The body of a woman found stabbed to death was finally identified in 2022, and now investigators have found her two children, who had been abandoned in a restroom nearly 400 miles away two days after her death.
According to the Arizona Republic, the nude body of a woman was found in Mohave County on December 12, 1989. Investigators were unable to identify her, and no suspects were identified.
A DNA sample brought investigators closer in 2022 when it and fingerprints matched a shoplifting suspect named Maria Ortiz. DNA led to a cousin, who said she didn’t know anyone by that name, but her cousin Marina Ramos had been missing since 1989.
Detectives then learned that Ortiz was an alias used by Ramos.
The mystery deepened, though, when police learned that Ramos was last seen with her 2- and 14-month old daughters, Jasmin and Elizabeth, who were nowhere to be found.
Earlier this year, DNA pointed to two sisters who had been found abandoned in a park restroom in Oxnard, California, just two days after Ramos’s body was found. Child Protective Services took the girls, and they were eventually adopted and raised together in Ventura County.
According to KNXV, detectives also learned that Ramos had a third, older daughter who grew up with her grandparents. DNA from that woman helped locate the missing sisters.
They spoke with the station, giving permission to share their adopted names — Melissa (Elizabeth) and Tina (Jasmin) — who said they’d long wondered about their biological family.
“This is what I’ve been searching for and wanting for a very, very long time, and to figure out where I came from and who my family was,” said Tina, who now lives in Oregon.
“I was sad to know that my mom is gone, and I will never be able to see her,” she said. “Sorry. It still hits me a little bit because she was taken from me, you know, and, like, that’s not right. But at the same time, I was happy to know that she’s not suffering. She’s not in a bad situation. I was happy to know that all those, like, abandonment issues that I dealt with when I was a kid was, like, automatically released for me.”
Melissa, who recently moved from California to Arizona, said she still has questions.
“I want everyone to know that I’m okay,” she said. “I’m here. I have lived a beautiful life. I have a wonderful husband.”
Tina said she has spoken with some members of her biological family by phone, while Melissa said she is waiting for an in person meeting. And, she said, she hopes her family’s story can lead to more discoveries.
“May the search continue for the next missing person, and hopefully they find some more success stories,” said Melissa.
Police still have no suspects in the case, although witnesses provided a description of three people seen at the park where the children were found.
Anyone with information should call the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office at 928-753-0753, ext. 4408.
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[Featured image: Newspaper clipping from discovery of abandoned girls in 1989/family via KNXV]
