Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two
Speaker 1: of our series about the disappearance of the Martin family. Robin,
Speaker 1: do you want to catch everyone up on what we
Speaker 1: talked about in our previous episode.
Speaker 2: Well, this case takes place in Oregon in December of
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty eight, involving a family called the Martins who
Speaker 2: live in Portland. The father, Kenneth, is fifty four years old.
Speaker 2: He has a forty eight year old wife named Barbara,
Speaker 2: and they have three daughters, fourteen year old Barbie, twelve
Speaker 2: year old Virginia, and a ten year old Susan. And
Speaker 2: they also have a twenty eight year old Sunday Donald,
Speaker 2: who was living across the country in New York because
Speaker 2: he's serving in the Navy. Well, one day they left
Speaker 2: on a road trip in their station wagon to try,
Speaker 2: presumably to get a Christmas tree. They were last seen
Speaker 2: eating at a diner about sixty miles away from their
Speaker 2: home and were seen leaving, but they'd never returned home
Speaker 2: and a missing person's investigation would be launched, and it
Speaker 2: would not be until several months later when a barge
Speaker 2: caught rappling hook on an object at the bottom of
Speaker 2: the river and in the Columbia River, and it was
Speaker 2: only a few days later when the bodies of Virginia
Speaker 2: and Susan were found floating, so it seemed likely that
Speaker 2: this barge had gotten caught on the downstation wagon and
Speaker 2: managed to jar the bodies of Virginia and Susan loose,
Speaker 2: but the station wagon itself and the three other missing
Speaker 2: victims have still never been found. They were unable to
Speaker 2: determine the exact cause of death for the two girls,
Speaker 2: but it was presumed to be drowning, but there would
Speaker 2: be a lot of strange stuff to suggest that foul
Speaker 2: play may have taken place. They found a bloody gun
Speaker 2: near the location where the Martin station wagon had last
Speaker 2: been seen parked. There was also an abandoned car near
Speaker 2: there that had been stolen from California and was presumably
Speaker 2: driven by two ex convicts named Lester Kenneth Price and
Speaker 2: Roy Light, so it seemed like it was possible that
Speaker 2: these two men may have crossed passed with the Martins
Speaker 2: after they left the diner, and then decided to murder
Speaker 2: them and run their station wagon with their bodies inside,
Speaker 2: off the road down a cliff into the river. And
Speaker 2: there was also speculation about Donald, the surviving son, because
Speaker 2: he did not seem to care all that much about
Speaker 2: his family's disappearances. He was reportedly estranged from them because
Speaker 2: there were allegations that he had been caught with another
Speaker 2: man and they did not accept him being gay. And
Speaker 2: the gun that was found with the blood on it
Speaker 2: had actually been stolen from a department store where Donald
Speaker 2: worked years ago, and he was accused of stealing it,
Speaker 2: but the gun was never recovered. So this just seemed
Speaker 2: like too much of a coincidence and has led to
Speaker 2: speculation that perhaps Donald got these two men to murder
Speaker 2: his family so he could inherit their estate. And there
Speaker 2: was another mysterious figure named Wayne who just happened to
Speaker 2: live in the Cascade Locks area near where the Martins
Speaker 2: went missing, who had allegedly he was a good friend
Speaker 2: to Donald and they had allegedly been involved in a relationship,
Speaker 2: so there's also been speculation that Wayne might have been involved.
Speaker 2: Donald has since passed away, but apparently never mentioned his
Speaker 2: family at all to his wife and children until the
Speaker 2: last moments of his life. So even though this was
Speaker 2: initially assumed to be a tragic accident, there are some
Speaker 2: law enforcement figures who believed that foul play took place
Speaker 2: and that the Martin family was murdered.
Speaker 1: Now, the one fact about this case, which I think
Speaker 1: is probably indisputable, is that the Martins missing Ford station
Speaker 1: wagon is submerged in the Columbia River somewhere, and the
Speaker 1: bodies of Kenneth, Barbara, and Barbie are still inside. The
Speaker 1: theory that the drilling barge dislodged one of the vehicle's
Speaker 1: doors and caused the bodies of Susan and Virginia to
Speaker 1: come loose and sloped downstream makes complete sense, and I
Speaker 1: have little doubt that's what happened, especially when you consider
Speaker 1: that this took place a short distance away from the
Speaker 1: cliff where the tire tracks were found. Since that pinpoints
Speaker 1: an approximate location where the car might be underwater, you
Speaker 1: might be wondering why no one else has ever been found.
Speaker 1: But it's not as easy as it looks. The searches
Speaker 1: have been conducted, but the visibility is poor, the water
Speaker 1: is over one hundred feet deep, and even a two
Speaker 1: ton anchor was unable to bring the vehicle to the
Speaker 1: surface without coming loose. But of course, the big catch
Speaker 1: twenty two here is that many people believe the investigation
Speaker 1: cannot go anywhere until a vehicle is found and there's
Speaker 1: more conclusive evidence of what happened. While the bodies of
Speaker 1: Susan and Virginia were recovered, they were heavily decomposed and
Speaker 1: the medical examiner did not see any noticeable signs of
Speaker 1: foul play. But we have one witness who is certain
Speaker 1: that he saw holes which could have been gunshot wounds
Speaker 1: in their skulls. Unfortunately, all that remains from the autopsy
Speaker 1: after all these years is one photograph of Virginia's body,
Speaker 1: but it's nowhere near clear enough to tell that she
Speaker 1: has a hole in her head. Since the girl's bodies
Speaker 1: were subsequently cremated, the only way to conclusively prove foul
Speaker 1: play took place might be to recover the bodies of
Speaker 1: the other missing family members.
Speaker 3: It's also interesting because you have to remember the barge
Speaker 3: that was looking around had dropped that anchor when it
Speaker 3: thought that it caught on the car, which could have
Speaker 3: easily allowed the bodies to escape the vehicle at that point.
Speaker 3: Is it possible that the anchor itself could have caused
Speaker 3: damage to the skulls of the girls, like when it
Speaker 3: hit the top of the car, or you know, broke
Speaker 3: through one of the windows or something like that, that
Speaker 3: if there was injury to the body, that it could
Speaker 3: have been caused by the anchor. And when you think
Speaker 3: about recovering the other bodies, you do have to remember
Speaker 3: there was a gun linked to Donald through Wayne that
Speaker 3: we can talk about later. But if that's true, and
Speaker 3: there's a bloody gun that has damage to the butt
Speaker 3: of the gun and is loaded, that it's very possible
Speaker 3: to subdue five people. There was a gun used or
Speaker 3: another kind of weapon, but the immediacy and quickness of
Speaker 3: a gun to threaten and then kill a family seems
Speaker 3: like the plausible explanation if there was foul play.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is possible. I guess that the anchor
Speaker 2: could have caused these so called holes in the girl's skulls.
Speaker 2: But it just seems weird that the medical examiner himself
Speaker 2: would not notice them, but this other witness did. And
Speaker 2: I don't know how thoroughly they looked into their skulls
Speaker 2: to see if there were any bullets inside. You would
Speaker 2: like to think that they would do that. But maybe
Speaker 2: if they just wrote off Dess as an accident, maybe
Speaker 2: they just did not bother. But you're right, like, if
Speaker 2: they were able to recover the other's free missing bodies
Speaker 2: and discovered that yes, they had bullet holes, and they
Speaker 2: have bullets in their bodies, then that would conclusively prove
Speaker 2: that foul play took place.
Speaker 1: I just have a hard time believing that the anchor
Speaker 1: could have caused the damage that could have been miss
Speaker 1: drewed as potentially being bullet holes, because anchors are so
Speaker 1: big and so heavy that if it made contact with
Speaker 1: the human skull, not to be macab but it would
Speaker 1: have the force and the weight to smash a skull apart.
Speaker 1: I don't think it would leave a tiny little thing
Speaker 1: like a ding that could be this mistaken for a
Speaker 1: tiny caliber bullet wound.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there probably would have been more damage
Speaker 2: to their skulls, and as far as I can tell,
Speaker 2: no noticeable damage was found either of the girl's skulls.
Speaker 2: There was one part of the original investigation which was
Speaker 2: bungled in a completely jaw dropping way, and that's the
Speaker 2: handling of the bloodstained thirty eight cold command or handgun.
Speaker 2: As you recall, the weapon was found near the location
Speaker 2: where the stolen Chevrolet was abandoned. And it could be
Speaker 2: linked to Lester Kenneth Price. When the person who found
Speaker 2: the gun attempted to turn it into the local sheriff's office,
Speaker 2: it seems like instead of processing it for evidence, they
Speaker 2: just said, well, finders keepers and let them take it home.
Speaker 2: And that's not an exaggeration. In nineteen eighty six, the
Speaker 2: widow of the man who found the gun actually did
Speaker 2: an interview for a news segment about the case and
Speaker 2: held the handgup up on camera to show that she
Speaker 2: still had it after all these years. Obviously, the dry
Speaker 2: blood had since been cleaned off and the butt of
Speaker 2: the gun was repaired, but she did confirm that it
Speaker 2: was damaged at the time it was originally found, as
Speaker 2: if it had been used to bludgeon someone. Well, obviously,
Speaker 2: after all this, there's no way that weapon will ever
Speaker 2: be admissible as evidence against anyone. But it just blows
Speaker 2: my mind that was not processed for fingerprints, even if
Speaker 2: it had no connection to the Martin case. The presence
Speaker 2: of dried blood should have been a pretty good indication
Speaker 2: that the gun was used for some sort of crime. However,
Speaker 2: at the very least, I'm glad that the serial number
Speaker 2: was recorded because this allowed Detective Graven to discover that
Speaker 2: the gun was allegedly stolen by Donald Martin from a
Speaker 2: department store he was working at three years earlier. If
Speaker 2: Donald was not involved in his family's disappearance, then that's
Speaker 2: a pretty astonishing coincidence. And as far as I'm concerned,
Speaker 2: this is the strongest indicator that the Martins, just that
Speaker 2: the Martins did not just simply die in an accident.
Speaker 3: It is incredibly bizarre that you would have a weapon
Speaker 3: retrieved and you would see dried blood, you would see
Speaker 3: damage to the weapon, and you would see you know
Speaker 3: that it had been discharged, and you would just say,
Speaker 3: you know what, keep that, you found it, you keep it.
Speaker 3: We already wrote down the serial number and that's it.
Speaker 3: Now again it's nineteen fifty eight. But even then, why
Speaker 3: else would a weapon be damaged and have blood on it.
Speaker 3: You either shot an animal, or you shot a human
Speaker 3: being and there needs to be an investigation, or you
Speaker 3: beat a human being with it. So it is very bizarre,
Speaker 3: and especially just to give it back to this poor
Speaker 3: man and the wife's like, look, we still have it.
Speaker 3: We restored it, but we're pretty sure it was using
Speaker 3: the commission of a crime very bizarre. And then when
Speaker 3: you talk about it being tied to Donald, remember in
Speaker 3: episode one you told me it also is tied to
Speaker 3: his friend Wayne, who was part of that underground gay
Speaker 3: lifestyle with Donald and was the one that Donald said
Speaker 3: could have been in possession of it at the time.
Speaker 3: And Wayne actually lived much closer to the scene and
Speaker 3: was present in the area at the time. So it
Speaker 3: ropes not just Donald but a former potential lover of
Speaker 3: his or friend of his that he used to live
Speaker 3: with Wayne to the murder of his family, which is
Speaker 3: really really powerful, I think.
Speaker 1: So light in Price, is it possible that they could
Speaker 1: have had a connection to Wayne because didn't they live
Speaker 1: or one of them was from the area, So is
Speaker 1: there a potential that they could have been linked up
Speaker 1: and that maybe Wayne conspired with them at the behest
Speaker 1: of Donald.
Speaker 2: It is possible because, like you said, I think it
Speaker 2: was light who was originally from the area, and Wayne
Speaker 2: lived in Cascade Locks, which was very close to where
Speaker 2: the Martins went missing. So it's a lot more plausible
Speaker 2: to think that Wayne conspired these guys rather than Donald,
Speaker 2: because Donald was living all the way in New York
Speaker 2: and we never found any evidence that Donald was acquainted
Speaker 2: with Price or Light, but we do know that he
Speaker 2: was acquainted with Wayne and that Wayne lived in the
Speaker 2: same area as at least one of these guys. So
Speaker 2: you can see how like a conspiracy like this could
Speaker 2: have taken place.
Speaker 1: But let's start at the very beginning. The story is
Speaker 1: that the Martins left on their road trip in order
Speaker 1: to travel to Columbia River Gorge to get a Christmas
Speaker 1: tree and some greens for decoration, which makes sense since
Speaker 1: this was something that they did around the holidays pretty
Speaker 1: much every year. However, the thing that raised some eyebrows
Speaker 1: is when they turned down the invitation for Sunday dinner
Speaker 1: with friends, as they get the impression that they got
Speaker 1: together for this on an almost weekly basis. Kenneth apparently
Speaker 1: responded with the words quote we had better do as planned,
Speaker 1: which can be interpreted in any number of ways. This
Speaker 1: becomes even more unusual when you consider that the Martins
Speaker 1: were seen by a waitress at the Paradise Snack Bar
Speaker 1: in Hood River later that day. I know there was
Speaker 1: initially some skepticism about the waitress's siding, as some believed
Speaker 1: she could have served an entirely different family and mistaken
Speaker 1: them for the Martins, but the fact that the burghers
Speaker 1: and brides were found among Susan and Virginia's stomach contents
Speaker 1: after their bodies were recovered seems to corroborate her story.
Speaker 1: Even if they did not visit the Paradise snack bar,
Speaker 1: those girls ate somewhere only about two hours before their deaths.
Speaker 1: So perhaps the Martins turned down Sunday dinner because they
Speaker 1: wanted to take the girls out for burgers and brides
Speaker 1: that night, but why would they travel sixty miles to
Speaker 1: do so. Earlier that afternoon, the Martins were allegedly seen
Speaker 1: purchasing a Christmas tree at a property on Larch Mountain Road,
Speaker 1: though the owner could not be one hundred percent certain
Speaker 1: that they were there. But remember, some of the witnesses
Speaker 1: who reported seeing the Martin station wagon at Trotter's Point
Speaker 1: thought they saw a Christmas tree in the back of
Speaker 1: the vehicle. And of course, we also have the credit
Speaker 1: card receipt showing that Kenneth purchased fuel at a gas
Speaker 1: station in Cascade Locks, which is en route from Larch
Speaker 1: Mountain Road to Hood River. Since purchasing a tree seemed
Speaker 1: to be the main purpose of the Martin's trip that
Speaker 1: day what compelled them to travel the Hood River instead
Speaker 1: of returning to Portland. It was also around dusk when
Speaker 1: they were seen leaving the Paradise snack Bar, which many
Speaker 1: people found unusual since Kenneth hated driving in the dark
Speaker 1: and it would take him over an hour to get
Speaker 1: home from there. Of course, if Kenneth was not adept
Speaker 1: at driving at night, then this could provide a potential
Speaker 1: explanation for him accidentally driving into the river. But the
Speaker 1: problem is that the waitress said that the Martins were
Speaker 1: heading west when they left. Well, the tire tracks found
Speaker 1: next to the cliff in the Dalls were over twenty
Speaker 1: miles east in the opposite direction. If those tracks belonged
Speaker 1: to the station wagon, then it's harder to believe that
Speaker 1: the Martins drove into the river by accident, since there's
Speaker 1: no logical reason for them to have been there in
Speaker 1: the first place. So, as you're get to imagine, there's
Speaker 1: been much speculation that the Martins had ulterior motives for
Speaker 1: taking that trip to Hood River County.
Speaker 3: To me, when you think about the route that they took,
Speaker 3: I don't think they drove sixty miles for Hamburgers and
Speaker 3: French fries. But I wouldn't be surprised if they drove
Speaker 3: sixty miles to do their Christmas decorating supply shopping. You
Speaker 3: think about like Christmas vacation. They're on a trek to
Speaker 3: go get that, you know, that Christmas tree they want.
Speaker 3: And so I could see a family saying this is
Speaker 3: a tradition we do. He dresses a Santa for God's sake,
Speaker 3: So like Christmas is a big deal to them, I
Speaker 3: could see them saying, Hey, I want to go to
Speaker 3: that cute little Christmas shop over in this town, and
Speaker 3: I really want to get our a tree from this
Speaker 3: Christmas tree farm and making this whole plotted day out
Speaker 3: of it. Yes, Kenneth didn't like driving a night, but
Speaker 3: that doesn't mean he can't if his family had this
Speaker 3: day planned out. He works, they go to school. There's
Speaker 3: very few days that you can take your family on
Speaker 3: a whole day trip to go get Christmas goodies. I
Speaker 3: could see that being the plan. I also think that
Speaker 3: you have to reflect back on that white car being
Speaker 3: pulled up next to the station wagon at some point,
Speaker 3: and then those two men that abandoned the white car
Speaker 3: and could have potentially hindered the family incapacitated, the family
Speaker 3: gotten into the station wagon, turned in the wrong direction,
Speaker 3: and gone to where they wanted to dispose of this
Speaker 3: vehicle and hitched a ride somewhere else with a friend
Speaker 3: or you know, with somebody else at the time. And
Speaker 3: I think that creates a very plausible situation of why
Speaker 3: the car was in the wrong direction, why it was
Speaker 3: far away from that spot it had been with the
Speaker 3: white car and the two unknown men. And I'm very
Speaker 3: interested to know is it possible if it could have
Speaker 3: been Wayne with one of those men, or are we
Speaker 3: pretty confident that it's those two ex convicts that were
Speaker 3: the ones stopped with the white car.
Speaker 2: Well, there haven't been any confirmed sightings of Wayne anywhere
Speaker 2: near the Martin family, Like, we don't even know if
Speaker 2: they knew each other. It does seem applausible that the
Speaker 2: two men would be Price and Light, because we know
Speaker 2: that Price stole the car from a friend of his
Speaker 2: in California and Light was his criminal associate, and they
Speaker 2: were seen together a lot in that area over the
Speaker 2: course in the next few days. But of course, like
Speaker 2: you said, it's possible that Wayne could have orchestrated the
Speaker 2: whole thing and got these two men to commit murder
Speaker 2: on his behalf. Well. One theory which was pushed around
Speaker 2: and is addressed in Echoes of Distant Water is the
Speaker 2: possibility that the Martin's oldest daughter, Barbie, had become pregnant
Speaker 2: and the family took the trip to Hood River County
Speaker 2: so that Kenneth could confront the child's biological father. While
Speaker 2: there is no real evidence to support this theory, Barbie
Speaker 2: did make an unexplained trip to see a doctor in Vancouver, Washington,
Speaker 2: a few months before her disappearance, even though the family
Speaker 2: had a regular doctor in Portland, which might suggest something
Speaker 2: secretive on their part, and since Barbie's body has never
Speaker 2: been found, it could not be confirmed if she was
Speaker 2: pregnant at that time. While no documentation could be found
Speaker 2: in which Detective Graven specifically wrote about this pregnancy theory,
Speaker 2: there was an entry in his notebook dated June the second,
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty nine, in which he wrote quote with Donald
Speaker 2: Martin eliminated had to be a friend whom Ken Martin
Speaker 2: had found out about and was going to expose. Therefore
Speaker 2: had to be a married man or one going to
Speaker 2: be married end quote. So does this imply that Graven
Speaker 2: had changed his mind on his initial suspicions about Donald
Speaker 2: and now had a different theory. That's not quite clear,
Speaker 2: but I don't think Graven ever wavered from the idea
Speaker 2: that Kenneth took the lengthy trip because he was planning
Speaker 2: to meet someone, but this person ultimately murdered the entire family. However,
Speaker 2: the biggest issue I've had with the idea that Kenneth
Speaker 2: had a secret meetup about a serious topic is that
Speaker 2: I don't understand why he would bring all three of
Speaker 2: his daughters along if it involved something sensitive like Barbie
Speaker 2: becoming pregnant. You'd think that he would want to shield
Speaker 2: Susan and Virginia from the situation. I guess it's possible
Speaker 2: that their annual trip to pick up a Christmas tree
Speaker 2: was just a cover story, and Kenneth took his kids
Speaker 2: out for burgers and fries at the Paradise Snack Bar
Speaker 2: in order to keep them happy and justify the lengthy
Speaker 2: trip the Hood River County. But I don't know. It
Speaker 2: just seems more practical for the Martins to leave their
Speaker 2: daughters at home and get someone else to watch over them,
Speaker 2: rather than involve them in something like this.
Speaker 3: I don't think that there would be this desire for
Speaker 3: their daughter to even be exposed to the man who
Speaker 3: impregnated her. She's what fourteen?
Speaker 2: Is that right? Yeah, that's correct.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you're talking about nineteen fifty eight, you're talking
Speaker 3: about a fourteen year old child who is pregnant, and
Speaker 3: regardless of who the father is. I just don't see
Speaker 3: them one keeping the baby, especially if it's secretive. I
Speaker 3: don't see them bringing that fourteen year old along to
Speaker 3: confront the biological father of this baby. I think the
Speaker 3: idea would be, if anybody was going to go, it'd
Speaker 3: be Kenneth to directly confront this person and let them know,
Speaker 3: you stay away from my daughter, you stay away from
Speaker 3: my family. My daughter's going through enough. We're going to
Speaker 3: send her away to have the baby. We're going to
Speaker 3: terminate the baby, whatever the situation was, and then that
Speaker 3: would be wrapped up. Why would you expose your pregnant
Speaker 3: fourteen year old if that even was a reality. Why
Speaker 3: would you expose your twelve and ten year old who
Speaker 3: don't need to know about sex and their sister being
Speaker 3: pregnant and even the wife unless there was going to
Speaker 3: be some desire to raise the child as their own
Speaker 3: or something. I don't even know that at nineteen fifty
Speaker 3: eight you would take your wife, because at the time,
Speaker 3: I don't know that women had as much say or
Speaker 3: kind of I don't know, like loudness to go sit
Speaker 3: there and confront a man who impregnated your fourteen year
Speaker 3: old daughter. I feel like you would be comforting your
Speaker 3: daughter while your husband went and did the big front
Speaker 3: with the man who got her pregnant. I don't know,
Speaker 3: it's just none of that seems to make any sense.
Speaker 2: I mean, I could see them having an ulterior motive
Speaker 2: to going to this particular location, but just the setup,
Speaker 2: because how it happened is that it just starts off
Speaker 2: as a routine day where it's like, hey, kids, let's
Speaker 2: go get a Christmas tree, let's get some Christmas decorations,
Speaker 2: let's have burger and fries. Now, let's go confront Barnie's
Speaker 2: baby daddy. Like that's just not something you would do
Speaker 2: with your twelve year old and your ten year old.
Speaker 3: No, and imagine too, if you're trying to hide that
Speaker 3: your daughter's pregnant, your ten and twelve year old are
Speaker 3: ten and twelve year old's like they talk, so you
Speaker 3: would most likely back then you would send your daughter away.
Speaker 3: You would make sure like she needs to go to
Speaker 3: camp for six months, and we don't talk about it anymore.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: If he was that upset that he's going to go
Speaker 3: confront the father, I just don't see that you would
Speaker 3: even have it as a family conversation. It would be
Speaker 3: very hush hush. It would be very embarrassing, it would
Speaker 3: be very heartbreaking, and your ten and twelve year old
Speaker 3: don't need to be any part of that.
Speaker 1: Why would anybody go but Kenneth, I just don't see
Speaker 1: a situation where he would think that it would be
Speaker 1: the right move to bring along all of his daughters
Speaker 1: and his wife. It just doesn't seem like that just
Speaker 1: doesn't compute for me. Seems like he was obviously meeting
Speaker 1: up with somebody, or it seems like the probability is high,
Speaker 1: But I don't think that it would be a potential
Speaker 1: father for Barbie's maybe baby or alleged baby. Like it
Speaker 1: does seem odd that you went to this doctor's appointment
Speaker 1: and I don't know what was going on there, but
Speaker 1: I just don't think that you take the whole family
Speaker 1: on a car ride for this big trip as like
Speaker 1: subterfuge that you're going to get a Christmas tree or
Speaker 1: maybe that's your secondary motivation, and then you go and
Speaker 1: confront this boy like in front of your entire family.
Speaker 1: It just seems really strange, And of course we can't
Speaker 1: overlook the multiple eyewitness sightings of the station wagon parked
Speaker 1: by the highway near Trotter's Point, which is nearly halfway
Speaker 1: between Hood River and Cascade Locks. Some of the witnesses
Speaker 1: were called seeing either two men standing outside the stationwagan
Speaker 1: or a second car park nearby. So perhaps after leaving
Speaker 1: the restaurant, the Martins traveled west for a secret meet
Speaker 1: up there, or someone followed them and forced them to
Speaker 1: pull over, but then something happened which led to the
Speaker 1: station wagon traveling nearly thirty miles east to the Dolls
Speaker 1: and being driven off the Rocky Bluff into the river
Speaker 1: with the entire family inside. This theory does make sense
Speaker 1: when you consider the two x cohns Lester Kenneth Price
Speaker 1: and Roy Light were seen at the Paradise Snack Bar
Speaker 1: around the exact same time the Martins were there, and
Speaker 1: the Chevrolet which Price had stolen from California was abandoned
Speaker 1: at Trotter's Point, in very close proximity to where the
Speaker 1: station wagon had been seen, and of course, Price and
Speaker 1: Light spent December seventh to tenth staying in Dollsport, which
Speaker 1: is directly across the river from the cliff where the
Speaker 1: tire tracks were found. The two cons may have followed
Speaker 1: the Martins to Trotter's Point and climbed into the station
Speaker 1: wagon to force them to drive to the dolls at Gunpoint,
Speaker 1: which would explain why they abandoned the Chevy at that spot.
Speaker 1: One theory presented and Echoes of Distant Water is that
Speaker 1: one of the men managed to hide inside the station
Speaker 1: wagon before the Martins left the restaurant, and after the
Speaker 1: family climbed in and drove away, he forced them to
Speaker 1: pull over at Trotter's Point, where he was joined by
Speaker 1: his partner. Honestly, if this is how events actually played out,
Speaker 1: I'd be inclined to think the crime was some sort
Speaker 1: of robbery gone wrong, and that the Martins were targeted
Speaker 1: when the con saw them at the restaurant. Otherwise, why
Speaker 1: would these two particular guys decide to murder an entire family.
Speaker 3: I think it's possible that they could have hidden in
Speaker 3: the car. But I also think that when they see
Speaker 3: this family out at a restaurant, it's four women, four
Speaker 3: girls for females, and dad, and these are young girls
Speaker 3: who probably couldn't have fought back very much. And these
Speaker 3: are two ex cons watching them. So you have the
Speaker 3: four girls. You also have the fact that who knows
Speaker 3: if dad pulled out like a lot of cash when
Speaker 3: he's paying for and they see that and it is
Speaker 3: a robbery or is it something that's maybe power or
Speaker 3: sexually motivated. If they were not hiding in the vehicle,
Speaker 3: I think it's also very possible that they, you know,
Speaker 3: were riding on the on Kenneth's rear end. They're flashing
Speaker 3: their lights, they're honking at him to pull over. They
Speaker 3: could have rear ended him, and or they could have
Speaker 3: used some kind of ruse like a little like police
Speaker 3: light or something on top of their car, because back
Speaker 3: then some police horses had the little one light that
Speaker 3: you popped on top of your hood and you know,
Speaker 3: could be spinning. And so I think there's a lot
Speaker 3: of ways you could have gotten Kenneth to pull the
Speaker 3: car over. And then, like you said, the location of
Speaker 3: these men and where they were staying perfectly lines up.
Speaker 3: Once I've sexually assaulted the family, once I've killed the family,
Speaker 3: once I've beaten them, whatever it is, then I drive
Speaker 3: the vehicle back towards where we live, drive it off
Speaker 3: a cliff, and we're able to either walk or easily
Speaker 3: hitchhike back to where we were staying.
Speaker 2: As far as I can tell, Price and Light were
Speaker 2: never questioned by police about the Martins. What's interesting is
Speaker 2: that while Price's name was mentioned during the original news coverage,
Speaker 2: mostly due to the stolen Chevy being linked to him,
Speaker 2: there was no mention of Light. If you search Price's
Speaker 2: name on newspapers dot Com, you'll find quite a few
Speaker 2: articles about various criminal activities he was involved in he
Speaker 2: was involved with over the years. In fact, in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty seven, Price made the news after he was arrested
Speaker 2: for counterfeiting, and he actually said that since he had
Speaker 2: literally spent half of his life behind bars by that point,
Speaker 2: he actually preferred being in prison. But there's virtually no
Speaker 2: information out there about Light, though a photograph of him
Speaker 2: could be found in Detective Graven's original case file. However,
Speaker 2: during his research, JB. Fisher uncovered a mug shot of
Speaker 2: a criminal named Richard Allen Hunt and became convinced he
Speaker 2: was Roy Light. On March twenty fourth, nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 2: Hunt was pulled over outside the town of Harrisburg, Oregon,
Speaker 2: by the local police chief for having improper license plates
Speaker 2: on his car, but Hunt proceeded to pull out a
Speaker 2: gun and abduct them, and drove about nine miles before
Speaker 2: he let the chief go. This soon led to a
Speaker 2: police chase in which Hunt crashed his car outside the
Speaker 2: town of Brownsville, but he proceeded to shoot and wound
Speaker 2: their local police chief and managed to escape the scene
Speaker 2: on foot. A massive man hunt would take place, and
Speaker 2: Hunt even spent a week on the FBI's ten most
Speaker 2: Wanted Fugitives list before he was captured in Wyoming on
Speaker 2: June the second. After doing a stint in prison, Hunt
Speaker 2: was released in nineteen sixty eight. Now Echoes of Distant
Speaker 2: Water features photos of both Richard Allen Hunt and Roy
Speaker 2: lt and I gotta tell you, the similarities are so
Speaker 2: striking that unless those guys were long lost identical twins,
Speaker 2: I'm pretty certain they're the same person. When he was
Speaker 2: originally pulled over, Hunt was wanted on a federal warrant
Speaker 2: for interstate transportation of a stolen car, which probably explains
Speaker 2: why he decided to kidnap a police chief at gunpoint
Speaker 2: for a seemingly routine traffic violation. But this was only
Speaker 2: three months removed from the Martin family's disappearance, and if
Speaker 2: Hunt was involved in that, I can see why he
Speaker 2: would have gone to extreme lengths to avoid the police. However,
Speaker 2: by the time Hunt was captured, I don't think anyone
Speaker 2: had put two and two together and connected him to
Speaker 2: the Martin case, so he was probably never questioned about it.
Speaker 3: So we believe Light and Hunt could be the same person,
Speaker 3: and he has that same behavior where he's easily able
Speaker 3: to kidnap flea run. I mean, he has this kind
Speaker 3: of personality where he is going to avoid law enforcement
Speaker 3: at all costs, but has no qualms pulling a gun
Speaker 3: on the police chief, kidnapping him, escorting him to a
Speaker 3: new location. I mean, that's basically what could have happened
Speaker 3: to the Martin family is that you saw them, you
Speaker 3: wanted to get your way however financially, power sex wise,
Speaker 3: and when you apprehend them, it's no sweat off your
Speaker 3: back to then transport them and try to dispose of
Speaker 3: their body. That's nearly what Hunt did with the.
Speaker 2: Police chief pretty much. Yeah, And I could see him
Speaker 2: overreacting like that if he did something in the Martin family.
Speaker 2: And even though he was being pulled over for a
Speaker 2: routine traffic stop, he might be thinking, oh my god,
Speaker 2: they're here to question me about the Martins. I better
Speaker 2: kidnap this guy at gunpoint and get out of here.
Speaker 2: These two guys, because of their extensive criminal activity, definitely
Speaker 2: seemed like people who would have been capable of murdering
Speaker 2: an entire family.
Speaker 3: And he was getting pulled over for a stolen car, correct,
Speaker 3: which is what that white car was as well. I
Speaker 3: was stolen by likely those two ex.
Speaker 2: Cons exactly like these guys were pretty much career criminals.
Speaker 1: Honestly, since neither Price or light Slash Hunt seemed to
Speaker 1: have any discernible connection to the Martins, I would ordinarily
Speaker 1: be inclined to think that the family was simply in
Speaker 1: the wrong place at the wrong time and were preyed
Speaker 1: upon by a pair of criminals. Well, once again, the
Speaker 1: discovery of the thirty eight cool commit under handgun, which
Speaker 1: can be linked to Donald Martin is too much of
Speaker 1: a coincidence to ignore, and the fact that Donald claimed
Speaker 1: his friend Wayne was the person who actually sotle the gun,
Speaker 1: and Wayne just happened to be living in Cascade Locks
Speaker 1: at that time is just one coincidence too many as
Speaker 1: far as I'm concerned. While we know that Detective Graven
Speaker 1: had suspicions about Donald, and I can definitely see why
Speaker 1: Donald had a strained relationship with his family. He was
Speaker 1: the sole beneficiary of their estate, and he seemed to
Speaker 1: have very little interest in searching for them while they
Speaker 1: were missing, or mourning his two sisters once they were
Speaker 1: found dead. But of course, the issue with implicating Donald
Speaker 1: is that he was living three thousand miles away in
Speaker 1: New York at the time. I'm not exactly sure what
Speaker 1: Donald's alibi was on the day his family went missing,
Speaker 1: but even back in nineteen fifty eight, I'm sure it
Speaker 1: would have been difficult for him to travel from New
Speaker 1: York to Oregon and back again without leaving some sort
Speaker 1: of paper trail. After all, he was enlisted in the Navy,
Speaker 1: absences would have been noted. The idea has been put
Speaker 1: forward that Donald could have hired Price in light to
Speaker 1: get rid of his family, But how would he have
Speaker 1: organized this from the other side of the country, as
Speaker 1: both these men operated on the West coast. But it's
Speaker 1: definitely tempting to think that Donald's enigmatic friend Wayne might
Speaker 1: have been involved. Wayne's last name has never been released publicly,
Speaker 1: but JB. Fisher claims that he found him on Facebook
Speaker 1: and that he was still alive at the time Echoes
Speaker 1: of Distant Water was published, And of course Wayne shared
Speaker 1: his own insights about the case when he came forward
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight to do an interview. Even
Speaker 1: after Donald moved away, Wayne claimed, but he still kept
Speaker 1: in touch with the Martin family and the last time
Speaker 1: he saw them was that a barbecue during the summer
Speaker 1: of nineteen fifty eight before he moved to Cascade Locks.
Speaker 1: It's interesting how Detective Graven's old notes mentioned Wayne's name
Speaker 1: alongside the phrase quote put grease on the spot you
Speaker 1: don't want chickens to roost. Raven also wrote quote had
Speaker 1: to be a friend whom Ken Martin had found out
Speaker 1: about and was going to expose. Therefore had to be
Speaker 1: a married man or one going to be married. Well.
Speaker 1: Wayne did end up getting married in March of nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine, and as politically incorrect as this might sound today,
Speaker 1: at one point, Graven none too subtlely scrawled out the
Speaker 1: words quote Wayne Homo. Well, that would definitely qualify as
Speaker 1: a secret that a newly married man wouldn't want exposed,
Speaker 1: especially in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. And when you think about this idea that Wayne
Speaker 3: says he was still in touch with the family, like
Speaker 3: how and why would he be so close to the
Speaker 3: family still if Donald wasn't a part of it, Like
Speaker 3: to me, you were his roommate and you worked with him.
Speaker 3: But Donald had got into trouble, the family had dissolved
Speaker 3: because of some inappropriate relationship, especially if it had been
Speaker 3: Wayne that Kenneth had caught him with in their own home.
Speaker 3: I just don't know why Wayne would continue to be
Speaker 3: part of the family. That sounds a little bit fishy.
Speaker 3: In Wayne even admitted I was exposed to the gay lifestyle,
Speaker 3: that underground lifestyle back in the fifties, right where it
Speaker 3: was very hush hush, where men would go on the
Speaker 3: down low and they would be with a woman. But
Speaker 3: then they would also have an exposure to this other world.
Speaker 3: And so it sounds like Wayne and Donald were heavily
Speaker 3: involved in that, if not involved together, And so it's
Speaker 3: really surprising to me that Donald would go off and
Speaker 3: be almost disowned by his family or disown them, and
Speaker 3: Wayne still has this great relationship the summer of nineteen
Speaker 3: fifty eight with the family. It just seems a little bizarre.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think those are only his words. I
Speaker 2: don't know if there were any independent eyewitnesses who could
Speaker 2: say I saw Wayne at a family barbecue with the
Speaker 2: Martins during the summer of nineteen fifty eight, Because you're right,
Speaker 2: if he had been the one who was having an
Speaker 2: affair with Donald all those years earlier, then I'm sure
Speaker 2: the Martin family wouldn't want anything to do with him, actually,
Speaker 2: when you consider that they had sent Donald on the
Speaker 2: other side of the country into the Navy to try
Speaker 2: to quote unquote straighten him up. So I know that
Speaker 2: the thing that Graven seems to be implying is that
Speaker 2: perhaps Ken or someone else from the family knew some
Speaker 2: incriminating information about Wayne and was going to expose that
Speaker 2: he was a closet a gay man and maybe ruin
Speaker 2: his impending marriage. But it makes you wonder, why would
Speaker 2: Kenneth be inclined to do that, Like, why would he
Speaker 2: just go out of his way to try to ruin
Speaker 2: this guy's life when he's no longer a factor in
Speaker 2: the family's life at all, because he's no longer anywhere
Speaker 2: near Donald.
Speaker 1: And if there's no independent eyewitnesses to say that there
Speaker 1: was indeed this closeness between Wayne and the family, it
Speaker 1: seems odd if he was responsible that he would want
Speaker 1: to kind of insert himself like that. You'd think that
Speaker 1: he would want to distance himself from the family and
Speaker 1: be like, well, I haven't spoken to them in years,
Speaker 1: Like what would be my motivation? If they were going
Speaker 1: to out me, they would have done so a long
Speaker 1: time ago type of.
Speaker 2: A thing, exactly. So Wayne kind of seems a bit
Speaker 2: of an odd duck here. It's almost like so many
Speaker 2: years had passed that he's thinking, I can say whatever
Speaker 2: I want and I don't care how suspicious it makes
Speaker 2: me look. So during his two thousand and eight interview,
Speaker 2: Wayne definitely implied that Donald was gay. He even went
Speaker 2: so far as to say that Donald introduced him to
Speaker 2: the quote unquote gay lifestyle, though it doesn't look like
Speaker 2: he explicitly said that he and Donald were lovers but
Speaker 2: I'd say that's certainly a good possibility, as they were
Speaker 2: both sharing a basement apartment and working at Meyer and
Speaker 2: Frank together in nineteen fifty five. As you might recall,
Speaker 2: Wayne shared a story about Donald being caught in the
Speaker 2: act with another man by his parents, but since no
Speaker 2: one seems to know who this man was, Wayne may
Speaker 2: have been referring to himself. When Donald was caught stealing
Speaker 2: items from Meyer and Frank, he tried to blame it
Speaker 2: on the stress of his family finding out he was
Speaker 2: gay and not reacting well to it. I get the
Speaker 2: impression that this is why his parents sent him off
Speaker 2: to the other side of the country to attend a
Speaker 2: religious college, as they helped joining a ministry might set
Speaker 2: Donald straight, though he ultimately decided to enlist in the
Speaker 2: Navy instead. While Donald and Wayne both went on to
Speaker 2: get married and start families, homosexuality and bisexuality was still
Speaker 2: an incredibly taboo subject back then, so either or both
Speaker 2: of them might have just done this for appearance's sake.
Speaker 2: If Wayne was involved in the Martin family's murders, then
Speaker 2: perhaps the crime was motivated by Kenneth threatening to expose
Speaker 2: his big secret, which would explain why he traveled all
Speaker 2: the way to Hood River County. In fact, if you
Speaker 2: put more stock into the pregnancy theory, then it's possible
Speaker 2: this whole thing had nothing to do with Donald. Kenneth
Speaker 2: may have wanted to confront Wayne because he was the
Speaker 2: father of his fourteen year old daughter's unborn child, which
Speaker 2: also would have been pretty scandalous. To cover this up,
Speaker 2: Wayne hired Price and Light to take care of the problem,
Speaker 2: and even supplied them with the gun he stole from
Speaker 2: the Department story years earlier to use as the murder weapon.
Speaker 2: One of the strangest clues in this case is the
Speaker 2: eyewitness sighting of the black tax parked outside the Martin
Speaker 2: residence on the morning of December the eighth. This was
Speaker 2: after the Martins were last seen, but before they were
Speaker 2: officially reported missing, and the taxi was apparently there for
Speaker 2: about an hour. It seems like due to a miscommunication,
Speaker 2: this sighting was not reported to the authorities for months,
Speaker 2: by which point it was more difficult to do a
Speaker 2: follow up investigation with the local cab companies. Well. In
Speaker 2: June of nineteen fifty nine, when Donald finally traveled to
Speaker 2: Portland and visited the house, he claimed that income tax papers,
Speaker 2: a bank ledger book, and other financial documents belonging to
Speaker 2: his father were no longer inside his desk and had
Speaker 2: gone missing. If Donald is telling the truth that, I'm
Speaker 2: not sure what to make of this. Did the people
Speaker 2: who were responsible for the Martins disappearance strive all the
Speaker 2: way to Portland to search their house? If so, what
Speaker 2: were they looking for. Did Kenneth have potentially incriminating evidence
Speaker 2: against someone in Hood River County? Once again, if Kenneth
Speaker 2: had traveled there for a meeting because he dirt on someone,
Speaker 2: I just don't understand why he would bring his family along.
Speaker 3: He wouldn't. This is so ridiculous. I think when you
Speaker 3: look at the age of his kids. This isn't like
Speaker 3: we've got our adult kids with us and we're all
Speaker 3: going as a family front to confront this individual on
Speaker 3: either a pregnancy or an underground gay relationship, whatever it
Speaker 3: might be. It just seems not plausible. I also wonder
Speaker 3: how much Donald knew his father. He had been pretty
Speaker 3: estranged from them, where basically it seems like his parents
Speaker 3: were trying to, you know, reverse wire him and get
Speaker 3: him to be straight by sending him to this Christian College,
Speaker 3: sending him into the military, these kinds of things, so
Speaker 3: Donald doesn't have a relationship with them. How often was
Speaker 3: he at the home and exposed to his dad's income
Speaker 3: tax papers, bank ledger book, and financial documents. Yes, at
Speaker 3: one point his dad might have kept them in his desk,
Speaker 3: But would Donald really have the relationship with his dad
Speaker 3: to say, I know that those were there, I know
Speaker 3: exactly where he kept them and all of this. Maybe
Speaker 3: Kenneth had changed his location of those things. Maybe Kenneth
Speaker 3: had them in the car with him, like his bank
Speaker 3: ledger or something like that. So I'm wondering how much
Speaker 3: Donald can really comment on that when he doesn't have
Speaker 3: even the willingness to come pick up his sister's ashes,
Speaker 3: he really knows all of his dad's financial record placement
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I don't know
Speaker 2: how Donald, because of his relationship, would have much knowledge
Speaker 2: of what kind of items that his father was keeping
Speaker 2: inside his desks. So it is kind of strange that
Speaker 2: he was able to point out specific items that he
Speaker 2: noticed were missing. But at the same time, I still
Speaker 2: wonder about the appearance of the black taxi at the
Speaker 2: house and how it fits into things. I mean, I
Speaker 2: guess it could be a red herring that maybe it
Speaker 2: parked in the neighborhood because it was picking up someone
Speaker 2: else there and has nothing to do with the case.
Speaker 2: But it makes me wonder why someone would make a
Speaker 2: special trip to Portland after the family were already presumably dead,
Speaker 2: and what they thought they were going to find in
Speaker 2: the residence.
Speaker 3: And there for an hour. That's a really long time,
Speaker 3: even if you were picking somebody else up, like who
Speaker 3: what taxi drivers like, I'll sit here for an hour
Speaker 3: and wait for you, you know, Like there had to
Speaker 3: be something going on in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: As for Donald himself, I'm really not sure what to
Speaker 1: make of him. If he was the one who orchestrated
Speaker 1: his family's murders, I suppose he could have enlisted Wayne's
Speaker 1: help to find someone to carry out the crime while
Speaker 1: Donald remained to New York. It would be one thing
Speaker 1: if the family went missing in Portland, but they disappeared
Speaker 1: after traveling to a location sixty miles away, and I'm
Speaker 1: not sure how Donald could have known that they would
Speaker 1: be there on that particular day, unless he's somehow arranged
Speaker 1: for Wayne to lure them But if Donald is innocent,
Speaker 1: it's possible that because of his strained relationship with his family,
Speaker 1: he was legitimately indifferent to them going missing, which would
Speaker 1: explain is lack attitude towards the whole situation and unwillingness
Speaker 1: to travel to Oregon to assist with the search efforts.
Speaker 1: I guess Donald's involvement would all depend on motive. Yes,
Speaker 1: he stood to be the sole beneficiary of the family's estate,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't a particularly large amount. Even if he
Speaker 1: was on bad terms with his parents, it's still pretty
Speaker 1: extreme for him to murder all of his younger sisters.
Speaker 1: It's alleged that the main reason Donald became a strange
Speaker 1: from his family and moved to the East Coast was
Speaker 1: because they found out that he was gay, But in
Speaker 1: spite of this, he still wound up marrying a woman
Speaker 1: and starting his own family. You'd almost think that with
Speaker 1: his family no longer hanging over him, Donald would have
Speaker 1: been less motivated to stay in the closet. But again,
Speaker 1: this was the nineteen fifties, and for all we know,
Speaker 1: perhaps Donald was actually bisexual. It's obvious the detective Graven
Speaker 1: suspected Donald of being involved. Who was unable to build
Speaker 1: up a case against him, and faced resistance from other
Speaker 1: members of law enforcement who did not want to take
Speaker 1: this end me Further, I'm not so sure this was
Speaker 1: an intentional cover up to protect the killers. I think
Speaker 1: it just stems from the fact that Lester, Kenneth Price,
Speaker 1: and Roy Light had connections to Clifford Slim Bennett and
Speaker 1: certain people feared that a thorough investigation might cause a
Speaker 1: snowball effect, which could open up a major count of
Speaker 1: worms and expose corruption for other criminal activities in the area.
Speaker 1: So they felt it was in their best interest for
Speaker 1: this part of the investigation to be shut down, even
Speaker 1: if it meant that a murdered family would not receive justice.
Speaker 3: I think you can look at law enforcement in two
Speaker 3: lenses here, like I think as in episode one, I
Speaker 3: think you could have police officers who truly were convicted
Speaker 3: that this is an accident. Right, this is so silly.
Speaker 3: It's very clear that this family drove off the cliff.
Speaker 3: We have the evidence, you have the tire marks, you
Speaker 3: have the paint. Guys, this is an accident. They went
Speaker 3: off the cliff. They're not from here. That happens, right,
Speaker 3: This is a dangerous curve, whatever the event might be,
Speaker 3: and we need people to shut their mouth about this case.
Speaker 3: So I think there could be a non malicious approach
Speaker 3: to it, saying I'm confident it's an accident. So at
Speaker 3: that point, it's now my prerogative to shut down any
Speaker 3: other conversation because if it continues to have these conspiracy
Speaker 3: theories going around it, it is possible that as people
Speaker 3: peel those layers back, that they expose us in a
Speaker 3: criminal ring that has nothing to do with this case.
Speaker 3: So I could see both those things happening simultaneously.
Speaker 2: So if you want my theory, I think it does
Speaker 2: make logical sense that Price and Light were the ones
Speaker 2: who murdered the Martins and ran their station wagon off
Speaker 2: the cliff into the Columbia River, and sadly, the bodies
Speaker 2: of Kenneth, Barbara, and Barbie are still inside the submerged
Speaker 2: vehicle today. I'm really not sure if Donald or Wayne
Speaker 2: were involved in what happened, but the discovery of the
Speaker 2: stolen gun from Meyern Frank is such a huge red
Speaker 2: flag that I believe one or both of them has
Speaker 2: to be connected to this. If that GUD had been
Speaker 2: properly processed, is evidence back in nineteen fifty eight. Who
Speaker 2: knows where the investigation might have led, But overall, I
Speaker 2: can't help but think there's still a big piece of
Speaker 2: the puzzle missing here. But I'm not sure we'll ever
Speaker 2: receive full answers until the missing station wagon and the
Speaker 2: bodies of the remaining victims can be found. After all
Speaker 2: this time, I'm not sure anyone will be prosecuted for
Speaker 2: this crime, but it would be nice to bring Kenneth, Barbara,
Speaker 2: and Barbie home and lay them to rest for good.
Speaker 2: I know that over sixty five years have passed, but
Speaker 2: if you happen to have any information on the unsolved
Speaker 2: disappearance of the Martin family, please contact the appropriate authorities.
Speaker 2: Jules Ashley, any final thoughts in this case?
Speaker 3: The eeriness of this case and the tragedy of this
Speaker 3: case that you had this family of five individuals most
Speaker 3: likely getting in the car to go Christmas shopping and
Speaker 3: to explore and to get their Christmas tree. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's like the quintessential best day ever with your family
Speaker 3: and all the sudd and Kenne doesn't show up to
Speaker 3: work and the girls don't show up to school, and
Speaker 3: ultimately we find out that there's tire tracks and paint
Speaker 3: evidence that show that car went over the side of
Speaker 3: this cliff and is somewhere submerged in the water. Later,
Speaker 3: two of those babies are able to be released from
Speaker 3: that car somehow, probably because of that anchor, and their
Speaker 3: bodies are discovered, and literally there's just no sense of
Speaker 3: understanding or justice for these five individuals. Three are still missing,
Speaker 3: two were cremated. Their brother didn't even pick them up.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's almost as if their lives just disappeared
Speaker 3: and then no one thought twice about it. So it's
Speaker 3: one of those cases that is haunting. It's like they
Speaker 3: were there one day doing the most pure iconic thing
Speaker 3: you do in December, and then the next moment they're gone.
Speaker 3: To me, it seems like a crime of opportunity. These
Speaker 3: two ex convicts seem like the most likely candidates for
Speaker 3: being someone who hurt them. And you see these four
Speaker 3: girls and dad right the mom, three daughters and dad
Speaker 3: out to dinner. It's possible Dad had a lot of
Speaker 3: cash on him to get Christmas decorations or the Christmas
Speaker 3: tree or things like that, and so either a robbery
Speaker 3: or some power sexual motivation could have spurred these two
Speaker 3: men to follow the family, to get them to pull over,
Speaker 3: and then to hurt them, take the car, abandon it
Speaker 3: by pushing it off that cliff, and then walking to
Speaker 3: their residents. That seems like the most likely scenario. What
Speaker 3: throws it for a loop is that gun that's tied
Speaker 3: to Wayne and or Donald, that has very clear proof
Speaker 3: that it was used in something malicious. Blood damage to
Speaker 3: the gun, and the way that it was loaded and
Speaker 3: or used. That's the only thing that has me had
Speaker 3: with a big question mark of why and how did
Speaker 3: that gun get there? But overall, again, like I said,
Speaker 3: it's one of those cases that you're looking at. This
Speaker 3: was nineteen fifty eight and we only have two of
Speaker 3: the five individuals recovered. The car is not recovered, and
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, none of them were
Speaker 3: really honored and remembered in the way they should have been.
Speaker 3: Donald didn't even tell his family, his babies, and his
Speaker 3: grandchildren that they existed. That's how bizarre this case is
Speaker 3: so heartbreaking. Is it likely that after sixty five years
Speaker 3: we're going to get information. Probably not, But man, what
Speaker 3: a disturbing and sad case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this case is truly truly one of the worst
Speaker 1: that I think we've heard, just because there's five members
Speaker 1: of this family and to know that we've only recovered
Speaker 1: two of them, that three of them are likely under
Speaker 1: the water, and at this point it's been so many years.
Speaker 1: Unless there's some advance in technology which makes it easier
Speaker 1: to go down one hundred feet in this murky water
Speaker 1: and potentially recover the bodies, then I think we'll get
Speaker 1: more answers because if it was gunshot that had killed
Speaker 1: the girls, Susan and Virginia, we don't know. All we
Speaker 1: know is that a tech said that there was holes
Speaker 1: in the skull which could have been gunshot wounds, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't mentioned by the medical examiner. And as far
Speaker 1: as what happened here, I agree with Ashley. I think
Speaker 1: that the most likely scenario is that Light and Hunt
Speaker 1: are responsible and that it was opportunistic, whether the motivation
Speaker 1: was sexual or financial or mixed motivation, because there was
Speaker 1: two perpetrators the gun. The gun is just the one
Speaker 1: thing I think that the whole Wayne Donald angle, there's
Speaker 1: a lot there. It's hard to ignore it because of
Speaker 1: the presence of the gun. I think even though the gun,
Speaker 1: they didn't recover it and return it to the department
Speaker 1: store which Donald supposedly had stolen it from, or a
Speaker 1: sporting goods store that they didn't return it that I
Speaker 1: think it is possible that even though Kenneth was super honest,
Speaker 1: they'd paid for these items, So anything that he recovered
Speaker 1: after the fact, technically they would have purchased. So maybe
Speaker 1: he found the gun and maybe it was something that
Speaker 1: he kept in the car and it was something that
Speaker 1: opportunistically Light or Price had used against them. That's the
Speaker 1: only way I can think that the gun could be
Speaker 1: factored in other than Donald and Orwayne being involved in
Speaker 1: a murder conspiracy with Lightham Price.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is such a strange case that kind of
Speaker 2: threw me for a loop when I started researching it
Speaker 2: just over five years ago, because, like I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 2: I read about this on the Charlie Project about ten
Speaker 2: years ago. Read there some reason there didn't seem too
Speaker 2: much there. It just seemed to be a standard case
Speaker 2: of a family that was driving accidentally crashed their vehicle
Speaker 2: into a body of water, and even though only two
Speaker 2: of the victims' bodies were recovered, it seemed obvious to
Speaker 2: me that the station wagon and the three missing victims
Speaker 2: were still down there somewhere, and it was probably nothing
Speaker 2: more than a tragic accident. But then I started reading
Speaker 2: about it on Wikipedia many years later in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: and reading new newspaper articles, and I decided to check
Speaker 2: out this book, Echoes of Distant Water. I just made
Speaker 2: me look at the case in a different light, because
Speaker 2: until then I had no idea about the sighting of
Speaker 2: the two men who were ex cons, I had no
Speaker 2: idea about the discovery of the gun, and it made
Speaker 2: me totally change my mind on it. I now believe
Speaker 2: that the family were the victims of foul play, but
Speaker 2: it's so hard to figure out how these events could
Speaker 2: have carried out. I do believe that Price and Light
Speaker 2: followed the family out away from the diner, had them
Speaker 2: pull over, and then proceeded to kill them and then
Speaker 2: run their station wagon with their bodies inside, off the cliff,
Speaker 2: which was in the opposite direction of where the family
Speaker 2: was heading. But was it just a random crime? Did
Speaker 2: these two cons happen across by the family by pure chance,
Speaker 2: or was this premeditated where Donald and Wayne or both
Speaker 2: of them involved. If it wasn't for the discovery of
Speaker 2: the gun, then I would have no reason to believe
Speaker 2: either of them wouldn't be involved. I just assumed that
Speaker 2: this was just some sort of rob gone wrong. But
Speaker 2: the fact that it was allegedly stolen by Donald all
Speaker 2: those years earlier, and that Wayne could have had it
Speaker 2: is just too much of a coincidence, unless, like Jules said,
Speaker 2: it's an explanation that Kenneth found the gun years after
Speaker 2: the fact and just kept it in the car and
Speaker 2: these criminals decided to be opportunists and use it in
Speaker 2: the commission of the murder. It's just too hard to
Speaker 2: overlook that this gun would have a connection to the
Speaker 2: surviving member of the Martin family. But again, because Donald
Speaker 2: was living in New York and it would have been
Speaker 2: so hard for him to track his family's movements back
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty eight, I have no idea how he
Speaker 2: would have hired these two men to kill his family.
Speaker 2: And it does seem a bit more plausible that it
Speaker 2: could have been Wayne because he was living in the area,
Speaker 2: But again, what motive. We have always had his speculation
Speaker 2: about Wayne possibly being gay or possibly being blackmailed because
Speaker 2: he was the father of Barbie's unborn child, even though
Speaker 2: it was never conclusively proven that she was even pregnant. So,
Speaker 2: like I said, there are some pieces of the puzzle
Speaker 2: missing here, and after all these years, I don't know
Speaker 2: if we'll ever learn the full truth about what happened,
Speaker 2: but at the very least I do hope at some
Speaker 2: point that maybe the missing station wagon and the three
Speaker 2: missing victims can be recovered and finally laid to rest.
Speaker 1: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
Speaker 2: Yes. The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
Speaker 2: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
Speaker 2: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
Speaker 2: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
Speaker 2: with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars
Speaker 2: tier Tier two. We also offer monthly bonus episodes in
Speaker 2: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
Speaker 2: the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon,
Speaker 2: and if you join our highest tier tier free the
Speaker 2: ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is
Speaker 2: a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries,
Speaker 2: where you can download an audio file and then moot
Speaker 2: up the original unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
Speaker 2: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
Speaker 2: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
Speaker 2: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
Speaker 2: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
Speaker 2: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
Speaker 2: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
Speaker 2: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
Speaker 2: Tier three.
Speaker 4: So I want to let you know a little bit
Speaker 4: about the Jeweles and n Ashy patreons. So there's early
Speaker 4: ad free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got
Speaker 4: our Pathwent Chili mini's, which are always over an hour,
Speaker 4: so they're not very mini, but they're just too short
Speaker 4: to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those.
Speaker 1: So we hope you'll check out those patreons. We'll link
Speaker 1: them in the show notes.
Speaker 2: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
Speaker 2: any chance you have to share us on social media
Speaker 2: with a friend or d rate and review is greatly appreciated.
Speaker 2: You can email us at The Pathwentchili at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwin. So
Speaker 2: until next time, be sure to bundle up because cold
Speaker 2: trails and chili past call for warm clothing.
Speaker 1: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy