Car being pulled from an Oregon river might have belonged to a family that vanished in 1958

CASCADE LOCKS, Ore. (AP) — Authorities planned to propulsion respective vehicles from the Columbia River connected Thursday, including a car believed to person belonged to a Portland mates who vanished successful 1958 portion retired for a thrust with their 3 daughters, including 2 whose bodies washed up astatine a dam the pursuing year.

The presumption wagon believed to beryllium to Ken and Barbara Martin was recovered past autumn by Archer Mayo, a diver who had been looking for the car for 7 years, said Mayo’s representative, Ian Costello. Mayo pinpointed the apt determination and dove respective times earlier uncovering the car upside-down astir 50 feet (15 meters) deep, covered successful mud, salmon guts, silt and mussel shells, helium said.

“This is simply a precise large improvement successful a lawsuit that’s been connected the backmost of Portland’s caput for 66 years,” Costello told The Associated Press.

The Martins took their 3 daughters connected a car thrust to the mountains successful December 1958 to cod Christmas greenery, the Oregonian/OregonLive reported. They ne'er returned. The bodies of 2 daughters were recovered the pursuing twelvemonth adjacent the Bonneville Dam, but the remainder of the household was ne'er located.

“It's been a precocious nationalist involvement case,” Pete Hughes, a Hood River County sheriff’s deputy, told the AP. After Mayo provided portion of the licence sheet fig and different conveyance identifiers, the sheriff's bureau and the Columbia Gorge large crimes team, on with the Oregon State Crime Lab, arranged to person the car pulled out, helium said.

“We're not 100% definite it's the car,” Hughes said. “It's mostly encased successful mud and debris, truthful we don't cognize what to expect erstwhile we propulsion it retired of the h2o today.”

Mayo runs a concern that finds things that were mislaid successful the river, similar watches and rings, but besides helps with the betterment of drowning victims, Costello said. He had been looking for a probe vas that sank successful 2017 erstwhile helium learned astir the Martin family, Costello said.

Mayo began digging up worldly connected the household and utilized modeling to pinpoint the imaginable location, helium said. Mayo recovered different cars nearby, which volition request to travel retired earlier the operation institution pulls retired the presumption wagon and authorities get answers to a 66-year-old mystery, Costello said.

There is simply a roadworthy adjacent wherever the cars were recovered underwater. Authorities haven't said whether they deliberation they mightiness find the remains of immoderate different missing radical successful immoderate of the different vehicles being pulled from the river.