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This from the Doe Network:
Kenneth and Barbara Martin and their three daughters, Barbie, Virginia and Susan, set off in their nine-passenger cream and red 1954 Ford station wagon on December 7, 1958, on a trip to the Columbia Gorge to collect Christmas greenery to decorate their home on Northeast 57th Avenue in Portland. They never came back.
The Martins had bought 5 gallons of gas at a service station at Cascade Lake the day they disappeared. The attendant said that it was late in the afternoon. The Martins were also seen leaving a Hood River restaurant in the late afternoon, heading west, back to Portland. The Search began when Ken Martin, an employee of an electric company, failed to report to work on December 9, 1958.
Police said that the Martins had no financial problems and seemed to have no dark personal secrets. A day after their disappearance, a stolen white Chevrolet was found east of Cascade Locks. Close by, someone else found a stolen .38 Colt Commander automatic. Two ex-convicts in the area were arrested for car theft. Investigation files reveal the gun that was found had been stolen from Meier & Frank. It is unknown if the events are related.
In February 1959, a searcher discovered one-way tire tracks leading off a cliff above the Columbia River, near The Dalles. The tracks matched the tires on the Martin's Ford. In early May 1959, a river drilling rig hooked something heavy and metal with its anchor. Before it could be brought to the surface, it fell loose from the anchor. It was near the site where the tire tracks had been found. In the next couple of days, the bodies of the two youngest Martin girls were discovered, Virginia age 12 and Susan age 10, downstream in the Columbia, near Bonneville Dam. They had drowned. A seies of clues- some perhaps not relating to the disappearance- led investigators to think the family either accidentally had driven into the river at the Cascade Locks or had met with foul play, being abducted and pushed in their car off a cliff near The Dalles. The bodies of Barbara and Kenneth and the body of their daughter Barbie have never been recovered.
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Trenny went missing on a field trip to the Smoky Mountains in October of 1976. She has now been missing for 33 years. Someone out there knows where she is and needs to unburden themselves.
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