Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path Wind Chili. I'm Robin, I'm.
Speaker 2: Jules, and I'm Ashley. Guys, I'm about to burst. I'm
Speaker 2: thirty six weeks pregnant. So very soon we're going to
Speaker 2: have our little podcast mascot Teddy with us as well.
Speaker 2: But for now, I'm ready to dive into our case
Speaker 2: and learn a little bit more about the Martin family.
Speaker 3: December seventh, nineteen fifty eight, Portland, Oregon, fifty four year
Speaker 3: old Kenneth Martin, his forty eight year old wife Barbara,
Speaker 3: and their three daughters, fourteen year old Barbie, twelve year
Speaker 3: old Virginia, and ten year old Susan, leave their home
Speaker 3: and their station wagon to travel to the Columbia River Gorge.
Speaker 3: When they failed to return, they are reported missing the
Speaker 3: following evening. Just under five months later, the bodies of
Speaker 3: Susan and Virginia are discovered at separate locations in the
Speaker 3: Columbia River, and some evidence suggests that the Martin station
Speaker 3: wagon crashed into the water. However, other evidence, such as
Speaker 3: the discovery of a blood stained gun which is traced
Speaker 3: back to the Martin surviving son, points to the family
Speaker 3: being victims of an elaborate murder plot, but this is
Speaker 3: never proven and no trace of Kenneth, Barbara, and Barbie
Speaker 3: are found.
Speaker 1: After that the path went Chiley. So today we've got
Speaker 1: a unique missing person's case to cover the nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: eight disappearance of the Martin family, or should I say
Speaker 1: it's a case in which some of the victims are
Speaker 1: missing but others have been confirmed to be deceased. It
Speaker 1: evolves a couple named Kenneth and Barbara Martin who left
Speaker 1: on a road trip with their three daughters before the
Speaker 1: entire family and their station wagon vanished without a trace.
Speaker 1: The bodies of two of the Martin children would eventually
Speaker 1: be found floating in the Columbia River, but the rest
Speaker 1: of the family, as well as their vehicle, had never
Speaker 1: been located. Now I know what you're probably thinking here.
Speaker 1: The Martins obviously drove the car into the water, the
Speaker 1: missing victims are still submerged underwater, and the whole thing
Speaker 1: was nothing more than a tragic accident. Well, I'll admit
Speaker 1: that when I first came across this case on the
Speaker 1: Charlie Project website a long time ago, I thought the
Speaker 1: exact same thing. But there's been renewed interest in the
Speaker 1: case in recent years, thanks largely to the publication of
Speaker 1: a book which came out during the summer of twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: which is titled Echo of Distant Water, the nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: eight disappearance of Portland's Martin family. The author JB. Fisher
Speaker 1: wanted to do a deep dive into the Martin case
Speaker 1: and went through the original case files, where he made
Speaker 1: some interesting discoveries to suggest that there's a lot more
Speaker 1: of this story than a tragic accident, and that the
Speaker 1: family may have been victims of foul play. A pair
Speaker 1: of ex convicts just happened to be frequenting the area
Speaker 1: where the Martins were last seen, but most intriguingly, a
Speaker 1: gun would be found which was linked to the family's
Speaker 1: surviving son, Donald, who was serving the Navy and station
Speaker 1: in New York at that time. Donald apparently did not
Speaker 1: have the best relationship with his family, so there has
Speaker 1: been suspicion that he may have helped orchestrate their disappearance.
Speaker 1: A number of different theories have been formed about what
Speaker 1: ultimately happened to the Martins, and we're going to explore
Speaker 1: all of them on today's episode.
Speaker 2: This case is nuts because the kids are older children.
Speaker 2: You have a ten year old, a twelve year old,
Speaker 2: and a fourteen year old. So even the event that
Speaker 2: the station wagon drove into the water, you would think
Speaker 2: out of these five family members, someone might be able
Speaker 2: to escape the station wagon and swim to safety, or
Speaker 2: you would have at least one survivor because they're strong
Speaker 2: human beings. These are not three year olds or you know,
Speaker 2: an infant or anything. When you talk about the gun
Speaker 2: being linked to Donald, were either of the girls that
Speaker 2: were found Were either of them shot?
Speaker 1: We're going to talk more about that. They couldn't determine
Speaker 1: the exact cause of death, but there is apparently one
Speaker 1: witness who thought he saw holes in at least one
Speaker 1: of the girl's skulls, but this was never actually photographed
Speaker 1: or like documented, so we don't know if this is
Speaker 1: actually true.
Speaker 2: It's very scary to think that you do have this
Speaker 2: surviving member who maybe had a strained relationship with them.
Speaker 2: But like I said, five older victims, very very disturbing
Speaker 2: of how all five would either disappear or be deceased
Speaker 2: and not one of them was able to escape whatever
Speaker 2: situation was going on.
Speaker 3: Our story begins in Portland, Oregon, in nineteen fifty eight
Speaker 3: and our central figures are the Martin family, who reside
Speaker 3: in a suburban neighborhood on northeast fifty sixth Avenue. The
Speaker 3: patriarch of the family is fifty four year old Kenneth Martin,
Speaker 3: who's been married for many years to his forty eight
Speaker 3: year old wife, Barbara. Kenneth works as a supervisor for
Speaker 3: the repair department of the Eccles Elector Home Service Company,
Speaker 3: and the couple have four children, including three daughters, ten
Speaker 3: year old Susan, twelve year old Virginia, and fourteen year
Speaker 3: old Barbara, who goes by the nickname Barbie. In addition,
Speaker 3: the Martins also have a twenty eight year old son
Speaker 3: named Donald who's serving in the Navy and currently stationed
Speaker 3: on the other side of the country at Fort Schuyler
Speaker 3: in New York. Sometime between one thirty and two p m.
Speaker 3: On the afternoon of Sunday, December seventh, Kenneth, Barbara, and
Speaker 3: their three daughters decided to climb into the family vehicle,
Speaker 3: a cream in red nineteen fifty four Ford Country Squire
Speaker 3: station wagon, to take a road trip. They were planning
Speaker 3: to travel east to make an excursion into the Columbia
Speaker 3: River Gorge, a canyon which stretches eighty miles throughout Oregon.
Speaker 3: In Washington State, the trip would likely involve picking up
Speaker 3: a Christmas tree and collecting some other fresh greens to
Speaker 3: put together reefs and other holiday decorations. Before they left,
Speaker 3: the Martins had been invited to a friend's home for
Speaker 3: Sunday dinner, but they declined because of the trip, with
Speaker 3: Kenneth's stating quote, we'd better do as planned. But sometime
Speaker 3: over the course of the next several hours, the Martins
Speaker 3: would vanish without a trace. On Monday morning, December eighth,
Speaker 3: Kenneth failed to show up for his job at the
Speaker 3: electric company, and all three of the Martin daughters were
Speaker 3: absent from school that day without any notice from their parents.
Speaker 3: Since it was very out of character for Kenneth to
Speaker 3: miss work, he was reported missing later that evening, and
Speaker 3: the police decided to check the Martin residence. Neither the
Speaker 3: family nor their station wagon were there, and everything appeared
Speaker 3: to be undisturbed. The dishes from their Sunday morning breakfast
Speaker 3: were in the sink and the load of laundry was
Speaker 3: in the washing machine. Kenneth was known for playing Santa
Speaker 3: claus for the neighborhood children, and a Santa suit he'd
Speaker 3: worn to a Christmas party on the evening of December
Speaker 3: sixth was still laid out. An extensive search effort would
Speaker 3: be launched for the Martin family, and since a considerable
Speaker 3: amount of money had been left behind in their bank accounts,
Speaker 3: it seemed very unlikely that they took off voluntarily.
Speaker 2: What adds to the bizarreness of this is that it's
Speaker 2: almost like The Leftovers or the Left Behind series, where
Speaker 2: these this family just disappears and it's as if their
Speaker 2: home was left in this very normal, eerily normal state.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: You have the Santa suit laying out, You've got the
Speaker 2: dirty dishes in the sink, everything indicating that we're living
Speaker 2: our life. We have plans, and we're coming back to
Speaker 2: you clean up and to get things situated. The kids
Speaker 2: and Kenneth, they don't miss school and work, and so
Speaker 2: everyone immediately knows something's wrong. But it just made me
Speaker 2: so sad when you said most likely they were heading
Speaker 2: out for Christmas goodies. This is December and they were
Speaker 2: trying to get ready for the holidays, and then somehow
Speaker 2: they don't make it back to this quaint little home
Speaker 2: that's so loved and lived in. You can tell from
Speaker 2: the description and the fact that the money is still
Speaker 2: left behind in their bank accounts, like you said, very
Speaker 2: much indicates that they were most likely not planning to
Speaker 2: not return to their normal life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the vast majority of these cases where a
Speaker 1: bunch of victims disappear alongside their vehicle, I'm going to
Speaker 1: automatically assume that they crashed into a body of water
Speaker 1: because that's the most logical explanation for how so many
Speaker 1: people and their vehicle could disappear simultaneously. But I was
Speaker 1: going to talk about this case becomes a lot weirder
Speaker 1: than that.
Speaker 2: But also, like I said, when you have these five
Speaker 2: people in the station wagon, wouldn't you think it's some
Speaker 2: like there would be a higher probability that at least
Speaker 2: one of them could get out.
Speaker 1: I guess it depends, like if you wind up in
Speaker 1: a body of water that's very deep and you can't
Speaker 1: open the door, then it would make sense that like
Speaker 1: all five of them could be trapped inside the vehicle
Speaker 1: and drowned without being able to get out. Investigators attempted
Speaker 1: to retrace the Martin's movements on the afternoon, they went missing.
Speaker 1: Once their disappearance made the news, witnesses came forward who
Speaker 1: were called seeing them on a property called Martin's Acreage,
Speaker 1: which was known for selling Christmas trees. The property was
Speaker 1: located just off the old Columbia River Highway on Larch
Speaker 1: Mountain Road, over thirty miles outside of Portland. Since this
Speaker 1: was in the Columbia River Gorge area, it would have
Speaker 1: made sense for the Martins to visit that property, but
Speaker 1: when shown photographs of the family, neither the owner nor
Speaker 1: his wife could be one hundre percent certain they saw
Speaker 1: them there. The next promising lead occurred two weeks later,
Speaker 1: when a credit card bill showed up in the Martin's
Speaker 1: mailbox which showed that Kenneth had purchased five gallons of
Speaker 1: gasoline on December of the seventh. The transaction took place
Speaker 1: at Dean's Chevron service station in the town of Cascade Locks,
Speaker 1: and sure enough, Kenneth's signature was on the receipt. Cascade
Speaker 1: Locks was located in Hood River County, forty miles east
Speaker 1: of Poor Portland, and there would be another intriguing sighting
Speaker 1: which took place twenty miles east of there in the
Speaker 1: town of Hood River. Later that same afternoon, a waitress
Speaker 1: at a restaurant called the Paradise Snack Bar claimed that
Speaker 1: she served the Martin's food sometime between four thirty and
Speaker 1: five pm. She said it was around dusk when they
Speaker 1: climbed in the station wagon and appeared to be heading
Speaker 1: west as they drove away. There would also be multiple
Speaker 1: reported sightings of the Ford station wagon between five point
Speaker 1: fifteen and five thirty that same evening. All of these
Speaker 1: eye windesses said they saw it parked by the highway
Speaker 1: at a cape called Trotter's Point, located eight miles east
Speaker 1: of Cascade Locks next to the Columbia River. Some of
Speaker 1: them reported seeing a Christmas tree in the back of
Speaker 1: the station wagon, and one witness recalled seeing a second
Speaker 1: car park near it. One couple would also report seeing
Speaker 1: the station wagon parked on an access road and said
Speaker 1: that two young men appeared to be standing by the
Speaker 1: vehicle and talking to the people inside. Interestingly enough, the
Speaker 1: following day, motors started noticing in a bit and in
Speaker 1: white nineteen to fifty one Chevrolet parked by the highway
Speaker 1: at Trotter's Point in almost the exact location the station
Speaker 1: wagon have been seen. Since it did not match the
Speaker 1: description of the Martin's vehicle, the local police paid little
Speaker 1: attention to the Chevy, and it would be ten days
Speaker 1: before it was finally towed away from that spot.
Speaker 2: Now does that car, that nineteen fifty one Chevrolet, does
Speaker 2: that match the car that the one witness said they
Speaker 2: saw talking to the The car was parked next to
Speaker 2: the station wagon and two individuals were outside talking to
Speaker 2: the Martin family.
Speaker 1: Yes, it does, and we're gonna mention them in a
Speaker 1: few moments. But there were two people seen in the
Speaker 1: same snack bar where the Martin families have eaten. Who
Speaker 1: could have been the two men seen outside that car.
Speaker 2: That's really scary because you also alluded to the fact
Speaker 2: that Donald was potentially a suspect in this. That's the
Speaker 2: strange sun, right, a son that had problems with the family.
Speaker 1: He is, yeah, like he was in New York while
Speaker 1: others was going on. So if he was involved in
Speaker 1: a murder plot, it's very unlikely that he personally was
Speaker 1: responsible because I think it would have been noticed if
Speaker 1: he traveled to the other side of the country in Oregon.
Speaker 1: But there's been speculation that he could have gotten these
Speaker 1: two other men to do something to his family.
Speaker 3: It would have to be a pretty elaborate plot, given
Speaker 3: that it was nineteen fifty eight. You couldn't just go
Speaker 3: and like scour the internet or like, you know, the
Speaker 3: dark web for hitmen, or you know, how are you
Speaker 3: going to actually connect with these people unless you know
Speaker 3: them from somewhere else. It would have to be like
Speaker 3: a friend of a friend. You'd think there would be
Speaker 3: some chain that could connect Donald to the potential suspects.
Speaker 2: That's true. And if there was a tie also, how
Speaker 2: would they know where the Martin feeling was going to
Speaker 2: be and win? Because they're making these multiple stops and
Speaker 2: to find that perfect time that they're able to in
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty eight connect at the right time in the
Speaker 2: right place on a road trip like this, I just
Speaker 2: it seems very unlikely to be able to coordinate all
Speaker 2: that information back in nineteen fifty eight.
Speaker 1: And that's why there's been speculation that the whole angle
Speaker 1: with Donald might be a red herring and that if
Speaker 1: these two guys in the white car were responsible, they
Speaker 1: could have just like targeted the Martins at random as
Speaker 1: part of a robbery or something and decided to kill them.
Speaker 3: And is it possible that the gun could have been
Speaker 3: in the vehicle and the Martins were targeted, and for
Speaker 3: whatever reason, one of those two men took out the
Speaker 3: gun and potentially used it in the commission of the
Speaker 3: crime and then just disposed of it.
Speaker 1: It is possible, like this gun is like if it
Speaker 1: wasn't for the gun, no one would suspect that Donald
Speaker 1: was involved. But as we're going to talk about, it
Speaker 1: would get linked to them. But it's from an incident
Speaker 1: from years earlier, and it's never been indicated if maybe
Speaker 1: Kenneth Martin had decided to hold on to the gun
Speaker 1: and keep it inside his car for the next few years.
Speaker 3: By the time nineteen fifty nine arrived, there was still
Speaker 3: no sign of the Martins, but a volunteer searcher would
Speaker 3: make an interesting discovery in early January. While searching a
Speaker 3: rocky bluff near the town of the Dows, located over
Speaker 3: twenty miles southeast of Hood River, he noticed some tire
Speaker 3: tracks which appeared to drive off the edge of a
Speaker 3: cliff into the Columbia River. It would later turn out
Speaker 3: that the tire tread seemed to match the tires on
Speaker 3: the martins Ford station wagon paint ships were also found
Speaker 3: on a nearby rock, and when sent to the FBI
Speaker 3: for analysis, a match was made to that particular station
Speaker 3: wagon's paint. By this point, the searches were conducted for
Speaker 3: the missing vehicle in the Columbia River near Cascade Locks.
Speaker 3: The location was in close proximity to Bonneville Dam, but
Speaker 3: nothing could be found and the searches were called off
Speaker 3: when one of the divers nearly drowned. The investigation had
Speaker 3: to stand still, but there would be some shocking developments
Speaker 3: four months later. On May first, a dredging operation with
Speaker 3: a drilling barge was taking place near the dolls, which
Speaker 3: involved dropping large anchors into the river. On this particular day,
Speaker 3: one of the anchors wound up getting caught on a
Speaker 3: large object deep beneath the water. While the crew attempted
Speaker 3: to bring the object to the surface, one of the
Speaker 3: deckhands stuck his pole into the water and struck something
Speaker 3: which he believed was metal, but before they could actually
Speaker 3: see it, the anchor came loose and the object wound
Speaker 3: up plunging back down over one hundred feet. The crew
Speaker 3: members believed they hooked onto a vehicle and would later
Speaker 3: say they saw what appeared to be a bundle of
Speaker 3: clothes surfacing in the water in the distance before it
Speaker 3: floated downstream well. Only two days later, the crew of
Speaker 3: a tugboat came across the body of a young girl
Speaker 3: on the north bank of a waterway called the Columbia Slough.
Speaker 3: The location was near the town of Camas, Washington, approximately
Speaker 3: seventy miles west of the Dolls. When the body was recovered,
Speaker 3: dental records would positively identify the victim as Susan Martin.
Speaker 3: On May fourth, just one day after Susan was found,
Speaker 3: another body of a young girl would be discovered floating
Speaker 3: in the river roughly twenty five miles east, this time
Speaker 3: in the Bonneville Dame Spillway. This time, dental records would
Speaker 3: be used to identify the victim as Virginia Martin. An
Speaker 3: autopsy found traces of food, including hamburgers and fries, in
Speaker 3: both Susan and Virginia's stomachs. Since the waitress at the
Speaker 3: Paradise Snack Bar and Hood River had recalled serving the
Speaker 3: Martin family burghers and fries on the day they went missing,
Speaker 3: this seemed to clarify that her sighting was genuine. The
Speaker 3: digestion of the food indicated that the girls had eaten
Speaker 3: two hours before they died, placing their approximate time of
Speaker 3: death at around six thirty p m. On December seventh.
Speaker 3: Since both bodies were heavily decomposed, the exact cause of
Speaker 3: death was difficult to determine, though the medical examiner would
Speaker 3: officially declare it to be drowning. However, a technician who
Speaker 3: fingerprinted the victims in photographed Virginia's body would later claim
Speaker 3: that he saw holes in both of the girl's skulls,
Speaker 3: though no mention of this was made in the medical
Speaker 3: examiner's report.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting.
Speaker 2: This is nineteen fifty eight, so it's possible that you know,
Speaker 2: back then, just the way that they kept records and
Speaker 2: the way that they secured information at the time just
Speaker 2: wasn't as thorough as it needed to be. But it
Speaker 2: would be very difficult to detail cause a death. Drowning
Speaker 2: seems probable because they're in the water. But then again,
Speaker 2: if you think about this technician who says that they
Speaker 2: actually saw holes in both the girl's skulls, could be
Speaker 2: from a multitude of things. Is it a gunshot, Is
Speaker 2: it some injury that happened when it was you know,
Speaker 2: when that tug boat was pushing down on the car.
Speaker 2: Who knows. It does sound like though, while they're dredging
Speaker 2: that lake, maybe the station wagon is open in some capacity,
Speaker 2: the roof is torn off, the windshield's broken, something like that,
Speaker 2: which allows those bodies to float to the surface and
Speaker 2: then go elsewhere. Tell me how wild is it that
Speaker 2: they could still tell the food contents of their stomachs
Speaker 2: even though the bodies were badly composed. Science amazes me.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, definitely, because we can talk about how eyewitness
Speaker 1: sightings and missing persons cases could be reliable. But finding
Speaker 1: the burgers and fries in the two girls stomachs pretty
Speaker 1: much clarified that was the family that the waitress sough
Speaker 1: at the diner, so this was able to pinpoint the
Speaker 1: last time they were confirmed to be alive, and the
Speaker 1: fact that their approximate time of death took place less
Speaker 1: than two hours after they left the diner indicates that
Speaker 1: they were killed a short time later, and that makes
Speaker 1: the sighting of them next to the car with the
Speaker 1: two men all the more interesting.
Speaker 2: What's also really interesting here is that you have those
Speaker 2: tire tracks and the paint and things like that that
Speaker 2: indicate this car went off the cliff, but right before
Speaker 2: six point thirty, which is when they're estimating the time
Speaker 2: of death. You also see that other car parked right
Speaker 2: next to this station wagon. So the reality is is
Speaker 2: that if you're looking at how they went over, it's
Speaker 2: supposedly leaving from that same spot where as parked. Is
Speaker 2: that correct, like it's going to go over shortly after that?
Speaker 1: Well, what's crazy is that the spot where they see
Speaker 1: this was a considerable distance east, and the Martins had
Speaker 1: been heading west when they left the diner, So it
Speaker 1: seems like they crossed paths with these two men and
Speaker 1: that something may have happened so that the car wound
Speaker 1: up in the opposite direction and possibly crashed into the water.
Speaker 1: And this makes you think was this an accident because
Speaker 1: they had no reason to be driving that direction, or
Speaker 1: did someone intentionally rig it so that the station wagon
Speaker 1: went into the water.
Speaker 2: That's what I was thinking. If they injured the family,
Speaker 2: and let's say they shot them or they incapacitated them somehow,
Speaker 2: incapacitating five people, like we talked about earlier, ages ten
Speaker 2: to adulthood right would be very difficult. Although there were
Speaker 2: two of them, but I could see them getting the
Speaker 2: car to another location and then just pushing something on
Speaker 2: the gas pedal and having everybody go over the edge.
Speaker 2: So it's very, very possible that it was staged and
Speaker 2: or it is possible it was an accident.
Speaker 3: Was there ever any talk about Kenneth and they're potentially
Speaker 3: being like murder suicide type of a situation, or was
Speaker 3: that not even entertained?
Speaker 1: That wasn't even entertained. I mean, I guess it's possible
Speaker 1: if he kept it concealed well enough that he decided
Speaker 1: to murder his entire family in some sort of suicide.
Speaker 1: But it sounds like everyone had nothing but good things
Speaker 1: to say about him. There was no talk about dissension
Speaker 1: in the family, and he seemed like a hard working
Speaker 1: man who loved his wife and children. So if he
Speaker 1: decided to do that, then there were obviously no warning signs.
Speaker 1: It turned out to the location where the drilling barge
Speaker 1: caught the large object with the anchor just happened to
Speaker 1: be near the Rocky bluff where the tire tracks had
Speaker 1: been found months earlier. So investigators were now convinced that
Speaker 1: the Martin station wagon had gone off the cliff into
Speaker 1: the river, and when the barge attempted to raise the
Speaker 1: vehicle to the surface, they wound up dislodging one of
Speaker 1: the doors, causing Susan and Virginia's bodies to come loose
Speaker 1: and float downstream to the locations where they were eventually found.
Speaker 1: While divers would perform a search of the area where
Speaker 1: the station wagon was believed to be submerged, poor visibility
Speaker 1: made it difficult to see anything under water. While some
Speaker 1: investigators believed that the Martins had driven their vehicle into
Speaker 1: the river accidentally, others suspected that it was pushed off
Speaker 1: the cliff deliberately. This included the lead investigator on the case,
Speaker 1: Detective Walter Grave of the Multoma County Sheriff's Office, who
Speaker 1: became convinced that the family were victims of foul play.
Speaker 1: There did seem to be any logical reason for the
Speaker 1: Martins to have driven to the dolls, and it was
Speaker 1: also strange that they were seen eating in hood river.
Speaker 1: According to Kenni's friends and family, he did not like
Speaker 1: to drive in the dark, but since the Martins were
Speaker 1: seen leaving the restaurant at dusk, this would have required
Speaker 1: him to make a sixty mile drive back to Portland
Speaker 1: at night. Another odd detail is that a neighbor of
Speaker 1: the Martins were called seeing a black taxi parked outside
Speaker 1: their residence on the morning of December the eighth, the
Speaker 1: day after the family went missing, and it remained there
Speaker 1: for about an hour for unknown reasons. And remember that
Speaker 1: abandoned white shod which was seen at Trotter's Point on
Speaker 1: December the eighth. Well, it turned out that the car
Speaker 1: had originally been stolen from Venice, California by an ex
Speaker 1: convict named Lester Kenneth Price, as his friend had apparently
Speaker 1: let him borrow the Chevy, but Price never brought it back.
Speaker 1: During the time period the Martins went missing, Price would
Speaker 1: be seen in the presence of another ex convict named
Speaker 1: Roy Light. The two men had served time together at
Speaker 1: San Quentin, and Light lived in the Dallas. The owner
Speaker 1: of the Paradise Snack Bar, who was personally acquainted with
Speaker 1: the two men, claimed that he saw Light and Price
Speaker 1: together in the restaurant on December the seventh while the
Speaker 1: Martins were there, and the two men and the family
Speaker 1: all left at approximately the same time. According to a
Speaker 1: local informant named Clifford slim Bennett light and price mean
Speaker 1: a few days staying out of brothel he ran in
Speaker 1: Dallas Port, Washington before they both left the area after
Speaker 1: December the tenth.
Speaker 2: So if they left at the same time as the
Speaker 2: Martin family, is it possible that they drove behind them
Speaker 2: and maybe rear ended them or cause them to pull
Speaker 2: over to the side of the road. These don't seem
Speaker 2: like very solid men, right. They have a shady past,
Speaker 2: and they're clearly quite driven by sexual desires and things
Speaker 2: like that. They see four women and one man. Could
Speaker 2: they have tried to, let's say, assault the girls or
Speaker 2: you know, hurt the family in some way, robbed them
Speaker 2: to have money while they you know, have recently been
Speaker 2: released from prison, and then leave their car, abandon that
Speaker 2: car because it stays put, and drive that family station
Speaker 2: wagon after they've injured them to the location where they
Speaker 2: push it off and then go along with their you know,
Speaker 2: with their business.
Speaker 1: That does make sense to me. It fits all the
Speaker 1: pieces of the puzzle that I don't know if this
Speaker 1: was a premeditated murder plot or they just targeted the
Speaker 1: Martins at random, But when you consider the eyewitness sightings
Speaker 1: and how soon they came after all these people left
Speaker 1: the diner. It's possible that light and price could have
Speaker 1: compelled the Martins to pull over, and under normal circumstances,
Speaker 1: it would make no sense for them to abandon their
Speaker 1: car at that particular spot, because what were they going
Speaker 1: to use his transportation? But if they hijacked the Martin
Speaker 1: station wagon and had them drive in the opposite direction,
Speaker 1: then it seems logical that they could have used that
Speaker 1: opportunity to drive it off the cliff into the water.
Speaker 3: Well. It also turned out that on January eighteenth, a
Speaker 3: man found a thirty eight cool Commander handgun underneath the
Speaker 3: rock just outside Cascade Locks, not far from the location
Speaker 3: where the white Chevrolet had been abandoned. The gun had
Speaker 3: dried blood on the handle, its butt had been damaged,
Speaker 3: and a single fired shell casing was in the chamber.
Speaker 3: Even though the man turned in the gun to the
Speaker 3: Hood River County Sheriff's office, for whatever reason, it was
Speaker 3: not process's evidence, and the sheriff just gave him the
Speaker 3: gun back. Well. Interestingly enough, one of the crew members
Speaker 3: from the drilling barge would tell Detective Graven that roy
Speaker 3: L had once attempted to sell him a beat up
Speaker 3: thirty eight Quolt Commander handgun. Even though the gun had
Speaker 3: not been kept as evidence, its serial number was still
Speaker 3: recorded and this information would help take the case in
Speaker 3: a surprising direction. Graven wound up tracking the gun to
Speaker 3: a Meyer and Frank department store, and it turned out
Speaker 3: it had been stolen in September of nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 3: But the shocking revelation was that the alleged culprit was
Speaker 3: the Martin's surviving son, Donald, who had been employed in
Speaker 3: the store's boarding goods department at that time, who was
Speaker 3: fired after he was accused of stealing over two thousand
Speaker 3: dollars worth of items, including that very handgun. Since Kenneth
Speaker 3: Martin reimbursed the store for the stolen merchandise, no charges
Speaker 3: were ever filed, but the gun was one of the
Speaker 3: items which was never recovered. Donald would soon be sent
Speaker 3: to a religious college in Connecticut before he enlisted in
Speaker 3: the Navy, in an apparent attempt to set him straight.
Speaker 3: Even before he was linked to the gun, there was
Speaker 3: already suspicions about Donald, who seemed to have a strained
Speaker 3: relationship with his family. During the initial search efforts for them,
Speaker 3: he did not even bother to travel back to Oregon,
Speaker 3: and only allowed himself to be interviewed by Detective Graven
Speaker 3: over the phone. Donald's first trip out west did not
Speaker 3: take place until March of nineteen fifty nine, and that
Speaker 3: was in order to help settle his family's estate, as
Speaker 3: he was the sole beneficiary. When the bodies of Susan
Speaker 3: and Virginia were discovered two months later, Donald did not
Speaker 3: attend a memorial service and later claimed that he'd gotten
Speaker 3: the dates mixed up. Susan and Virginia would both be cremated,
Speaker 3: and their remains were not claimed for over ten years,
Speaker 3: though it's unclear who actually claimed them. Donald's first face
Speaker 3: to face interview with Graven finally took place in June,
Speaker 3: and while he expressed his belief that his family's deaths
Speaker 3: were not an accident, he could not think of anyone
Speaker 3: who would have had the motive to harm them. Donald
Speaker 3: claimed that the theft of the department store took place
Speaker 3: because he was experienced seen great personal strain at the time,
Speaker 3: as his parents had recently found out about a relationship
Speaker 3: he was having with another man and did not approve.
Speaker 3: When asked about the missing handgun, Donald denied, ever having
Speaker 3: it and said that a friend of his name Wayne,
Speaker 3: took it. At the time, Wayne was also employed at
Speaker 3: Meyer and Frank and he and Donald were sharing a
Speaker 3: basement apartment together. By nineteen fifty nine, Wayne was married
Speaker 3: and working as a physical education teacher at Cascade Locks
Speaker 3: High School.
Speaker 2: There's so much to unpack in that. So you have Donald,
Speaker 2: who his entire family is missing, gone, deceased, and there
Speaker 2: doesn't seem to be much urgent concern on his part,
Speaker 2: which is disconcerting. But also when you think about nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty eight, if he had come out or been discovered
Speaker 2: that he was gay, and his family had expressed they
Speaker 2: do not approve of his lifestyle. They're sending him to
Speaker 2: that Christian college, they're trying to get him into the military,
Speaker 2: like all of these very hyper masculine or conservative things.
Speaker 2: I could see where that really did divide him away
Speaker 2: from his family at the point that no one's survived, though,
Speaker 2: I almost feel like you could overlook that and step
Speaker 2: forward and say, hey, I still want to know what
Speaker 2: happened to him, Right, I don't have to deal with
Speaker 2: my mom and dad, I don't have to deal with
Speaker 2: my sisters. Everyone's gone, So let me try to help
Speaker 2: figure out what happened. But on the other hand, like
Speaker 2: I said in nineteen fifty eight nineteen fifty nine, if
Speaker 2: he's looking back at all the things his family tried
Speaker 2: to quote help him with after discovering he was in
Speaker 2: a relationship with a man, I could see that being
Speaker 2: incredibly difficult. I could see it being something that created
Speaker 2: a lot of chaos and frustration and a disconnect between
Speaker 2: his parents, especially, and the girls were so little at
Speaker 2: the time. He's a grown man, he's been through college,
Speaker 2: he's been in the military. It's possible he just didn't
Speaker 2: have a close relationship with the younger children and might
Speaker 2: have felt like he was in a kind of a
Speaker 2: different stage of his parents' life. And then they have
Speaker 2: the girls, which is kind of their second phase at life.
Speaker 2: But is it possible he was having a relationship with Wayne,
Speaker 2: and then because the parents despised Wayne so much or
Speaker 2: didn't approve of that relationship, that Wayne had a motive
Speaker 2: And yes, a year later he's married and working in
Speaker 2: all these other things. But if they were sharing the
Speaker 2: basement together and they were working together, is it possible
Speaker 2: that was a young man that he had had a
Speaker 2: relationship with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's never been officially confirmed. There has been a
Speaker 1: lot of suspicion that Donald and Wayne were in a
Speaker 1: relationship at some point, And like I mentioned, Wayne was
Speaker 1: working as a physical education teacher at Cascade Locks High School,
Speaker 1: So unlike Donald, who was on the other end of
Speaker 1: the country, Wayne was also in the area. So if
Speaker 1: he had a motive to harm the rest of the family,
Speaker 1: he could have been the one who had that gun,
Speaker 1: which was also stolen from the same place where Donald
Speaker 1: and Wayne had been working together. And I know Jules
Speaker 1: brought up the the idea potentially that maybe Kenneth still
Speaker 1: had the gun and was keeping it in the car,
Speaker 1: and that maybe these two guys could have taken it
Speaker 1: and used it on the family. But now I'm reminded
Speaker 1: that Kenneth, when Donald was accused of stealing, he reimbursed
Speaker 1: the store for all the stuff he stole, and one
Speaker 1: of the items wasn't recovered was the gun. And I
Speaker 1: think Kenneth, being the honest man, he did that if
Speaker 1: he ever found the stolen gun, he would have given
Speaker 1: it back to the department store and wouldn't have still
Speaker 1: had it in his car years after the fact.
Speaker 2: And you also have to look at the condition of
Speaker 2: the gun when it was found, the blood that was
Speaker 2: on it, that the butt of the gun was damaged,
Speaker 2: and the way that it was loaded. It really does
Speaker 2: seem as if it was used in the commission of
Speaker 2: a violent crime. And so it does line up with
Speaker 2: all of these factors that were happening at the time.
Speaker 2: So it's highly concerning if Donald's claiming Wayne had it
Speaker 2: wayn could have had a motive to get rid of
Speaker 2: Donald's family even without Donald's knowledge, just saying look at
Speaker 2: everything they put my friend through or my lover through,
Speaker 2: look at what they did to him, and having that
Speaker 2: kind of disdain and frustration for the family who just
Speaker 2: simply couldn't accept Donald for who he was. I could
Speaker 2: see a lot of anger and kind of fear associated
Speaker 2: with that, because back in nineteen fifty eight, having someone
Speaker 2: uncovered that you were gay was a far scarier scenario,
Speaker 2: especially if Wayne had a heterosexual relationship also happening at
Speaker 2: the time that later resulted in marriage. There could be
Speaker 2: that whole complicated dynamic going on and resentment towards Donald's
Speaker 2: family or fear of Donald's family's information.
Speaker 3: And let me say quickly, I think it's a little
Speaker 3: bit strange that Donald doesn't claim his sister's ashes and
Speaker 3: doesn't attend the funerals. I understand his fractured relationship with
Speaker 3: his parents and that he totally was at a different
Speaker 3: stage of life than his younger sisters, but that's his
Speaker 3: blood and they were too young and too innocent to
Speaker 3: have been involved in that dis approval process that I'm
Speaker 3: sure his parents went through of being like, you need
Speaker 3: to go to this religious place and we're going to
Speaker 3: re educate you type of a thing. And it sounds
Speaker 3: like the troubled teen industry of nowadays, you know, like
Speaker 3: the types of places that like Paris Hilton talks about,
Speaker 3: like on the podcast that she does. I don't know
Speaker 3: if she does it or if somebody else does it
Speaker 3: and she produces it, but anyway, she's constantly trying to
Speaker 3: take hits at the troubled teen industry because of her experience,
Speaker 3: and it sounds like Donald experienced something similar. But as
Speaker 3: far as Wayne goes, are they still in contact because
Speaker 3: if Wayne is the responsible party, what type of murder
Speaker 3: would this have been? He would have had to stalk
Speaker 3: the family for a long period of time. Would there
Speaker 3: not have been a more convenient way to have done this,
Speaker 3: And did he do this with the cooperation of Donald
Speaker 3: or did he do this on his own, Because I
Speaker 3: could see if there would be a financial motive if
Speaker 3: him and Donald were still in communication, and he said maybe,
Speaker 3: he said something like, might they know your secret? And
Speaker 3: maybe if they're not here anymore, then nobody else will
Speaker 3: know except for me, And I'm not going to tell
Speaker 3: anybody because he might not want anybody to find out
Speaker 3: because he's married and has a job, and it's nineteen
Speaker 3: fifty eight and certain things that nowadays are very acceptable
Speaker 3: would have been seen as shameful back then, unfortunately, And
Speaker 3: there was maybe a financial motive because the estate was
Speaker 3: settled and Donald was the sole beneficiary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, about your At first point, it does sound like
Speaker 1: Donald had a strained relationship with his parents, But as
Speaker 1: far as I can tell, he didn't have any issues
Speaker 1: with his sisters, like he didn't have any resentment towards them,
Speaker 1: So it seems like kind of overkill for him to
Speaker 1: have his sisters murdered as well. If he had issues
Speaker 1: with his parents, it's not like they had a very
Speaker 1: substantial estate. It's not that Donald was suddenly going to
Speaker 1: get wealthy if he wiped out his entire family. So
Speaker 1: that's another sticking point against the theory that he did it.
Speaker 1: And in regards to Wayne, Well probably won't get into
Speaker 1: this toll part two, but I know that there's been
Speaker 1: speculation that he might have had an altogether different motive
Speaker 1: for harming the family, and that Kenneth may have had
Speaker 1: an ulterior reason for traveling to Cascade Locks more than
Speaker 1: just to get a Christmas tree, and that it might
Speaker 1: have involved Wayne. Now, while getting back to Wayne, this
Speaker 1: character is a bit of an enigma. While researching the
Speaker 1: original case files for his book Echo of Distant Water, JB.
Speaker 1: Fisher found no indication that Graven ever interviewed Wayne, though
Speaker 1: he did mention his name several times in his notes.
Speaker 1: At one point, Graven wrote quote Wayne friend of Donald Martin,
Speaker 1: followed by the phrase quote put a grease on a
Speaker 1: spot you don't want chickens to roost. Well. When KOI
Speaker 1: NTV in Portland did a fiftieth anniversary news story about
Speaker 1: the Martins disappearance in two thousand and eight, Wayne decided
Speaker 1: to come forward and do an interview with them. He
Speaker 1: claimed he had been questioned by Graven and discussed the
Speaker 1: possibility of Donald being involved in the murders of his family.
Speaker 1: Wayne stated that because of Donald's underground quote unquote lifestyle,
Speaker 1: he could have potentially found some professional killers to hire
Speaker 1: for the job. When asked what he meant by lifestyle,
Speaker 1: Wayne replied, quote the gay lifestyle. According to Wade, Donald's
Speaker 1: parents had once caught him in the act with another
Speaker 1: gay man inside their home, and Wade acknowledged that even
Speaker 1: though he went on to get married and start a family,
Speaker 1: Donald had once introduced him to the quote unquote gay lifestyle. Indeed,
Speaker 1: when Donald was caught stealing the items from Meyer and Frank,
Speaker 1: he actually told the managers that he was having a
Speaker 1: difficult time at home because his parents had recently learned
Speaker 1: that he was gay and did not approve of it.
Speaker 1: During his research, JB. Fisher also uncovered an old note
Speaker 1: in which Graven wrote quote had to be planned by
Speaker 1: before a name that was scratched out, followed by the
Speaker 1: words quote no one else with motive. Computer photo enhancement
Speaker 1: would later show that the name which had been scratched
Speaker 1: out was Donald, But in spite of Graven's suspicions about Donald,
Speaker 1: the investigation would hit a standstill, as Graven was apparently
Speaker 1: told to leave the case alone and wrote in his
Speaker 1: notebook quote, even though I can get no cooperation from anyone,
Speaker 1: there is no murder that can't be solved. Graven passed
Speaker 1: away in nineteen eighty eight. As for Donald, he would
Speaker 1: eventually get married and start a family of his own
Speaker 1: before moving to Hawaii, where he died in two thousand
Speaker 1: and four at the age of seventy three. According to
Speaker 1: Donald's children and grandchildren, he never spoke about his family,
Speaker 1: and they did not even learn he had lost his
Speaker 1: parents and three sisters until shortly before he passed away.
Speaker 1: After six decades, Kenneth, Barbara, and Barbie Martin are officially
Speaker 1: still missing persons, and the exact circumstances of what actually
Speaker 1: happened to the Martin family remain a mystery. So I
Speaker 1: guess you could say the path when Chile.
Speaker 2: That's very bizarre. I mean, his actions right after their
Speaker 2: disappearance show kind of this lack of impact on Donald,
Speaker 2: right that he I had the wrong dates, I didn't
Speaker 2: pick up their ashes, you know, he didn't come down
Speaker 2: to help with the search anything like that.
Speaker 1: But then you look at the.
Speaker 2: Fact that right before his death at age seventy three
Speaker 2: is when those closest to him are actually learning he
Speaker 2: even lost his parents and sisters at some point. To me,
Speaker 2: whether you're close or not, that's a defining moment in
Speaker 2: your life. That's when you became an orphan. In effect,
Speaker 2: you lost everybody who was related to you, strained or not.
Speaker 2: And so I would think at some point, even a
Speaker 2: discussion from Donald's wife or something talking to the grandkids
Speaker 2: and talking to the children like you'll go, gentle on dad,
Speaker 2: he you know, has been through a lot in his life,
Speaker 2: or you know, lost everything at once and never got
Speaker 2: to reconcile with anybody. I mean, there was no conversation
Speaker 2: about this incredibly massive life changing event for Donald. It
Speaker 2: didn't seem to change much for him. But you would
Speaker 2: think it would be a conversation that would have come
Speaker 2: up in the seventy three years that he was alive.
Speaker 2: It would be something when another family member passed away
Speaker 2: he could say, I've been through this. You know, our
Speaker 2: hearts are going to heal and they'll never come back,
Speaker 2: but we're going to get through this. No reference to them.
Speaker 2: That's very, very bizarre.
Speaker 3: It's strange. I mean, I think he could just be
Speaker 3: somebody that really compartmentalizes, and as time went on, he
Speaker 3: never talked about it, and so the more time that
Speaker 3: goes by, the stranger it would seem to bring something
Speaker 3: so impactful like that up like it was nothing, and
Speaker 3: he might have been worried about the judgment from those
Speaker 3: around him. There's also a myriad of other reasons that
Speaker 3: he might just not feel emotions in the same type
Speaker 3: of a way that you know, a typical person would.
Speaker 3: If he had a personality disorder, for example, he might
Speaker 3: not process motions in the same type of way, or
Speaker 3: any number of other things. It's just it's hard not
Speaker 3: to look at that and go, is this out of guilt?
Speaker 3: Is this out of you trying to distance yourself from
Speaker 3: what happened because you're partially responsible. I mean, there's just
Speaker 3: so many questions.
Speaker 1: It's true, like it could be that he genuinely did
Speaker 1: not care about his family even though he had no
Speaker 1: involvement in what happened to him, But it just seems
Speaker 1: really strange that he would not talk about that at
Speaker 1: all because he passed away I think it was forty
Speaker 1: six years after they originally went missing, and just somehow
Speaker 1: did not talk about them at all to his family. So,
Speaker 1: like we mentioned in the intro, when I first learned
Speaker 1: about this case years ago, I didn't think it was
Speaker 1: anything more than a tragic accident. But I'd say that
Speaker 1: echo of distant Water has caused me to look at
Speaker 1: these disappearances in an entirely different light. It's interesting to
Speaker 1: read JB. Fisher's account about how when he first learned
Speaker 1: about the story, he couldn't find very much online about it,
Speaker 1: aside from the profile pages of the three missing Martin
Speaker 1: family members at the Charlie Project. While the profile pages
Speaker 1: have since been updated with new details, the original write
Speaker 1: ups were pretty basic because of the lack of available information,
Speaker 1: and it just sounded like a standard case of a
Speaker 1: vehicle driving into a river and the missing victims never
Speaker 1: being found. Whenever someone in their vehicle who goes missing
Speaker 1: at the same time, I usually suspect that they drove
Speaker 1: into a body of water. But in this particular case,
Speaker 1: I think there's a pretty good chance the real explanation
Speaker 1: is not so simple, and that something a lot more
Speaker 1: sinister happened. When you search from newspapers dot Com, you'll
Speaker 1: see that the Martin family disappearance got quite a bit
Speaker 1: of coverage at the time it originally happened, but it
Speaker 1: seemed to fade from the spotlight shortly after the bodies
Speaker 1: of Susan and Virginia were discovered, and it was mostly
Speaker 1: forgotten about for the next several decades, though there has
Speaker 1: been a recent resurgence of interest in the case. JB.
Speaker 1: Fisher based his research on the original case files and
Speaker 1: notes from Detective Walter Graven, and it seems apparent that
Speaker 1: Graven faced considerable rest assistance from other members of law enforcement.
Speaker 1: At first, I cannot figure out why they would be
Speaker 1: so abverse to investigating the disappearance of an entire family,
Speaker 1: but again the impression that some of the investigators on
Speaker 1: this case developed tunnel vision and were convinced that the
Speaker 1: Martin's deaths were accidental. There were also jurisdictional issues, since
Speaker 1: Graven was a detective from Moltnova County and the Martins
Speaker 1: technically went missing in Hood River County, but there has
Speaker 1: been speculation that some of the resistance may have been
Speaker 1: due to connections to Clifford Slim Bennett. As you might recall,
Speaker 1: Bennett became involved in the investigation when he told police
Speaker 1: that the two ex cons Lester Kenneth Price, and Roy
Speaker 1: Lte stayed with him at a brothel he ran in Dollsport, Washington,
Speaker 1: during the time period the Martins went missing, while the
Speaker 1: brothel just happened to be located almost directly across the
Speaker 1: river from the cliff where the tire tracks have been found.
Speaker 1: During the preceding years, Bennett had been involved in his
Speaker 1: fair share of criminal activities, including running a legal bootlegging
Speaker 1: joint in Portland, and the allegations that he had brought
Speaker 1: high ranking law enforcement officials to continue his operations unimpeded.
Speaker 1: Raven would tell his family he believed that members of
Speaker 1: the Moltnomah County Sheriff's Office and the Oregon State Police
Speaker 1: have money tied up in Bennett's prothel. I have my
Speaker 1: doubts that Bennett was directly involved in the Martin family's disappearance,
Speaker 1: but I think there was paranoia that conducting a missing
Speaker 1: person's investigation in the dollars might cause some other unrelated
Speaker 1: criminal activities to surface, which is why certain people did
Speaker 1: not want Graven sticking his nose into their business.
Speaker 2: I think that's definitely an angle that is of interest
Speaker 2: today when you look back at nineteen fifty eight police
Speaker 2: scene and the way that you could monitor police activity.
Speaker 2: You could get away with a lot of things back then,
Speaker 2: because again, you didn't have people with cell phones recording you.
Speaker 2: You didn't have social media or electronic monitoring. You didn't
Speaker 2: have cell phones. It could be traced right, there were
Speaker 2: no body cameras. Police had the ability to supplement their
Speaker 2: income with things like getting involved in criminal activities, drug rings,
Speaker 2: prostitution rings, benefiting from allowing these types of operations to
Speaker 2: go on, either financially or through access to drugs or
Speaker 2: sex or whatever they wanted political influence. So I don't
Speaker 2: think it's completely out of the question to say, did
Speaker 2: the police say, oh my gosh, this guy's name came up,
Speaker 2: we need to shut this down, and it's a simple
Speaker 2: case of an accident, like truly believing in their gut
Speaker 2: this was an accident. It needs to be closed. We
Speaker 2: don't need an open murder investigation going on, and we
Speaker 2: sure don't need people poking around into these individuals backgrounds
Speaker 2: that are tied to the case. So I think it's
Speaker 2: possible they had tunnel vision that it was an accident
Speaker 2: and that they were saying, listen, there's no need for
Speaker 2: people to keep poking their business in it. It's an accident,
Speaker 2: and if people are continuing to poke their no into
Speaker 2: this business, we're going to get uncovered. They we're doing
Speaker 2: something unlawful, and that's really the only way anyone would
Speaker 2: be able to find out that something illegal was going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that definitely sounds like a plausible scenario because it
Speaker 1: sounds like Detective Grayvin was an honest cop who had
Speaker 1: no involvement in these legal activities and all he wanted
Speaker 1: to do was solve the case. But he kept facing
Speaker 1: this inexplicable resistance, which usually will happen if like police
Speaker 1: are trying to orchestrate a cover up. But I see
Speaker 1: nothing to indicate that anyone in law enforcement was responsible
Speaker 1: for what happened in the Martins. But I do think
Speaker 1: they were just worried that if we don't write this
Speaker 1: off as an accident and we launch a homicide investigation,
Speaker 1: this is going to lead to possibly outside law enforcement
Speaker 1: agencies being brought in and they might uncover some of
Speaker 1: the shady stuff that we've been doing on the side.
Speaker 1: So I think this would be a good time to
Speaker 1: bring an end to Part one. But join us next
Speaker 1: week as we present part two of our series about
Speaker 1: the disappearance of the Martin family, Robin, do you.
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