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Posted on 10/01/2025 5:25:23 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The Mohave County Sheriff's Office in Arizona discovered the sisters alive and well in California through DNA, and now it wants justice for whoever killed their mother.
Two California sisters missing for 36 years were found alive and well in their home state with the help of familial DNA, authorities investigating their case in Arizona said.
When they were discovered in August, Jasmin and Elizabeth Ramos were living under new names given by foster parents who raised them in Ventura County, California, unaware of their missing status.
Now authorities want to find the killer of their mother, Marina Ramos of Bakersfield, California, whose body was found with multiple stab wounds in Mohave County, Arizona, on Dec. 12, 1989, the local sheriff's office said.
Jasmin was 2 months old and Elizabeth was 14 months old when they went missing that month and were found days later abandoned in an Oxnard, California, park bathroom, the Mohave County Sheriff's Office said in a Sept. 22 Facebook post.
“A witness walking in the area heard children crying in the women’s restroom,” the office said. “He asked a woman to check the bathroom, and she found the girls laying on the wet floor with no adult nearby.”
At the time, authorities didn't make the connection between the girls and the killed woman.
"The girls were eventually adopted by a couple in Ventura County and were raised together in a loving home," the Mohave County Sheriff's Office said.
The office's Special Investigations Unit, established in 2019 to revive cold cases, reopened the Ramos file at a time when the slain victim was still unidentified, her girls were considered missing and there were no suspect leads, the sheriff's office said.
In 2022, fingerprints from Marina Ramos' body matched those on file belonging to a woman named Maria Ortiz, who had been arrested and fingerprinted following allegations of shoplifting in Kern County, California, in June 1989, the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office said.
Maria Ramos' children.Maria Ramos' children. (Mohave County Sheriff's Office via Facebook) A Bakersfield address for Ortiz led investigators to a roommate, who said she had a cousin named Marina Ramos who had been missing since 1989, the office said.
"It was later learned that Maria Ortiz was an alias used by Marina Ramos," the office said.
Investigators also discovered that Ortiz had two young daughters who remained missing.
Mohave County Sheriff's Office investigators, led by Lori Miller, a former Los Angeles Police Department detective, got a DNA sample from a relative of Marina Ramos and used law enforcement and family DNA databases in hopes of finding the girls, the office said.
They discovered one of the sisters, who said the pair had been abandoned in 1989, the sheriff's office said. The other sister kept newspaper clippings that contained news of the abandonment, it said.
While the sheriff's office in Arizona celebrated the discovery, calling Miller's feat "unbelievable work," a key portion of the case remains unsolved: who killed Marina Ramos?
"The search for the suspects involved in the homicide of Marina Ramos continues," the Mohave County Sheriff's Office said.
The office said a witness reported seeing Marina Ramos with two men and her daughters at the Oxnard park where the girls were abandoned, and that the five were also seen in a compact, black pickup.
Investigators hope that observation might jog someone's memory and help authorities track down Marina Ramos' killers. Anyone with information was urged to contact the Mohave County Sheriff's Office.
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It's just over 100 miles from where the mother was found and where the 2 abandoned children were found. No one made any connection?
Think back to 1989. We had small town local newspapers. No internet communications. Maybe a big urban daily paper picked the story up for a few days on an inside page, but it faded away as all such stories do.
There was no facebook livestream for the killer to upload to.
The mother was murdered in Mohave County, Arizona, and the children were found in a park restroom in Oxnard, California. That’s about 400 miles.
Yes, the body was found in AZ. But they knew she lived in Bakersfield, right? And people must have known she had two children. Where did those kids go? What a mystery this is. I guess they were killed and buried in the desert. Meanwhile, 100 miles away, two abandoned children have been found. Doesn’t seem like this requires 21st century police work.
I don’t know if the story is written well, but part of it is confusing. It acts like they already knew her name was Ramos, but the fingerprints matched to a woman named Ortiz, and the cousin tells them it’s Maria Ramos in 2019? And when did they learn about the children?
Yes, the body was found in AZ. But they knew she lived in Bakersfield, right? And people must have known she had two children.
They didn't know when they found the body in Arizona in 1986 that she was Maria Ramos (originally from Bakersfield) until they did modern DNA on the body in 2022. They found they belonged to "Marina Ortiz" who had a criminal record for shoplifting:
A Bakersfield address for Ortiz led investigators to a roommate, who said she had a cousin named Marina Ramos who had been missing since 1989, the office said.
"It was later learned that Maria Ortiz was an alias used by Marina Ramos," the office said. Investigators also discovered that Ortiz had two young daughters who remained missing.
So when they first found the murdered woman they didn't know who she was or that she had kids. After the murder, they were apparently taken to Oxnard (probably by the murderer) where they were found in the park restroom.
“I don’t know if the story is written well”
I can answer that for you: NO, it’s written @$$ backwards.
An unknown woman is found dead, no reason to think she had kids. Several days later a couple of kids are abandoned 100 miles away in another town.
Might as well try to connect the dots to the bank robbery 5 days before she was found dead.
Police departments in separate cities have so many calls that would shock you, there is no way to connect the dots. That is an effect of modern TV cop shows.
They didn’t even know her real name until 2022. She was operating under an alias when she was found dead.
Nobody had a clue she had kids. Nobody would connect a couple of kids abandoned in California days later. There were probably kids abandoned in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento that same week. And how long do you look at a window for abandoned kids? 6 days, 12 days, a month? A year?
You find an abandoned baby in Cali, and then explore every murder nationwide for the last month?
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