24:08
Speaker 2: this river, because that's where I start looking at this
24:12
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, Joe, if you think about
24:16
Speaker 2: a car that has been at the bottom of a river,
24:20
Speaker 2: let's just say it's been sitting there, undisturbed, and now
24:23
Speaker 2: it gets hooked and gets disturbed, and the two smallest
24:29
Speaker 2: somehow end up outside the vehicle and floating down the river.
24:35
Speaker 2: The story ended because that's all that was found, two
24:39
Speaker 2: bodies that had to be identified by dental records. This
24:43
Speaker 2: mystery became the stuff of campfire stories, you know, the
24:49
Speaker 2: guy with the hook and go you have to go
24:53
Speaker 2: forward so many years now, you've got to go what
24:56
Speaker 2: sixty seven years?
24:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, well yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, You're absolutely right.
25:02
Speaker 2: There's one guy a diver, and this is not a
25:06
Speaker 2: river you're going to dive for leisure. If you're going
25:10
Speaker 2: to get into this water, you're looking for something and
25:13
Speaker 2: you better have an expertise or you're not coming back up.
25:16
Speaker 1: No, no, you wouldn't.
25:18
Speaker 2: And there was a guy who had an idea. Joe
25:20
Speaker 2: there was a guy. I know, a guy.
25:23
Speaker 1: You know, I got a guy. Yeah, I got a
25:25
Speaker 1: guy I got I got for this. Yeah, and listen,
25:30
Speaker 1: this type of diving. A good friend of mine. I
25:33
Speaker 1: recommend to check him out. Bobby Chackne. He originally set
25:37
Speaker 1: up the uh the FBI Dive Team Evidence Recovery Team.
25:45
Speaker 1: I know that's redundant, but Bobby is just this incredible
25:50
Speaker 1: person as a professional and just an all around great guy.
25:56
Speaker 1: I mean, I've gotten to know Bobby and I've talked
25:58
Speaker 1: to Bobby about the incredibly incompatible environment, environments he's had
26:08
Speaker 1: to go into, incompatible with life that he's had to
26:12
Speaker 1: go into. And I'm not just talking to you know.
26:14
Speaker 1: It's not like you go diving in like the crystal
26:16
Speaker 1: clear waters of the Caribbean. He's gone into very austere environments,
26:21
Speaker 1: areas where there's a lot of sewage and area where
26:25
Speaker 1: you know, you're getting into these rough waters where you
26:28
Speaker 1: literally have white water, and that's a very specific type
26:32
Speaker 1: of skill set. And just to try to understand the
26:37
Speaker 1: topography in an environment like this where by the way,
26:41
Speaker 1: it can change at the drop of a hat because
26:45
Speaker 1: of the fury of this water. That's rushing over this,
26:49
Speaker 1: and you begin to get things like snowmelt that's going
26:52
Speaker 1: to be back, you know, back to the east where
26:54
Speaker 1: it's running off the mountains, and the fury of the
26:58
Speaker 1: river just doubles at that point in time. So and
27:02
Speaker 1: this happens every year. It's gone for eons. So you
27:05
Speaker 1: think about the who would have this kind of skill
27:08
Speaker 1: set and have the ability, and also who would have
27:12
Speaker 1: the want to to be able to go down there,
27:14
Speaker 1: because it takes a very special person to go subsurface
27:17
Speaker 1: in this environment. And here's one thing I'm thinking about,
27:23
Speaker 1: particularly in a river, it's not like you know, I
27:26
Speaker 1: talked about the Caribbean, where you know, maybe you're floating
27:28
Speaker 1: around and you're looking down you see the beautiful fish.
27:31
Speaker 1: Oh look there's a shark over there. I'm going to
27:33
Speaker 1: swim over here and say, wait, dude, you can't see anything.
27:37
Speaker 1: Most of these rivers that these guys go into, it's
27:40
Speaker 1: done by feel. You kind of climb or crawl rather
27:44
Speaker 1: along the bottom, kind of touching surfaces to see what's
27:48
Speaker 1: there and what you can appreciate. And can you imagine
27:51
Speaker 1: trying to work a crim scene underwater like this, where
27:54
Speaker 1: you're doing it by field, Dave.
27:56
Speaker 2: And I'm so glad you pointed that out, because you
28:00
Speaker 2: can't see anything, you're actually having to go down and
28:03
Speaker 2: look for something based on in this particular case, I
28:07
Speaker 2: think the guy's name is Archer Mayo, and mister Mayo
28:12
Speaker 2: had been researching this case for a long time and
28:17
Speaker 2: he went back to the Columbia to the Cascade Locks
28:24
Speaker 2: in the Columbia River where that hook where they had
28:27
Speaker 2: hooked something big. And you know, nothing came of that
28:32
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty nine except for two bodies found down
28:35
Speaker 2: the river. But they couldn't put two and two together
28:37
Speaker 2: on that. And so when Archer Mayo, who is an
28:40
Speaker 2: expert diver and researcher, apparently because he went back to
28:44
Speaker 2: the Cascade Locks, Joe, he got in the water and
28:47
Speaker 2: as you said, he found he had to find his
28:50
Speaker 2: way the best he could, but fifty feet below the surface,
28:54
Speaker 2: Joseph Scott Morgan at the Cascade Locks, arch your Mayo
29:02
Speaker 2: found something. He was able to bring up parts off
29:08
Speaker 2: the something, not the whole thing, but parts, and it
29:13
Speaker 2: was enough for them to go, hey, wait a minute,
29:15
Speaker 2: this is the station This is a vehicle that matches
29:19
Speaker 2: the station wagon that the Martin family was driving at
29:23
Speaker 2: the time they vanished, and based on the information from before, right.
29:30
Speaker 1: I could have approximated. You know, here's one of the
29:33
Speaker 1: interesting things when you're working in an old case like
29:36
Speaker 1: this involving physical evidence. With motor vehicles, there are certain
29:41
Speaker 1: locations where serial numbers are stamped, where there are specific
29:47
Speaker 1: markers with the automobiles. Now you might not necessarily recover
29:51
Speaker 1: like a VEN number plate, but there are certain areas
29:54
Speaker 1: and there are people out there in forensics DAVE that
29:57
Speaker 1: deal with nothing but car period well motor vehicles. And
30:04
Speaker 1: if you think their information is limited to modern vehicles,
30:07
Speaker 1: it's not because they can go back in time and
30:12
Speaker 1: they understand the structure of vehicles, They understand how they're built,
30:17
Speaker 1: and they also understand the little bitty unique characteristics of people.
30:23
Speaker 1: Just where a certain turn of the metal has taken
30:25
Speaker 1: place that makes that vehicle unique to that particular brand.
30:30
Speaker 1: Think about that, and then think about all of the
30:32
Speaker 1: changes that have taken place with this motor vehicle over
30:35
Speaker 1: a long period of time. From what I'm understanding, the
30:39
Speaker 1: vehicle actually came to rest and what they're what they
30:43
Speaker 1: are referring to as a pit beneath the surface of
30:48
Speaker 1: the water, and so you have containment in this area,
30:53
Speaker 1: and I would imagine that there would be somewhat of
30:56
Speaker 1: a debris field that's around whatever's left of the superstructure
31:01
Speaker 1: of the vehicle, you know there, whether it's the frame itself.
31:06
Speaker 1: You can imagine the wood paneling you know that may
31:09
Speaker 1: have been on the sides or whatever, or the faux
31:12
Speaker 1: wood paneling, tail lights, all that stuff. It is probably
31:15
Speaker 1: you know, probably gone. So now you're just merely staring
31:20
Speaker 1: at a metal skeleton. Skeleton being the functional word here, Dave,
31:26
Speaker 1: because you know, they came up with initial pieces of
31:28
Speaker 1: the car, is that what you said?
31:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, and that it was enough the
31:33
Speaker 2: diver was able to bring up enough of the vehicle
31:36
Speaker 2: to to get more help because what they ended up
31:39
Speaker 2: having to do they used a vacuum dredge. Yeah, And
31:44
Speaker 2: I only know about these because I've watched these. I
31:47
Speaker 2: watched some crazy TV shows of the gold guys, you.
31:49
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely him using.
31:52
Speaker 2: A vacuum dredge at the bottom of a river anyway,
31:54
Speaker 2: And that's what they used. And by the way, they
31:57
Speaker 2: found several vehicles. There wasn't just one. They found several
32:01
Speaker 2: in the search for the Martin's vehicle. They were able
32:05
Speaker 2: they being the experts. Once they realized we do have
32:07
Speaker 2: a vehicle down here. That was in twenty twenty four,
32:11
Speaker 2: they arranged to start pulling out. It's a dangerous effort,
32:14
Speaker 2: so they do use vacuum dredge. They pull out rocks,
32:18
Speaker 2: silt and everything else, and they're able to get the
32:20
Speaker 2: frame and the oh I'm trying to remember. They what
32:28
Speaker 2: do you call it? Come on, Dave. They were able
32:31
Speaker 2: to get the frame of the vehicle and the motor
32:35
Speaker 2: and other parts of the vehicle out of the river
32:40
Speaker 2: and they sent it to the Oregon State Crime Lab
32:43
Speaker 2: to be examined. Yeah, the axle in the engine, that's
32:47
Speaker 2: what it was. I was trying to guy, it's more
32:49
Speaker 2: than just the frame, because the frame, you know, is
32:52
Speaker 2: not going to be the whole thing, and it's going
32:55
Speaker 2: to be parts of it. Same thing with the axle
32:57
Speaker 2: and the engine, but enough of it that they were
32:59
Speaker 2: able to get back to the crime lab and break
33:01
Speaker 2: it down and say, yep, this was a Martin family vehicle. Well.
33:05
Speaker 1: One of one of the other problems that they that
33:07
Speaker 1: they had when when the Sheriff's office got involved I'm
33:12
Speaker 1: not disparaging the Sheriff's office. I'm just saying when you
33:15
Speaker 1: start to get all all hands on deck for this thing.
33:18
Speaker 1: They did use a crane to pull to pull, begin
33:23
Speaker 1: to pull this thing up. But unfortunately, as they're pulling up,
33:28
Speaker 1: you know, kind of the superstructure of the thing, they
33:31
Speaker 1: don't get everything. Some stuff kind of falls back down
33:35
Speaker 1: and it left. I get the impression that the vehicle
33:39
Speaker 1: is inverted, so it's on its roof essentially, and it
33:42
Speaker 1: left the passenger cabin of the vehicle upside down in
33:47
Speaker 1: this you know, uh, this pit that I'm referring to.
33:51
Speaker 1: So you're pulling off the axle, the transmission, maybe the
33:55
Speaker 1: engine block, and you're not getting that.
33:58
Speaker 2: Okay, now I understand. How can that came up?
34:00
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I think it's inverted, and so when you
34:05
Speaker 1: pull it up like this, and it's a good thing
34:07
Speaker 1: that they were able to pull it up, because if
34:10
Speaker 1: you can go it's like dealing with guns. With firearms
34:15
Speaker 1: where people have tried to eradicate, you know, like serial
34:17
Speaker 1: numbers and things like that. You've got to take this
34:20
Speaker 1: to a controlled environment. There's no way you're going to Hey, boys,
34:23
Speaker 1: let's put it up on the bank and check it out. No, no, no, no,
34:26
Speaker 1: that's why they took it to the state crime lab.
34:28
Speaker 1: There are certain applications that can be used on metal surfaces,
34:35
Speaker 1: to say, for instance, if you're looking for serial numbers,
34:37
Speaker 1: and certain serial numbers will match up with models, okay,
34:42
Speaker 1: and also other features of the vehicle. You want to
34:44
Speaker 1: try to examine these. And Dave, this scene is going
34:47
Speaker 1: to have all kinds of incrustation all over the top
34:50
Speaker 1: of it, all right, everything from russ to anything else
34:55
Speaker 1: is silt that's settled on. There's going to stain it.
34:59
Speaker 1: This is not something that this is not an easy undertaking.
35:02
Speaker 1: So with that, if you get this out of the water,
35:05
Speaker 1: you can confirm it that it's possibly the same vehicle,
35:09
Speaker 1: then you go back down and see what else you
35:11
Speaker 1: can find. And Dave, I got to tell you, when
35:13
Speaker 1: they went back down there contained within the cabin of
35:17
Speaker 1: the vehicle, I'd be dog gone if they didn't find
35:19
Speaker 1: the rest of these remains.
35:20
Speaker 2: Dave, unbelievable that sixty something years later they're able to
35:27
Speaker 2: find three human being bodies. They found the remains, and
35:31
Speaker 2: you know, like everything else, you cannot assume anything. The
35:35
Speaker 2: bodies that were found inside the cabin of the vehicle
35:39
Speaker 2: had to be tested and they were and it came
35:42
Speaker 2: back positively identified.
35:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's one of the really fascinating things about this.
35:51
Speaker 1: And if I could just talk about this just a
35:54
Speaker 1: wee bit, if you have intact skulls, okay, on these bodies,
36:02
Speaker 1: I don't know if the teeth would still be there
36:05
Speaker 1: if you can find sample from maybe one of the
36:08
Speaker 1: long bones. But the skull is what I'm focusing on here,
36:11
Speaker 1: because author them on unidentified bodies likes to harvest from
36:17
Speaker 1: two spots. Okay, they love to get a molar, all right,
36:21
Speaker 1: they love molars. The other place you don't like this
36:27
Speaker 1: is inside of the skull. So if you take the
36:30
Speaker 1: cap of the skull off, and if people just imagine
36:34
Speaker 1: where your fancy terms what they call the external auditory mediatus,
36:40
Speaker 1: which is the holes for your ears. If you find
36:43
Speaker 1: out where your ear holes are, okay, your auditory canal,
36:46
Speaker 1: and go slightly above that area inside of your skull.
36:49
Speaker 1: Just imagine you're going inside your skull. There's like a
36:52
Speaker 1: ridge line that runs over the top of your auditory
36:57
Speaker 1: canal in there, and it's a ridge and it's called
36:59
Speaker 1: the tres Bad, Petris. Okay, like Peter Petros, you know,
37:05
Speaker 1: build my church on the rock, right, Petris. And if
37:10
Speaker 1: you carve out that bit with a saw and you
37:13
Speaker 1: harvest it, it's really thick, really really thick. And so
37:17
Speaker 1: you take that sample and send it to where. Well,
37:21
Speaker 1: our friends at AUTHROM and the Oregon State Medical Examiner's
37:25
Speaker 1: Office got involved in this case as well. It should have.
37:30
Speaker 1: All right, you've got three decendents here, You've got remains
37:35
Speaker 1: that have been compromised, Brother Dave, what sixty seven years
37:40
Speaker 1: after the fact, what's you going to do? Man, Well,
37:43
Speaker 1: we're going to turn to our friends at AUTHORM and
37:46
Speaker 1: after all of these years, they send this stuff down
37:48
Speaker 1: range to the Woodlands, Texas. And it's because of what
37:53
Speaker 1: the Oregon State Medical Examiner's Office, the Hood County Sheriff's
37:57
Speaker 1: Office decided to do with this and put this into
38:00
Speaker 1: the hands of the middlemans that they were able to
38:03
Speaker 1: get these bodies identified and they determined that it is
38:09
Speaker 1: in fact the Martin family. My friends, let me tell
38:14
Speaker 1: you something. We're in a brand new age unlike anything
38:19
Speaker 1: else we've ever seen in forensic science. And if, in
38:24
Speaker 1: fact you want to get involved, if you think you
38:27
Speaker 1: would love to be a forensic scientist, and you're frustrated
38:30
Speaker 1: because you think you're too old or it's too late
38:32
Speaker 1: to go back to school, but you still want to
38:34
Speaker 1: help out. Here's why you do it. You go visit
38:38
Speaker 1: to dnasols dot com and there I just checked it
38:42
Speaker 1: out today and there are a whole list of images
38:47
Speaker 1: there and they actually have the numbers of dollars that
38:51
Speaker 1: they are into each one of these cases that have
38:54
Speaker 1: been donated to date. These are open cases. Guess what
38:58
Speaker 1: you can do. You can look this up by maybe
39:00
Speaker 1: the reason that you live. You can look it up,
39:04
Speaker 1: or you can view it by virtue of something that
39:06
Speaker 1: really interests you, maybe an unsolved sexual assault case or
39:09
Speaker 1: an unsolved homicide, or just a skeleton that has been found.
39:13
Speaker 1: You can make a difference in these cases. All you
39:16
Speaker 1: got to do go to DNA solves dot com. And
39:21
Speaker 1: they're not asking for a million bucks. Just throw a
39:24
Speaker 1: couple of bucks their way. Every little bit helps people
39:29
Speaker 1: prob and on about well they need closure. Well, you know,
39:34
Speaker 1: Morgan doesn't believe necessarily in that term. But what I
39:37
Speaker 1: do believe in are answers, and those answers in this
39:42
Speaker 1: particular case rest in science, and the science is currently
39:48
Speaker 1: being practiced at Authorm Labs. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and
39:54
Speaker 1: this is Bodybacks.