December marks 65 years since Portland family disappearance

As outlined in a 2008 special documentary regarding the case by Portland news station KOIN, a signed gas station receipt that was mailed back to the Martin home showed that the family had made a stop in Cascade Locks, and an eyewitness account placed the Martins in a Hood River Café in the early evening of Dec. 7. According to the 2019 book “Echo of Distant Water, the 1958 disappearance of the Martin Family,” the café in Hood River was more than an hour out of the way from what was thought to be their original destination of Larch Mountain in Multnomah County. This account was the last time the Martin family was knowingly seen alive. After departing the restaurant, the family did not return to their Portland home, nor did any of their friends or family ever hear from them again.

Police investigations involving five different departments across Portland and the Columbia Gorge ensued after the family was reported missing, but an apparent lack of coordination between departments and no consistent leads resulted in the case going cold. According to KOIN News, in February of 1959, undisturbed tire tracks as well as paint chips consistent with the color of the Martin family car were discovered on the bluff of a cliff overlooking the Columbia River in The Dalles. Evidence concluded that the tracks and paint chips were from the same make and model of the missing family’s car, and it was determined by Detective Walter Graven of the Multnomah County Police Department that there was no evidence the car that made the tracks returned from the bluff.

On May 3, 1959, five months after the family’s initial disappearance, the body of Susan Martin was discovered in the Columbia River near Camas, Wash. The following day, the remains of Virigina Martin was discovered in the water near Bonneville dam. According to news articles published following the discovery, including papers such as North Carolina’s Ashville Citizen Times and The Boston Globe, the sisters were identified through clothing and dental records.

According to “Echo of Distant Water,” the bodies were discovered mere days after workers of a tugboat reportedly dropped anchor in the Columbia River and snagged an object described as “the size of a car,” allegedly right in front of the cliffside where the tire tracks and paint chips were found in The Dalles. After freeing the anchor, workers of the tugboat reported to Graven that they witnessed an object floating up in the water near their barge before being carried downstream, describing it as a “bundle of clothes.”

Despite the positive identifications of two of the Martin children, the case remains cold to this day. The bodies of Kenneth, Barbera and Barbie Martin have never been found.

Multiple theories followed the family’s disappearance, one being that Kenneth Martin accidentally drove the family’s station wagon into the locks after their stop for gas in Cascade Locks. According to the KOIN documentary and “Echo of Distant Water,” the water around the time of the family’s disappearance reached the edge of the locks, making the theory plausible to local law enforcement.

Another, more sinister theory speculates that the family had been hijacked by two ex-convicts. One of the convicts, Roy Light, was known in The Dalles, and both were known by the owner of the café that the Martin’s were last seen. According to KOIN, the owner saw the two convicts at the café the same evening as the family and witnessed them leave “approx. the same time” [sic] as the family.

Circumstantial evidence in the form of an abandoned vehicle, that, according to a Dec. 31, 1958, article in The Bend Bulletin, local law enforcement “doubted if there was any connection between the Martin disappearance and an abandoned car found near Cascade Locks,” further backs this theory. According to “Echo of Distant Water,” the car, which had been reported to have keys in ignition and gas in the tank, had later been found to have been stolen by one of the convicts sighted in the café.

The tire tracks found in The Dalles were located “not far” from the residence where one of the convicts had been staying, according to the KOIN documentary.

Just west of Cascade Locks, an Odell resident found a gun beneath a rock in January 1959. According to “Echo of Distant Water,” the gun’s handle was coated with dried blood and an empty bullet casing in the chamber, indicating it had been fired at least once. It turned it over to the local law enforcement, but for an unknown reason was never processed as evidence and was returned to the person who found it. The gun’s serial number was later traced by Graven to the department store Meier & Frank Co.

A former employee of Meier & Frank, the Martin’s eldest son, Donald Martin, was 28 at the time of his family’s disappearance. At one point while working there, Donald was accused of and later admitted to stealing merchandise from the store. According to “Echo of Distant Water,” Kenneth paid for the $2,000 worth of unaccounted-for merchandise and Donald was fired from his job.

A piece of merchandise that disappeared while Donald worked there?

A .38 caliber automatic revolver.

As described in the KOIN documentary, when being questioned about the merchandise, Donald admitted to a strained relationship with his parents. Living in New York at the time of their disappearance, Donald did not return to Oregon until it was time to settle his parents’ estate three months later. He later did not arrive in time for his sisters’ funeral, citing a “mix up” with the date. Donald later moved to Hawaii, where he passed away in 2004. The convicts potentially believed to be in connection the case disappeared shortly after Dec. 7, and were never interviewed.

Captivating the nation over the decades and internet sleuths in recent years, multiple dives — made by both police and volunteer investigators alike — had been made in the Columbia River in search of the family’s car, with no success.

Besides the 50th anniversary special documentary on the family’s disappearance aired in 2008, KOIN also aired a follow up story in 2018 on the case’s 60th anniversary. The case captivated Portland resident J.B. Fisher, author of “Echo of Distant Water,” with the book not only recounting the particulars of the case but describing his own investigation of the case and subsequent theories. 

It is uncertain whether the Martin family disappearance can or will ever be solved, but the mystery still captivates those who know about it, 65 years later.