UPDATE: Car involved in 66-year-old Suspected Murder case brought to surface in Cascade Locks

Advance American Construction brought in this barge and crane to bring what is possibly the Martin’s missing vehicle to the surface. It is in 50 feet of water and buried in muck 7 feet below the riverbed. The Car and members of the Martin family have been missing since 1958.

Photos of the Martin Family Courtesy Wikipedia.

By Tom Peterson

UPDATE MARCH 7, 2025 — The salvage and dive team in Cascade Locks attempting to bring the likely Martin Family vehicle to the surface for verification were successful in retrieving parts of the vehicle today at 3:45 p.m.

“We just got the car out of the water,” said Hood River Sheriff’s Deputy Pete Hughes at 4:30 p.m. “We have the motor and chassis, but it just disintegrated when they pulled on it. It was full of rocks and too much debris.”

Much of the interior of the vehicle fell apart and remained on the on the river floor in the attempt to lift the chassis to the surface using a crane and straps.

Hughes said they were excited to have the motor and frame so that they will be able to verify whether the vehicle was the one owned by the Martin family, which disappeared in 1958.

No remains of the missing Martin family members had been discovered at this point, he said.

“We’re pretty excited to clarify that this is the vehicle,” he said as the 66-yer-old mystery has left the case unclosed for decades.” He said they intended to try and find the serial numbers on the motor and chassis in their attempt to verify.

Cascade Locks, Ore., March 6, 2025 — A dive team may be close at hand in solving a 66-year-old Martin Family disappearance case near Cascade Locks that shocked the state in December 1958.

On December 7, 1958, Kenneth and Barbara Martin, along with their daughters—Barbie, 14; Virginia, 13; and Susan, 11—left their Portland home for a day trip to gather Christmas greenery in the Columbia River Gorge. They were last seen purchasing gasoline in Cascade Locks and later at a restaurant in Hood River.

In May of 1959, the bodies of Virginia and Susan were recovered from the Columbia River near Camas, Wash.

1954 Ford Country Squire. Photo courtesy Wikipedia.

However, Kenneth, Barbara, Barbie, and their 1954 Ford Country Squire station wagon remained missing.

Independent diver Archer Mayo of White Salmon, who has been working to solve the case, discovered a vehicle in the locks just west of the pedestrian bridge in November 2024, according to the Hood River County Sheriff’s Office.

“He took interest in this case years ago and he has been looking for the car and had a theory on where to find it,” said Pete Hughes, Hood River Deputy Sheriff.

Mayo was able to dive on the vehicle more than 100 times and eventually retrieved parts that confirm it is the same make and model - a creme colored 1954 Ford Country Squire - that the family was driving at the time they went missing.

Mayo’s spokesperson Ian Costello said that the vehicle is buried in muck seven feet below the riverbed. “It’s comprised of some sand, muscle shells, salmon guts and lots of dead fish,” he said, noting the diving conditions were “Awful.”

In addtion, there are three vehicles in the dive site, Costello said, noting part of a Volkswagen Bug had been brought to the surface and removed so that divers could get at the Ford Country Squire.

 Hughes said Mayo was able to dig out the rear end of the vehicle to retrieve parts and then took them to the Hood River County Sheriff’s Office two weeks ago.

“He was able to get an emblem, the coloring of the vehicle and wheels and hubcaps to narrow it down to the same year, model and color of Martin’s vehicle.”

“There is certainly a very good chance that it is,” he said.

This morning, March 6, a dive team and crew with Advance America Construction began attempting to salvage the vehicle from the water.

Multnomah County police consistently suspected foul play in the Martins' disappearance, based on the evidence of the tire tracks that indicated their vehicle was deliberately pushed from the cliff,” according to Wikipedia.

Costello said he and Mayo disagree with that theory, believing the car going into the water was an accident.

Mayo used predictive modeling to find the vehicle, Costello added. “He worked his way down from The Dalles and did a ton of research on the case and when he read the reports of the witnesses… he centered his search effort on the lock and used some case reports of where the tire tracks were down by the locks. He did actual physical models to see what would happen every major flood… he narrowed it down to the location within five feet.”