The Martin Family Mystery in Portland

[python287]

Doers anyone remember the disappearance of the "Martin Family" in Portland - I think it was in the 50's-60's . The family left home and was never seen alive again. The car was found in the Columbia River w/several bodies. I don't believe it was ever solved.

OK for you people who are old enough to remember this..

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[Mutoman]

Did you do it?

 

[python287]

No- did you ? I was 12 at the time !

 

[Mutoman]

ha ha I wasn't even born yet!

 

[RangerEric]

Ok guys, now I'm intrigued, and not finding anything by Googling. Anybody got a link to an account of the events?

 

[Siglvr]

Reminds me of the more resent story of the Flatt brother. He and his brother had a business called Flatt Tire service down on MLK/Columbia blvd or so. One day he drove to Costco for grocerys and was never seen again. Just disappeared. Truck, everything. Total mystery. Then years later when the Columbia river was at a real low, someone looks off of Marine drive and they see a part of a truck. They fished the truck out and voila. Evidently the brother had just driven off the road. But there had been no witness's to it so they were speculating.

 

[clearconscience]

Also the Russian cabby that disappeared and they found his body some months, maybe a year later in forest park.

Or Brooke Wilberger.

Not really so much a mystery just hasn't been solved yet. Probably never will. Sad thing is it happens all the time.
There was just a lady arrested in the east coast that kidnapped a child and just turned herself in and the daughter was reunited after 20 some years.

I'm sure every city has the same stories, some more.

 

[clearconscience]

In 1958 Ken Martin took his family down the Columbia Gorge to cut a Christmas tree. The family was never seen again. This case is one of Portland's most enduring mysteries.


All I found

 

[clearconscience]

Mystery solved???


Barbara disappeared with her family: Her father, Kenneth R. Martin; her mother, Barbara Jean Martin; her sister Susan Martin, 12; and her sister Virginia Martin, 10. They disappeared from Portland, Oregon on December 7, 1958. They set off that day in their 9-passenger Ford station wagon en route to the Columbia Gorge, where they planned to collect greenery to decorate their home for Christmas. They bought gas at Cascade Locks, and were last seen leaving a restaurant in Hood River on the way back to Portland. They never made it home.

In February 1959, a searcher found tire tracks heading off a cliff and into the Columbia River, near The Dalles, Oregon. In May 1959, a river drilling rig near the tire tracks hooked something heavy and metal with its anchor. Before it could be pulled up, it came loose. It may have been the missing Ford. A few days later, Susan and Virginia's bodies were found downstream near the Bonneville Dam. They had both drowned. Kenneth, Barbara, and Barbie's remains have never been found.

Police believe the entire family perished after either accidentally driving into the river, or they were abducted and pushed inside their car off the cliff. An attempt was made to search the water for more evidence, but the search was called off after a diver nearly died. No further searches were made and the case was closed. Barbara and her parents remain missing, however.

 

[VW_Factor]

That river sounds dangerous, we should ban it... >.>

 

[clearconscience]

Ban it?

Yes! It stole all my guns!

Too bad, now the govt can't take them.

 

[CJ49er]

Or Brooke Wilberger.

After five years, Wilberger case finally comes to a close | OregonLive.com

 

[clearconscience]

I know wilberger was solved, just saying it was a case in which no clues, evidence, etc was found mystery for a long time.

 

[CJ49er]

I know wilberger was solved, just saying it was a case in which no clues, evidence, etc was found mystery for a long time.

gotcha, sorry for the confusion

CJ

 

[quillfeather]

Just wondering if any of you have any more info on the martin family? thre is very little here and I an doing some research on them

 

[Vanillagerrilla]

it was that damn Sasquatch

 

[Jim Colvill]

Doers anyone remember the disappearance of the "Martin Family" in Portland - I think it was in the 50's-60's . The family left home and was never seen alive again. The car was found in the Columbia River w/several bodies. I don't believe it was ever solved.

OK for you people who are old enough to remember this..

It wasn't me; I wasn't allowed to cross the street alone at that time.

 

[clearconscience]

I wasn't even a stain in ol' daddies sock drawer

 

[Sgt Nambu]

That's disgusting!!!

But it explains so many things!

 

[tac]

Spooky stuff, eh? I have my own family 'disappearing forever' act.

Back in the middle fifties, I was over in Ireland with my aunt and cousins in Co. Wicklow, eating our midday meal, when my Uncle Jem came in for a 'suck o'tay' and a wad. Although it was midsummer, late July, I think, he was wearing his brown overcoat. I told the garda as much as I could recall a few days later, and remembered that he'd been nervous, getting up a few times to look out of the ever-open front door. When he left he went out of the back of the house and over the fields - I remember that well - as the house was the first in a dead-end road, and if he'd left the usual way, he would have come straight down onto the main street.

Leaving the house, after giving my Aunt Dora, his sister-in-law, a thankyou kiss, he went off, and was never seen again, anywhere.

He had totally gone from the earth, and all attempts to locate him since have failed utterly.

Given his past history, he may have been abducted, murdered and buried somewhere in the nearby Wicklow Mountains, location of a lot of activity of the IRA over the years, then and now. He may have upset somebody, but now, sixty years syne, we'll never know.

tac