Oregon family missing since 1958 identified from Columbia River car wreckage

Modern DNA testing has solved one of Oregon’s most baffling disappearances, identifying three sets of remains found in a car in the Columbia River as members of the Martin family, missing since 1958. The Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed the remains as Kenneth Martin, Barbara Martin and their daughter Barbara “Barbie” Martin after advanced DNA analysis, bringing a long-unsolved case into focus nearly 67 years after the family vanished.

The Martins disappeared on December 7, 1958, after telling neighbors they were driving from Portland into the Columbia River Gorge to collect greenery for Christmas decorations. Their 1954 cream-colored Ford station wagon disappeared with them. Weeks and months later, the search turned up two of their other daughters, Virginia, 13, and Susan, 11, downstream, but Kenneth, Barbara and Barbie, who was 14, were never located until the car was pulled from the river.

The breakthrough came in 2025, when diver Archer Mayo found the submerged vehicle near Cascade Locks after years of searching. Investigators later recovered the wreckage from the Columbia River, and the remains inside were subjected to DNA testing by Othram. The Hood River County Sheriff’s Office said the investigation is now closed and that it found no evidence of a crime.

The identification closes a chapter that has lingered in Oregon memory for generations. For decades, the Martins were among the state’s most troubling missing-person cases, in part because the family had left for what sounded like a routine holiday errand and then simply vanished. The Columbia River corridor, with its strong currents, deep water and steep terrain, helped conceal the wreckage for years.

The case now stands as a clear example of how forensic genealogy and modern DNA analysis can break open cases that once seemed permanently beyond reach. A vehicle lost in river sediment and remains scattered by time were enough, with today’s testing, to finally name the dead and settle a disappearance that had outlasted nearly every person connected to it.