Two California sisters had been reported missing way back in 1989. Authorities searched for them for years, but to no avail. Now, thanks to a Special Investigations Unit that revives cold cases, a wild new development just unfolded to everyone’s surprise— including theirs.
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It all started 36 years ago when sisters Jasmin and Elizabeth Ramos were reported missing, according to NBC News. Jasmin was two months old and Elizabeth was 14 months old when their mother, Marina Ramos of Bakersfield, was found naked and dead with multiple stab wounds five hours east in a Mohave County, Arizona, desert in December 1989, according to the local sheriff’s office.
It was two days later in Oxnard, California, when, “A witness walking in the area heard children crying in the women’s restroom,” the sheriff’s office said. That’s when the young girls were found abandoned in a park bathroom. “He asked a woman to check the bathroom, and she found the girls laying on the wet floor with no adult nearby.” When Ramos died, she went unidentified for decades, there were no suspects leads, and her daughters were considered missing… until now.
Over three decades later, the sisters were not only found safe and sound, but they had no idea they had been considered missing this whole time.
The amazing discovery started after the sheriff’s office created the Special Investigations Unit who revives cold cases in 2019. Three years later, fingerprints from Ramos’ body matched those on file belonging to a woman named Maria Ortiz, who had been arrested for shoplifting in June 1989. Authorities discovered Ramos was using Maria Ortiz as an alias after a Bakersfield’s address for Ortiz led investigators to a roommate who revealed her cousin, Marina Ramos, had been missing.
That’s when police connected the dots.
Jasmin and Elizabeth had been placed in Child Protective Services and given their names when they were “adopted by a couple in Ventura County and were raised together in a loving home.”
KBTX 3 reported the sisters knew they had been abandoned, and kept newspaper clippings from years ago, but was unaware their biological mother had been killed. They now go by by Tina and Melissa.
Now that one cold case has been solved, investigators are hoping they will find out what happened to their mother. The outlet says a witness in the area in 1989 told cops that she saw a woman and two men with the children at the park. They were seen driving a black mini pickup truck. The investigation is ongoing.
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