Girls found abandoned in 1989 ID’d as missing daughters of slain woman, AZ cops say
.jpeg "Two girls found abandoned in 1989 have been identified as the daughters of a woman found dead in rural Arizona, deputies said.")
A man walking in a California park heard children’s cries coming from inside the women’s restroom in December 1989.
He asked a woman to check inside the Oxnard bathroom, where she found two “girls laying on the wet floor with no adult nearby,” the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office said in a Sept. 22 Facebook post.
For decades, the girls had no idea what led to that day.
But now, thanks to DNA testing, the women have some inkling of their past: They’ve been identified as the daughters of a woman found dead in rural Arizona just days before they were found abandoned in 1989, deputies said.
Body found, posing decades-long mystery
On Dec. 12, 1989, a woman’s body was found on a rural road in Mohave County, about 50 miles south from Las Vegas, the sheriff’s office said.
The woman, who was nude and had been stabbed multiple times, looked to have been killed where she was left in the desert, according to deputies.
Despite efforts to identify the woman, including entering her DNA profile into the Combined DNA Index System, deputies said her name remained a mystery.
Fingerprints lead to ID
In 2022, detectives took a different approach to try and bring closure to the woman’s case.
Investigators retrieved the women’s fingerprints from her case file and submitted them to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, deputies said.
NamUs, a “national repository for missing, unidentified, and unclaimed persons cases,” serves as a resource for “law enforcement, medical examiners, coroners, and investigating professionals,” according to the program’s website.
The fingerprints were found to be a match to Maria Ortiz, who was arrested by the Kern County Sheriff’s Office after being accused of shoplifting in June 1989, deputies said.
By looking through records from the sheriff’s office and Bakersfield Police Department, deputies said they learned Ortiz listed a Bakersfield address, “along with the name of two friends.”
The sheriff’s office said investigators tried to find the two friends and eventually found one who lived in Tennessee.
Investigators spoke with the woman over the phone, asking her if she knew anyone named Maria Ortiz, who vanished in 1989, officials said.
The woman told investigators she didn’t know of anyone by that name but did have a cousin, Marina Ramos, who went missing that same year, deputies said.
The woman’s description of Ramos matched that of the woman found dead in the desert, according to deputies.
Later, deputies said, they learned Ramos also went by the name Maria Ortiz.
In February 2023, investigators confirmed the woman’s identity as Ramos after a family member provided a DNA sample for testing, the sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post.
Ramos, 28, was last seen in Bakersfield, California, with her 2-month-old and 14-month-old daughters in August 1989, deputies said.
They were with a man “known only as ‘Fernando,’” deputies said.
“The four were seen driving away in his black SUV, headed for Ontario, California, where ‘Fernando’ lived,” deputies said.
Though Ramos was identified, the whereabouts of her two children remained unknown.
“The family would like to know what happened to those two little girls,” Lori Miller, an investigator with the sheriff’s office, told The Arizona Republic in 2023. “The hope is that they were just raised by somebody else, that they are still alive and thriving somewhere.”
Search for missing daughters
Since Ramos’ identification, the sheriff’s office said investigators have been pushing to find her missing daughters.
Additionally, Ramos’ family members provided DNA samples to be uploaded into CODIS, as well as submitted DNA via commercial kits, deputies said.
Then, in August, investigators found a woman whose DNA matched the Ramos’ family DNA, deputies said.
A forensic genetic genealogist determined there was a likely chance this woman was one of the missing daughters, deputies said.
During a phone call with the woman, she told investigators she and her sister were abandoned in an Oxnard park in December 1989, deputies said.
Investigators also spoke with the woman’s sister, who confirmed the story, deputies said.
The sister also had saved newspaper clippings from 1989 about their abandonment.
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The newspaper clippings shared by deputies talk of two young girls, nicknamed Susie and Connie, found alone in the bathroom and how Ventura County officials were searching for their parents.
The search yielded no answers, and the girls were placed in foster care “for a significant amount of time,” the sheriff’s office said.
Eventually, though, a Ventura County couple adopted the girls, who “were raised together in a loving home,” deputies said.
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Investigators got DNA samples from the sisters, which were tested with the DNA samples from the Ramos family, confirming the women were Ramos’ daughters: Elizabeth and Jasmin Ramos, according to deputies.
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Mystery lingers
“While we are excited to announce that one part of this 36-year-old mystery has been solved, the search for the suspects involved in the homicide of Marina Ramos continues,” deputies said.
At the time the girls were left in the Oxnard bathroom, a witness reported seeing “a woman and two men with the children at the park.”
The witness told police the woman was holding the smaller child in a yellow blanket, while one of the men carried the older child, deputies said.
Anyone with information is asked to contact deputies at 928-753-0753, ext. 4408.
This story was originally published September 23, 2025 at 11:34 AM with the headline "Girls found abandoned in 1989 ID’d as missing daughters of slain woman, AZ cops say."
