Family Reacts After Two Missing Girls Found Alive After 36 Years

The aunt of two women discovered alive nearly 36 years after they went missing says she is eager to reunite with her nieces in person.

“I really want to meet them, hug them, hold them,” Margarita Maldonado told Phoenix news station ABC15.

Maldonado’s sister, Marina Ramos, was killed in Mohave County, Arizona, in 1989. Ramos’s two infant daughters were later found abandoned and unidentified in a park in Oxnard, California, before being adopted by another family.

The Context

Investigators reported that a breakthrough occurred last month following renewed efforts to solve the decades-old homicide and missing children case. The investigation into Ramos’s death is ongoing.

What To Know

Ramos’s body was discovered on December 12, 1989. She had been stabbed multiple times and left nude on Old Temple Bar Road in Mohave County, roughly 50 miles south of Las Vegas. It would take decades before she was properly identified.

In 2022, Mohave County investigators matched fingerprints from the unidentified woman to a shoplifting arrest in Bakersfield, California, under the name “Maria Ortiz,” an alias Ramos had used.

Officials said the last time Ramos was seen, she was with her daughters, 2-month-old Jasmin and 14-month-old Elizabeth.

Two days after Ramos’s body was found, a passerby in Oxnard heard crying inside a park restroom. He asked a woman to investigate, and she discovered the two babies abandoned on the floor. Their identities remained unknown, and they were eventually placed in foster care and adopted together by a couple in Ventura County.

In August of this year, DNA tests submitted by family members produced a high-probability match. Further investigation confirmed that the adopted women, now known as Melissa and Tina, are in fact Elizabeth Ramos and Jasmin Ramos.

“First thing that came out of my mouth was, ‘you’re lying,’” Maldonado told ABC15.

She described the discovery as “something that we always wanted, to find them alive.”

“And it did happen. You don’t know how much I prayed,” Maldonado added. She also shared advice for families still searching for missing loved ones:

“Never give up. Always keep faith,” Maldonado said.

What People Are Saying

Margarita Maldonado told ABC15: “We have social media. We have computers. We have everything. We have Facebook, put them out there. You know, there’s somebody out there that might know these girls, or might know somebody.”

Tina, Marina’s youngest daughter, described her reaction: “I was shaking. I was crying. I was, you know, nervous about everything.”

What Happens Next

The Mohave County Sheriff’s Office has not yet identified who killed Marina Ramos. A witness in the area reported seeing the children with a woman and two men at the park. The individuals were described as Hispanic, with the woman wearing a long red skirt and white boots.