Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two of our series about the disappearance of the Martin family. Robin, do you want to catch everyone up on what we talked about in our previous episode.
Well, this case takes place in Oregon in December of nineteen fifty eight, involving a family called the Martins who live in Portland. The father, Kenneth, is fifty four years old. He has a forty eight year old wife named Barbara, and they have three daughters, fourteen year old Barbie, twelve year old Virginia, and a ten year old Susan. And they also have a twenty eight year old Sunday Donald, who was living across the country in New York because
he's serving in the Navy. Well, one day they left on a road trip in their station wagon to try,
presumably to get a Christmas tree. They were last seen eating at a diner about sixty miles away from their home and were seen leaving, but they'd never returned home and a missing person's investigation would be launched, and it would not be until several months later when a barge caught rappling hook on an object at the bottom of the river and in the Columbia River, and it was only a few days later when the bodies of Virginia and Susan were found floating, so it seemed likely that
this barge had gotten caught on the downstation wagon and managed to jar the bodies of Virginia and Susan loose, but the station wagon itself and the three other missing victims have still never been found. They were unable to determine the exact cause of death for the two girls, but it was presumed to be drowning, but there would be a lot of strange stuff to suggest that foul play may have taken place. They found a bloody gun near the location where the Martin station wagon had last
been seen parked. There was also an abandoned car near there that had been stolen from California and was presumably driven by two ex convicts named Lester Kenneth Price and Roy Light, so it seemed like it was possible that these two men may have crossed passed with the Martins after they left the diner, and then decided to murder them and run their station wagon with their bodies inside,
off the road down a cliff into the river. And there was also speculation about Donald, the surviving son, because he did not seem to care all that much about his family's disappearances. He was reportedly estranged from them because there were allegations that he had been caught with another man and they did not accept him being gay. And the gun that was found with the blood on it had actually been stolen from a department store where Donald worked years ago, and he was accused of stealing it,
but the gun was never recovered. So this just seemed like too much of a coincidence and has led to speculation that perhaps Donald got these two men to murder
his family so he could inherit their estate. And there was another mysterious figure named Wayne who just happened to live in the Cascade Locks area near where the Martins went missing, who had allegedly he was a good friend to Donald and they had allegedly been involved in a relationship, so there's also been speculation that Wayne might have been involved. Donald has since passed away, but apparently never mentioned his family at all to his wife and children until the
last moments of his life. So even though this was initially assumed to be a tragic accident, there are some law enforcement figures who believed that foul play took place and that the Martin family was murdered.
Now, the one fact about this case, which I think is probably indisputable, is that the Martins missing Ford station wagon is submerged in the Columbia River somewhere, and the
bodies of Kenneth, Barbara, and Barbie are still inside. The theory that the drilling barge dislodged one of the vehicle's doors and caused the bodies of Susan and Virginia to come loose and sloped downstream makes complete sense, and I have little doubt that's what happened, especially when you consider that this took place a short distance away from the
cliff where the tire tracks were found. Since that pinpoints an approximate location where the car might be underwater, you might be wondering why no one else has ever been found. But it's not as easy as it looks. The searches have been conducted, but the visibility is poor, the water is over one hundred feet deep, and even a two ton anchor was unable to bring the vehicle to the
surface without coming loose. But of course, the big catch twenty two here is that many people believe the investigation cannot go anywhere until a vehicle is found and there's more conclusive evidence of what happened. While the bodies of Susan and Virginia were recovered, they were heavily decomposed and the medical examiner did not see any noticeable signs of foul play. But we have one witness who is certain that he saw holes which could have been gunshot wounds
in their skulls. Unfortunately, all that remains from the autopsy after all these years is one photograph of Virginia's body, but it's nowhere near clear enough to tell that she has a hole in her head. Since the girl's bodies were subsequently cremated, the only way to conclusively prove foul play took place might be to recover the bodies of the other missing family members.
It's also interesting because you have to remember the barge that was looking around had dropped that anchor when it thought that it caught on the car, which could have easily allowed the bodies to escape the vehicle at that point. Is it possible that the anchor itself could have caused damage to the skulls of the girls, like when it hit the top of the car, or you know, broke through one of the windows or something like that, that if there was injury to the body, that it could
have been caused by the anchor. And when you think about recovering the other bodies, you do have to remember there was a gun linked to Donald through Wayne that we can talk about later. But if that's true, and there's a bloody gun that has damage to the butt of the gun and is loaded, that it's very possible
to subdue five people. There was a gun used or another kind of weapon, but the immediacy and quickness of a gun to threaten and then kill a family seems like the plausible explanation if there was foul play.
I mean, it is possible. I guess that the anchor could have caused these so called holes in the girl's skulls. But it just seems weird that the medical examiner himself would not notice them, but this other witness did. And I don't know how thoroughly they looked into their skulls to see if there were any bullets inside. You would like to think that they would do that. But maybe if they just wrote off Dess as an accident, maybe
they just did not bother. But you're right, like, if they were able to recover the other's free missing bodies and discovered that yes, they had bullet holes, and they have bullets in their bodies, then that would conclusively prove that foul play took place.
I just have a hard time believing that the anchor could have caused the damage that could have been miss drewed as potentially being bullet holes, because anchors are so big and so heavy that if it made contact with the human skull, not to be macab but it would have the force and the weight to smash a skull apart. I don't think it would leave a tiny little thing like a ding that could be this mistaken for a tiny caliber bullet wound.
Yeah, I think there probably would have been more damage to their skulls, and as far as I can tell, no noticeable damage was found either of the girl's skulls. There was one part of the original investigation which was bungled in a completely jaw dropping way, and that's the handling of the bloodstained thirty eight cold command or handgun. As you recall, the weapon was found near the location where the stolen Chevrolet was abandoned. And it could be
linked to Lester Kenneth Price. When the person who found the gun attempted to turn it into the local sheriff's office, it seems like instead of processing it for evidence, they just said, well, finders keepers and let them take it home. And that's not an exaggeration. In nineteen eighty six, the widow of the man who found the gun actually did an interview for a news segment about the case and held the handgup up on camera to show that she
still had it after all these years. Obviously, the dry blood had since been cleaned off and the butt of the gun was repaired, but she did confirm that it was damaged at the time it was originally found, as if it had been used to bludgeon someone. Well, obviously, after all this, there's no way that weapon will ever be admissible as evidence against anyone. But it just blows my mind that was not processed for fingerprints, even if
it had no connection to the Martin case. The presence of dried blood should have been a pretty good indication that the gun was used for some sort of crime. However, at the very least, I'm glad that the serial number was recorded because this allowed Detective Graven to discover that the gun was allegedly stolen by Donald Martin from a department store he was working at three years earlier. If Donald was not involved in his family's disappearance, then that's
a pretty astonishing coincidence. And as far as I'm concerned, this is the strongest indicator that the Martins, just that the Martins did not just simply die in an accident.
It is incredibly bizarre that you would have a weapon retrieved and you would see dried blood, you would see damage to the weapon, and you would see you know that it had been discharged, and you would just say, you know what, keep that, you found it, you keep it. We already wrote down the serial number and that's it. Now again it's nineteen fifty eight. But even then, why else would a weapon be damaged and have blood on it.
You either shot an animal, or you shot a human being and there needs to be an investigation, or you beat a human being with it. So it is very bizarre, and especially just to give it back to this poor man and the wife's like, look, we still have it. We restored it, but we're pretty sure it was using
the commission of a crime very bizarre. And then when you talk about it being tied to Donald, remember in episode one you told me it also is tied to his friend Wayne, who was part of that underground gay lifestyle with Donald and was the one that Donald said could have been in possession of it at the time. And Wayne actually lived much closer to the scene and
was present in the area at the time. So it ropes not just Donald but a former potential lover of his or friend of his that he used to live with Wayne to the murder of his family, which is really really powerful, I think.
So light in Price, is it possible that they could have had a connection to Wayne because didn't they live or one of them was from the area, So is there a potential that they could have been linked up and that maybe Wayne conspired with them at the behest of Donald.
It is possible because, like you said, I think it was light who was originally from the area, and Wayne lived in Cascade Locks, which was very close to where the Martins went missing. So it's a lot more plausible to think that Wayne conspired these guys rather than Donald, because Donald was living all the way in New York and we never found any evidence that Donald was acquainted with Price or Light, but we do know that he was acquainted with Wayne and that Wayne lived in the
same area as at least one of these guys. So you can see how like a conspiracy like this could have taken place.
But let's start at the very beginning. The story is that the Martins left on their road trip in order to travel to Columbia River Gorge to get a Christmas tree and some greens for decoration, which makes sense since this was something that they did around the holidays pretty much every year. However, the thing that raised some eyebrows is when they turned down the invitation for Sunday dinner with friends, as they get the impression that they got
together for this on an almost weekly basis. Kenneth apparently responded with the words quote we had better do as planned, which can be interpreted in any number of ways. This becomes even more unusual when you consider that the Martins were seen by a waitress at the Paradise Snack Bar
in Hood River later that day. I know there was initially some skepticism about the waitress's siding, as some believed she could have served an entirely different family and mistaken them for the Martins, but the fact that the burghers and brides were found among Susan and Virginia's stomach contents after their bodies were recovered seems to corroborate her story. Even if they did not visit the Paradise snack bar, those girls ate somewhere only about two hours before their deaths.
So perhaps the Martins turned down Sunday dinner because they wanted to take the girls out for burgers and brides that night, but why would they travel sixty miles to do so. Earlier that afternoon, the Martins were allegedly seen purchasing a Christmas tree at a property on Larch Mountain Road, though the owner could not be one hundred percent certain
that they were there. But remember, some of the witnesses who reported seeing the Martin station wagon at Trotter's Point thought they saw a Christmas tree in the back of the vehicle. And of course, we also have the credit card receipt showing that Kenneth purchased fuel at a gas station in Cascade Locks, which is en route from Larch
Mountain Road to Hood River. Since purchasing a tree seemed to be the main purpose of the Martin's trip that day what compelled them to travel the Hood River instead of returning to Portland. It was also around dusk when they were seen leaving the Paradise snack Bar, which many people found unusual since Kenneth hated driving in the dark and it would take him over an hour to get home from there. Of course, if Kenneth was not adept at driving at night, then this could provide a potential
explanation for him accidentally driving into the river. But the problem is that the waitress said that the Martins were heading west when they left. Well, the tire tracks found next to the cliff in the Dalls were over twenty miles east in the opposite direction. If those tracks belonged to the station wagon, then it's harder to believe that the Martins drove into the river by accident, since there's no logical reason for them to have been there in
the first place. So, as you're get to imagine, there's been much speculation that the Martins had ulterior motives for taking that trip to Hood River County.
To me, when you think about the route that they took, I don't think they drove sixty miles for Hamburgers and French fries. But I wouldn't be surprised if they drove sixty miles to do their Christmas decorating supply shopping. You think about like Christmas vacation. They're on a trek to go get that, you know, that Christmas tree they want. And so I could see a family saying this is
a tradition we do. He dresses a Santa for God's sake, So like Christmas is a big deal to them, I could see them saying, Hey, I want to go to that cute little Christmas shop over in this town, and I really want to get our a tree from this Christmas tree farm and making this whole plotted day out of it. Yes, Kenneth didn't like driving a night, but that doesn't mean he can't if his family had this day planned out. He works, they go to school. There's very few days that you can take your family on
a whole day trip to go get Christmas goodies. I could see that being the plan. I also think that you have to reflect back on that white car being pulled up next to the station wagon at some point, and then those two men that abandoned the white car and could have potentially hindered the family incapacitated, the family gotten into the station wagon, turned in the wrong direction, and gone to where they wanted to dispose of this vehicle and hitched a ride somewhere else with a friend
or you know, with somebody else at the time. And I think that creates a very plausible situation of why the car was in the wrong direction, why it was far away from that spot it had been with the white car and the two unknown men. And I'm very interested to know is it possible if it could have been Wayne with one of those men, or are we pretty confident that it's those two ex convicts that were the ones stopped with the white car.
Well, there haven't been any confirmed sightings of Wayne anywhere near the Martin family, Like, we don't even know if they knew each other. It does seem applausible that the two men would be Price and Light, because we know that Price stole the car from a friend of his in California and Light was his criminal associate, and they were seen together a lot in that area over the
course in the next few days. But of course, like you said, it's possible that Wayne could have orchestrated the whole thing and got these two men to commit murder on his behalf. Well. One theory which was pushed around and is addressed in Echoes of Distant Water is the possibility that the Martin's oldest daughter, Barbie, had become pregnant and the family took the trip to Hood River County
so that Kenneth could confront the child's biological father. While there is no real evidence to support this theory, Barbie did make an unexplained trip to see a doctor in Vancouver, Washington, a few months before her disappearance, even though the family had a regular doctor in Portland, which might suggest something secretive on their part, and since Barbie's body has never been found, it could not be confirmed if she was
pregnant at that time. While no documentation could be found in which Detective Graven specifically wrote about this pregnancy theory, there was an entry in his notebook dated June the second, nineteen fifty nine, in which he wrote quote with Donald Martin eliminated had to be a friend whom Ken Martin had found out about and was going to expose. Therefore had to be a married man or one going to
be married end quote. So does this imply that Graven had changed his mind on his initial suspicions about Donald and now had a different theory. That's not quite clear, but I don't think Graven ever wavered from the idea that Kenneth took the lengthy trip because he was planning
to meet someone, but this person ultimately murdered the entire family. However, the biggest issue I've had with the idea that Kenneth had a secret meetup about a serious topic is that I don't understand why he would bring all three of his daughters along if it involved something sensitive like Barbie becoming pregnant. You'd think that he would want to shield
Susan and Virginia from the situation. I guess it's possible that their annual trip to pick up a Christmas tree was just a cover story, and Kenneth took his kids out for burgers and fries at the Paradise Snack Bar in order to keep them happy and justify the lengthy trip the Hood River County. But I don't know. It just seems more practical for the Martins to leave their daughters at home and get someone else to watch over them, rather than involve them in something like this.
I don't think that there would be this desire for their daughter to even be exposed to the man who impregnated her. She's what fourteen?
Is that right? Yeah, that's correct.
Okay, so you're talking about nineteen fifty eight, you're talking about a fourteen year old child who is pregnant, and regardless of who the father is. I just don't see them one keeping the baby, especially if it's secretive. I don't see them bringing that fourteen year old along to
confront the biological father of this baby. I think the idea would be, if anybody was going to go, it'd be Kenneth to directly confront this person and let them know, you stay away from my daughter, you stay away from my family. My daughter's going through enough. We're going to send her away to have the baby. We're going to terminate the baby, whatever the situation was, and then that would be wrapped up. Why would you expose your pregnant
fourteen year old if that even was a reality. Why would you expose your twelve and ten year old who don't need to know about sex and their sister being pregnant and even the wife unless there was going to be some desire to raise the child as their own
or something. I don't even know that at nineteen fifty eight you would take your wife, because at the time, I don't know that women had as much say or kind of I don't know, like loudness to go sit there and confront a man who impregnated your fourteen year old daughter. I feel like you would be comforting your daughter while your husband went and did the big front with the man who got her pregnant. I don't know, it's just none of that seems to make any sense.
I mean, I could see them having an ulterior motive to going to this particular location, but just the setup, because how it happened is that it just starts off as a routine day where it's like, hey, kids, let's go get a Christmas tree, let's get some Christmas decorations, let's have burger and fries. Now, let's go confront Barnie's baby daddy. Like that's just not something you would do with your twelve year old and your ten year old.
No, and imagine too, if you're trying to hide that your daughter's pregnant, your ten and twelve year old are ten and twelve year old's like they talk, so you would most likely back then you would send your daughter away. You would make sure like she needs to go to camp for six months, and we don't talk about it anymore.
You know.
If he was that upset that he's going to go confront the father, I just don't see that you would even have it as a family conversation. It would be very hush hush. It would be very embarrassing, it would be very heartbreaking, and your ten and twelve year old don't need to be any part of that.
Why would anybody go but Kenneth, I just don't see a situation where he would think that it would be the right move to bring along all of his daughters and his wife. It just doesn't seem like that just doesn't compute for me. Seems like he was obviously meeting up with somebody, or it seems like the probability is high, But I don't think that it would be a potential
father for Barbie's maybe baby or alleged baby. Like it does seem odd that you went to this doctor's appointment and I don't know what was going on there, but I just don't think that you take the whole family on a car ride for this big trip as like subterfuge that you're going to get a Christmas tree or maybe that's your secondary motivation, and then you go and confront this boy like in front of your entire family.
It just seems really strange, And of course we can't overlook the multiple eyewitness sightings of the station wagon parked by the highway near Trotter's Point, which is nearly halfway between Hood River and Cascade Locks. Some of the witnesses were called seeing either two men standing outside the stationwagan
or a second car park nearby. So perhaps after leaving the restaurant, the Martins traveled west for a secret meet up there, or someone followed them and forced them to pull over, but then something happened which led to the station wagon traveling nearly thirty miles east to the Dolls and being driven off the Rocky Bluff into the river
with the entire family inside. This theory does make sense when you consider the two x cohns Lester Kenneth Price and Roy Light were seen at the Paradise Snack Bar around the exact same time the Martins were there, and the Chevrolet which Price had stolen from California was abandoned at Trotter's Point, in very close proximity to where the station wagon had been seen, and of course, Price and Light spent December seventh to tenth staying in Dollsport, which
is directly across the river from the cliff where the tire tracks were found. The two cons may have followed the Martins to Trotter's Point and climbed into the station wagon to force them to drive to the dolls at Gunpoint, which would explain why they abandoned the Chevy at that spot.
One theory presented and Echoes of Distant Water is that one of the men managed to hide inside the station wagon before the Martins left the restaurant, and after the family climbed in and drove away, he forced them to pull over at Trotter's Point, where he was joined by his partner. Honestly, if this is how events actually played out, I'd be inclined to think the crime was some sort of robbery gone wrong, and that the Martins were targeted
when the con saw them at the restaurant. Otherwise, why would these two particular guys decide to murder an entire family.
I think it's possible that they could have hidden in the car. But I also think that when they see this family out at a restaurant, it's four women, four girls for females, and dad, and these are young girls who probably couldn't have fought back very much. And these are two ex cons watching them. So you have the four girls. You also have the fact that who knows if dad pulled out like a lot of cash when he's paying for and they see that and it is a robbery or is it something that's maybe power or
sexually motivated. If they were not hiding in the vehicle, I think it's also very possible that they, you know, were riding on the on Kenneth's rear end. They're flashing their lights, they're honking at him to pull over. They could have rear ended him, and or they could have used some kind of ruse like a little like police light or something on top of their car, because back then some police horses had the little one light that you popped on top of your hood and you know,
could be spinning. And so I think there's a lot of ways you could have gotten Kenneth to pull the car over. And then, like you said, the location of these men and where they were staying perfectly lines up. Once I've sexually assaulted the family, once I've killed the family, once I've beaten them, whatever it is, then I drive the vehicle back towards where we live, drive it off a cliff, and we're able to either walk or easily hitchhike back to where we were staying.
As far as I can tell, Price and Light were never questioned by police about the Martins. What's interesting is that while Price's name was mentioned during the original news coverage, mostly due to the stolen Chevy being linked to him, there was no mention of Light. If you search Price's name on newspapers dot Com, you'll find quite a few articles about various criminal activities he was involved in he
was involved with over the years. In fact, in nineteen sixty seven, Price made the news after he was arrested for counterfeiting, and he actually said that since he had literally spent half of his life behind bars by that point, he actually preferred being in prison. But there's virtually no information out there about Light, though a photograph of him could be found in Detective Graven's original case file. However,
during his research, JB. Fisher uncovered a mug shot of a criminal named Richard Allen Hunt and became convinced he was Roy Light. On March twenty fourth, nineteen fifty nine, Hunt was pulled over outside the town of Harrisburg, Oregon, by the local police chief for having improper license plates on his car, but Hunt proceeded to pull out a gun and abduct them, and drove about nine miles before
he let the chief go. This soon led to a police chase in which Hunt crashed his car outside the town of Brownsville, but he proceeded to shoot and wound their local police chief and managed to escape the scene on foot. A massive man hunt would take place, and Hunt even spent a week on the FBI's ten most Wanted Fugitives list before he was captured in Wyoming on June the second. After doing a stint in prison, Hunt
was released in nineteen sixty eight. Now Echoes of Distant Water features photos of both Richard Allen Hunt and Roy lt and I gotta tell you, the similarities are so striking that unless those guys were long lost identical twins, I'm pretty certain they're the same person. When he was originally pulled over, Hunt was wanted on a federal warrant for interstate transportation of a stolen car, which probably explains why he decided to kidnap a police chief at gunpoint
for a seemingly routine traffic violation. But this was only three months removed from the Martin family's disappearance, and if Hunt was involved in that, I can see why he would have gone to extreme lengths to avoid the police. However, by the time Hunt was captured, I don't think anyone had put two and two together and connected him to the Martin case, so he was probably never questioned about it.
So we believe Light and Hunt could be the same person, and he has that same behavior where he's easily able to kidnap flea run. I mean, he has this kind of personality where he is going to avoid law enforcement at all costs, but has no qualms pulling a gun on the police chief, kidnapping him, escorting him to a
new location. I mean, that's basically what could have happened to the Martin family is that you saw them, you wanted to get your way however financially, power sex wise, and when you apprehend them, it's no sweat off your back to then transport them and try to dispose of their body. That's nearly what Hunt did with the.
Police chief pretty much. Yeah, And I could see him overreacting like that if he did something in the Martin family. And even though he was being pulled over for a routine traffic stop, he might be thinking, oh my god, they're here to question me about the Martins. I better kidnap this guy at gunpoint and get out of here. These two guys, because of their extensive criminal activity, definitely seemed like people who would have been capable of murdering an entire family.
And he was getting pulled over for a stolen car, correct, which is what that white car was as well. I was stolen by likely those two ex.
Cons exactly like these guys were pretty much career criminals.
Honestly, since neither Price or light Slash Hunt seemed to have any discernible connection to the Martins, I would ordinarily be inclined to think that the family was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and were preyed
upon by a pair of criminals. Well, once again, the discovery of the thirty eight cool commit under handgun, which can be linked to Donald Martin is too much of a coincidence to ignore, and the fact that Donald claimed his friend Wayne was the person who actually sotle the gun, and Wayne just happened to be living in Cascade Locks at that time is just one coincidence too many as far as I'm concerned. While we know that Detective Graven had suspicions about Donald, and I can definitely see why
Donald had a strained relationship with his family. He was the sole beneficiary of their estate, and he seemed to have very little interest in searching for them while they were missing, or mourning his two sisters once they were found dead. But of course, the issue with implicating Donald is that he was living three thousand miles away in
New York at the time. I'm not exactly sure what Donald's alibi was on the day his family went missing, but even back in nineteen fifty eight, I'm sure it would have been difficult for him to travel from New York to Oregon and back again without leaving some sort of paper trail. After all, he was enlisted in the Navy,
absences would have been noted. The idea has been put forward that Donald could have hired Price in light to get rid of his family, But how would he have organized this from the other side of the country, as both these men operated on the West coast. But it's definitely tempting to think that Donald's enigmatic friend Wayne might have been involved. Wayne's last name has never been released publicly,
but JB. Fisher claims that he found him on Facebook and that he was still alive at the time Echoes of Distant Water was published, And of course Wayne shared his own insights about the case when he came forward in two thousand and eight to do an interview. Even after Donald moved away, Wayne claimed, but he still kept in touch with the Martin family and the last time he saw them was that a barbecue during the summer of nineteen fifty eight before he moved to Cascade Locks.
It's interesting how Detective Graven's old notes mentioned Wayne's name alongside the phrase quote put grease on the spot you don't want chickens to roost. Raven also wrote quote had to be a friend whom Ken Martin had found out about and was going to expose. Therefore had to be a married man or one going to be married. Well.
Wayne did end up getting married in March of nineteen fifty nine, and as politically incorrect as this might sound today, at one point, Graven none too subtlely scrawled out the words quote Wayne Homo. Well, that would definitely qualify as a secret that a newly married man wouldn't want exposed, especially in the nineteen fifties.
Oh.
Absolutely. And when you think about this idea that Wayne says he was still in touch with the family, like how and why would he be so close to the family still if Donald wasn't a part of it, Like to me, you were his roommate and you worked with him. But Donald had got into trouble, the family had dissolved because of some inappropriate relationship, especially if it had been Wayne that Kenneth had caught him with in their own home. I just don't know why Wayne would continue to be
part of the family. That sounds a little bit fishy. In Wayne even admitted I was exposed to the gay lifestyle, that underground lifestyle back in the fifties, right where it was very hush hush, where men would go on the down low and they would be with a woman. But then they would also have an exposure to this other world.
And so it sounds like Wayne and Donald were heavily involved in that, if not involved together, And so it's really surprising to me that Donald would go off and be almost disowned by his family or disown them, and Wayne still has this great relationship the summer of nineteen fifty eight with the family. It just seems a little bizarre.
Yeah, And I think those are only his words. I don't know if there were any independent eyewitnesses who could say I saw Wayne at a family barbecue with the Martins during the summer of nineteen fifty eight, Because you're right, if he had been the one who was having an affair with Donald all those years earlier, then I'm sure the Martin family wouldn't want anything to do with him, actually, when you consider that they had sent Donald on the other side of the country into the Navy to try
to quote unquote straighten him up. So I know that the thing that Graven seems to be implying is that perhaps Ken or someone else from the family knew some incriminating information about Wayne and was going to expose that he was a closet a gay man and maybe ruin
his impending marriage. But it makes you wonder, why would Kenneth be inclined to do that, Like, why would he just go out of his way to try to ruin this guy's life when he's no longer a factor in the family's life at all, because he's no longer anywhere near Donald.
And if there's no independent eyewitnesses to say that there was indeed this closeness between Wayne and the family, it seems odd if he was responsible that he would want to kind of insert himself like that. You'd think that he would want to distance himself from the family and be like, well, I haven't spoken to them in years, Like what would be my motivation? If they were going to out me, they would have done so a long time ago type of.
A thing, exactly. So Wayne kind of seems a bit of an odd duck here. It's almost like so many years had passed that he's thinking, I can say whatever I want and I don't care how suspicious it makes me look. So during his two thousand and eight interview,
Wayne definitely implied that Donald was gay. He even went so far as to say that Donald introduced him to the quote unquote gay lifestyle, though it doesn't look like he explicitly said that he and Donald were lovers but I'd say that's certainly a good possibility, as they were both sharing a basement apartment and working at Meyer and
Frank together in nineteen fifty five. As you might recall, Wayne shared a story about Donald being caught in the act with another man by his parents, but since no one seems to know who this man was, Wayne may have been referring to himself. When Donald was caught stealing items from Meyer and Frank, he tried to blame it on the stress of his family finding out he was
gay and not reacting well to it. I get the impression that this is why his parents sent him off to the other side of the country to attend a religious college, as they helped joining a ministry might set Donald straight, though he ultimately decided to enlist in the
Navy instead. While Donald and Wayne both went on to get married and start families, homosexuality and bisexuality was still an incredibly taboo subject back then, so either or both of them might have just done this for appearance's sake. If Wayne was involved in the Martin family's murders, then perhaps the crime was motivated by Kenneth threatening to expose his big secret, which would explain why he traveled all
the way to Hood River County. In fact, if you put more stock into the pregnancy theory, then it's possible this whole thing had nothing to do with Donald. Kenneth may have wanted to confront Wayne because he was the father of his fourteen year old daughter's unborn child, which
also would have been pretty scandalous. To cover this up, Wayne hired Price and Light to take care of the problem, and even supplied them with the gun he stole from the Department story years earlier to use as the murder weapon. One of the strangest clues in this case is the eyewitness sighting of the black tax parked outside the Martin
residence on the morning of December the eighth. This was after the Martins were last seen, but before they were officially reported missing, and the taxi was apparently there for about an hour. It seems like due to a miscommunication, this sighting was not reported to the authorities for months, by which point it was more difficult to do a
follow up investigation with the local cab companies. Well. In June of nineteen fifty nine, when Donald finally traveled to Portland and visited the house, he claimed that income tax papers, a bank ledger book, and other financial documents belonging to his father were no longer inside his desk and had gone missing. If Donald is telling the truth that, I'm not sure what to make of this. Did the people who were responsible for the Martins disappearance strive all the
way to Portland to search their house? If so, what were they looking for. Did Kenneth have potentially incriminating evidence against someone in Hood River County? Once again, if Kenneth had traveled there for a meeting because he dirt on someone, I just don't understand why he would bring his family along.
He wouldn't. This is so ridiculous. I think when you look at the age of his kids. This isn't like we've got our adult kids with us and we're all going as a family front to confront this individual on either a pregnancy or an underground gay relationship, whatever it might be. It just seems not plausible. I also wonder
how much Donald knew his father. He had been pretty estranged from them, where basically it seems like his parents were trying to, you know, reverse wire him and get him to be straight by sending him to this Christian College, sending him into the military, these kinds of things, so Donald doesn't have a relationship with them. How often was he at the home and exposed to his dad's income
tax papers, bank ledger book, and financial documents. Yes, at one point his dad might have kept them in his desk, But would Donald really have the relationship with his dad to say, I know that those were there, I know exactly where he kept them and all of this. Maybe Kenneth had changed his location of those things. Maybe Kenneth had them in the car with him, like his bank
ledger or something like that. So I'm wondering how much Donald can really comment on that when he doesn't have even the willingness to come pick up his sister's ashes, he really knows all of his dad's financial record placement as well.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I don't know how Donald, because of his relationship, would have much knowledge of what kind of items that his father was keeping inside his desks. So it is kind of strange that he was able to point out specific items that he noticed were missing. But at the same time, I still wonder about the appearance of the black taxi at the
house and how it fits into things. I mean, I guess it could be a red herring that maybe it parked in the neighborhood because it was picking up someone else there and has nothing to do with the case. But it makes me wonder why someone would make a special trip to Portland after the family were already presumably dead, and what they thought they were going to find in the residence.
And there for an hour. That's a really long time, even if you were picking somebody else up, like who what taxi drivers like, I'll sit here for an hour and wait for you, you know, Like there had to be something going on in the neighborhood.
As for Donald himself, I'm really not sure what to make of him. If he was the one who orchestrated his family's murders, I suppose he could have enlisted Wayne's help to find someone to carry out the crime while
Donald remained to New York. It would be one thing if the family went missing in Portland, but they disappeared after traveling to a location sixty miles away, and I'm not sure how Donald could have known that they would be there on that particular day, unless he's somehow arranged for Wayne to lure them But if Donald is innocent, it's possible that because of his strained relationship with his family, he was legitimately indifferent to them going missing, which would
explain is lack attitude towards the whole situation and unwillingness to travel to Oregon to assist with the search efforts. I guess Donald's involvement would all depend on motive. Yes, he stood to be the sole beneficiary of the family's estate, but it wasn't a particularly large amount. Even if he was on bad terms with his parents, it's still pretty extreme for him to murder all of his younger sisters.
It's alleged that the main reason Donald became a strange from his family and moved to the East Coast was because they found out that he was gay, But in spite of this, he still wound up marrying a woman and starting his own family. You'd almost think that with his family no longer hanging over him, Donald would have been less motivated to stay in the closet. But again, this was the nineteen fifties, and for all we know, perhaps Donald was actually bisexual. It's obvious the detective Graven
suspected Donald of being involved. Who was unable to build up a case against him, and faced resistance from other members of law enforcement who did not want to take this end me Further, I'm not so sure this was
an intentional cover up to protect the killers. I think it just stems from the fact that Lester, Kenneth Price, and Roy Light had connections to Clifford Slim Bennett and certain people feared that a thorough investigation might cause a snowball effect, which could open up a major count of worms and expose corruption for other criminal activities in the area.
So they felt it was in their best interest for this part of the investigation to be shut down, even if it meant that a murdered family would not receive justice.
I think you can look at law enforcement in two lenses here, like I think as in episode one, I think you could have police officers who truly were convicted that this is an accident. Right, this is so silly. It's very clear that this family drove off the cliff. We have the evidence, you have the tire marks, you have the paint. Guys, this is an accident. They went
off the cliff. They're not from here. That happens, right, This is a dangerous curve, whatever the event might be, and we need people to shut their mouth about this case. So I think there could be a non malicious approach
to it, saying I'm confident it's an accident. So at that point, it's now my prerogative to shut down any other conversation because if it continues to have these conspiracy theories going around it, it is possible that as people peel those layers back, that they expose us in a criminal ring that has nothing to do with this case. So I could see both those things happening simultaneously.
So if you want my theory, I think it does make logical sense that Price and Light were the ones who murdered the Martins and ran their station wagon off the cliff into the Columbia River, and sadly, the bodies of Kenneth, Barbara, and Barbie are still inside the submerged vehicle today. I'm really not sure if Donald or Wayne were involved in what happened, but the discovery of the stolen gun from Meyern Frank is such a huge red flag that I believe one or both of them has
to be connected to this. If that GUD had been properly processed, is evidence back in nineteen fifty eight. Who knows where the investigation might have led, But overall, I can't help but think there's still a big piece of the puzzle missing here. But I'm not sure we'll ever receive full answers until the missing station wagon and the
bodies of the remaining victims can be found. After all this time, I'm not sure anyone will be prosecuted for this crime, but it would be nice to bring Kenneth, Barbara, and Barbie home and lay them to rest for good. I know that over sixty five years have passed, but if you happen to have any information on the unsolved disappearance of the Martin family, please contact the appropriate authorities. Jules Ashley, any final thoughts in this case?
The eeriness of this case and the tragedy of this case that you had this family of five individuals most likely getting in the car to go Christmas shopping and to explore and to get their Christmas tree. I mean, it's like the quintessential best day ever with your family and all the sudd and Kenne doesn't show up to work and the girls don't show up to school, and ultimately we find out that there's tire tracks and paint evidence that show that car went over the side of
this cliff and is somewhere submerged in the water. Later, two of those babies are able to be released from that car somehow, probably because of that anchor, and their bodies are discovered, and literally there's just no sense of understanding or justice for these five individuals. Three are still missing, two were cremated. Their brother didn't even pick them up. I mean, it's almost as if their lives just disappeared and then no one thought twice about it. So it's
one of those cases that is haunting. It's like they were there one day doing the most pure iconic thing you do in December, and then the next moment they're gone. To me, it seems like a crime of opportunity. These two ex convicts seem like the most likely candidates for being someone who hurt them. And you see these four girls and dad right the mom, three daughters and dad
out to dinner. It's possible Dad had a lot of cash on him to get Christmas decorations or the Christmas tree or things like that, and so either a robbery or some power sexual motivation could have spurred these two men to follow the family, to get them to pull over, and then to hurt them, take the car, abandon it by pushing it off that cliff, and then walking to
their residents. That seems like the most likely scenario. What throws it for a loop is that gun that's tied to Wayne and or Donald, that has very clear proof that it was used in something malicious. Blood damage to the gun, and the way that it was loaded and or used. That's the only thing that has me had with a big question mark of why and how did that gun get there? But overall, again, like I said,
it's one of those cases that you're looking at. This was nineteen fifty eight and we only have two of the five individuals recovered. The car is not recovered, and at the end of the day, none of them were really honored and remembered in the way they should have been. Donald didn't even tell his family, his babies, and his grandchildren that they existed. That's how bizarre this case is so heartbreaking. Is it likely that after sixty five years
we're going to get information. Probably not, But man, what a disturbing and sad case.
Yeah, this case is truly truly one of the worst that I think we've heard, just because there's five members of this family and to know that we've only recovered two of them, that three of them are likely under the water, and at this point it's been so many years. Unless there's some advance in technology which makes it easier to go down one hundred feet in this murky water and potentially recover the bodies, then I think we'll get more answers because if it was gunshot that had killed
the girls, Susan and Virginia, we don't know. All we know is that a tech said that there was holes in the skull which could have been gunshot wounds, but it wasn't mentioned by the medical examiner. And as far as what happened here, I agree with Ashley. I think that the most likely scenario is that Light and Hunt are responsible and that it was opportunistic, whether the motivation was sexual or financial or mixed motivation, because there was
two perpetrators the gun. The gun is just the one thing I think that the whole Wayne Donald angle, there's a lot there. It's hard to ignore it because of the presence of the gun. I think even though the gun, they didn't recover it and return it to the department store which Donald supposedly had stolen it from, or a sporting goods store that they didn't return it that I think it is possible that even though Kenneth was super honest, they'd paid for these items, So anything that he recovered
after the fact, technically they would have purchased. So maybe he found the gun and maybe it was something that he kept in the car and it was something that opportunistically Light or Price had used against them. That's the only way I can think that the gun could be factored in other than Donald and Orwayne being involved in a murder conspiracy with Lightham Price.
Yeah, it is such a strange case that kind of threw me for a loop when I started researching it just over five years ago, because, like I mentioned earlier, I read about this on the Charlie Project about ten years ago. Read there some reason there didn't seem too
much there. It just seemed to be a standard case of a family that was driving accidentally crashed their vehicle into a body of water, and even though only two of the victims' bodies were recovered, it seemed obvious to me that the station wagon and the three missing victims were still down there somewhere, and it was probably nothing
more than a tragic accident. But then I started reading about it on Wikipedia many years later in twenty nineteen, and reading new newspaper articles, and I decided to check out this book, Echoes of Distant Water. I just made me look at the case in a different light, because until then I had no idea about the sighting of the two men who were ex cons, I had no idea about the discovery of the gun, and it made
me totally change my mind on it. I now believe that the family were the victims of foul play, but it's so hard to figure out how these events could have carried out. I do believe that Price and Light followed the family out away from the diner, had them pull over, and then proceeded to kill them and then run their station wagon with their bodies inside, off the cliff, which was in the opposite direction of where the family
was heading. But was it just a random crime? Did these two cons happen across by the family by pure chance, or was this premeditated where Donald and Wayne or both of them involved. If it wasn't for the discovery of the gun, then I would have no reason to believe either of them wouldn't be involved. I just assumed that
this was just some sort of rob gone wrong. But the fact that it was allegedly stolen by Donald all those years earlier, and that Wayne could have had it is just too much of a coincidence, unless, like Jules said, it's an explanation that Kenneth found the gun years after the fact and just kept it in the car and these criminals decided to be opportunists and use it in the commission of the murder. It's just too hard to overlook that this gun would have a connection to the
surviving member of the Martin family. But again, because Donald was living in New York and it would have been so hard for him to track his family's movements back in nineteen fifty eight, I have no idea how he would have hired these two men to kill his family. And it does seem a bit more plausible that it could have been Wayne because he was living in the area,
But again, what motive. We have always had his speculation about Wayne possibly being gay or possibly being blackmailed because he was the father of Barbie's unborn child, even though
it was never conclusively proven that she was even pregnant. So, like I said, there are some pieces of the puzzle missing here, and after all these years, I don't know if we'll ever learn the full truth about what happened, but at the very least I do hope at some point that maybe the missing station wagon and the three missing victims can be recovered and finally laid to rest.
Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
Yes. The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars tier Tier two. We also offer monthly bonus episodes in which I talk about cases which are not featured on the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon, and if you join our highest tier tier free the
ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries, where you can download an audio file and then moot up the original unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very first episode that I did a commentary track over was
the episode featuring this case. So if you want to download a commentary track in which I make more smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join Tier three.
So I want to let you know a little bit about the Jeweles and n Ashy patreons. So there's early ad free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our Pathwent Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so they're not very mini, but they're just too short to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those.
So we hope you'll check out those patreons. We'll link them in the show notes.
So I want to thank you all for listening, and any chance you have to share us on social media with a friend or d rate and review is greatly appreciated. You can email us at The Pathwentchili at gmail dot com. You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwin. So until next time, be sure to bundle up because cold trails and chili past call for warm clothing.
Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy