MURDERED: Marina Ramos

Crime Junkie

The episode details the decades-long investigation into the 1989 murder of an unidentified woman found in the Mojave Desert. Through modern

Key takeaways

• Detective Lori Miller used DNA and fingerprint databases to identify the Jane Doe as Marina Ramos.
• Marina's daughters, Tina and Melissa, were found abandoned in a restroom at Colonia Park in Oxnard, California, in December 1989.

Main topics

• Cold case investigation
• Genetic genealogy

Notable quotes

Marina Ramos got her name back.

Conclusion

The episode demonstrates how persistent investigative work and advance

Transcript preview

Speaker 5 (0:00) If you know me, you know I love stories that make me go, wait, what? The kind that stop you in your tracks and send you straight down a rabbit hole. And my friend Delia D'Ambra tells stories just like that on Park Predators. Every Tuesday, Delia investigates true crime cases that unfold in the world's most beautiful places. From national parks to hiking trails, she reveals the shocking crimes, mysterious disappearances, and unsettling encounters hidden beneath the postcard-perfect scenery. If Speaker 4 (0:27) you're ready to discover what's beyond the trailhead, listen to Park Predators wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 4 (0:33) Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And you know what I love more than a girls' trip? Speaker 5 (0:38) Nothing. Literally Speaker 4 (0:39) nothing. There is something about being with your friends away from home base and routine. It can make even the most mundane things seem to have this, like, spark of adventure. Take, for instance, a lone tree in the middle of the Arizona desert. Back in December 1989, four friends from Ohio. driving through the desert in search of some ghost town marked on their map, decided to stop and take a picture together in front of a tree. Proof of their escapades, probably. Now, they never found the ghost town that they were looking for. What they found instead, by sheer happenstance, would unlock layered, decades-long mysteries that get tossed around like loose pieces of a puzzle. Until one investigator finally came along. and slowly started to put those pieces together, leading to a shocking discovery in 2025 that has her this close to solving the case. And you might have the remaining missing pieces to solve the mystery of who murdered Marina Ramos. So buckle up, crime junkies. You are in for a wild ride. Speaker 4 (2:25) It's December 12th, 1989, when those four friends turned their car onto a dirt road east of Highway 93 in the very northern part of Arizona, like close to Nevada. Three miles down is where they spot a yucca tree that they decide to take a picture in front of. They're the only ones out there, save for like this dead animal that they can see not far off. So they snap their picture and hop back in their rental car in search of the ghost town marked on their map. They're not having much luck actually finding this town. Wink, wink. Maybe that was intentional. I don't know. But not wanting to stray too far into just like the vast desert. There is no map quest. Like, this is hard. They decide just to turn around. And as they head back in the direction of that yucca tree, there's something that just like nags at them. There was something about the dead animal that was bothering them. I don't know what. Maybe the same mysterious force that pulled them to the tree to begin with. But they decide to go back and have another look. But it's no animal. It is a naked woman laying dead in the road. And it's likely only because of them that she was ever found. Now, it looks like this woman hasn't been out there long. Even though they don't see anyone coming or going from any direction, they still don't want to get out of their cars, as you can imagine. Now, they know they need to notify authorities, but it's going to be a hike to the nearest town of Kingman, Arizona. So they snap some pictures of the woman's body from the car. I assume just in case, like, she's gone by the time they can get police back out there. Or maybe as proof to police, like, so they would take them seriously. But deputies with the Mojave County Sheriff's Office don't brush them off. Right after getting the report, they hop in their cars to follow the women back out to the body. Which I can't reiterate enough is truly out in the middle of nowhere. I mean, today, the closest paved road is White Hills Road, and it's over 200 feet away. But even that was a dirt road back then. And the highway is miles off. Otherwise, there are just shrubs and trees nearby and mountains in the distance. But shockingly, at least to me, is that the detectives conclude that the woman wasn't just... dumped there. She was murdered right there where she was found and violently just some 6 to 24 hours before being discovered. It was ultimately blood loss that killed her. There are blunt force injuries all over her body and slash marks at her neck. Whatever clothing she was likely wearing at some point is nowhere in sight. Likely cut off her with the same kind of knife that was used to slash her throat. Because they did find one piece of a bra strap, which they collect. And there's nothing that could easily be Speaker 3 (5:17) used to identify this woman. I Speaker 4 (5:19) mean, the only items that they find way out there are this empty Coke bottle and a long piece of black yarn. And some used toilet paper near a spot where it looks like somebody did their business right in the sand. But the real clues were left behind in the desert sand itself. Tire marks, drag marks, and what they say are two sets of shoe prints. And Britt, I have to show you these pictures because these are some of the most well-defined crime scene shoe prints that I have ever seen in my entire life. Speaker 5 (5:55) Oh, and there's more than just this one picture, right? Yeah. Speaker 4 (5:58) Like, Speaker 5 (5:59) you can almost see, like, what the brand is on some of these. Not Speaker 4 (6:02) almost. They could tell. The one that you're looking at, they determined says Nike. That one is a size 10 and a half. Based on the stride and marks in the sand, trackers determined that the person who was wearing the Nike shoe was between 5'10 and 6'2. Now, the other shoe, that is a size 7. And the person who left that, they left a shorter stride, which makes them believe that they're in the range of like 5'4, maybe like 5'8. Speaker 5 (6:27) And size 7, is that a men's 7 or a woman's 7? Because those are like different. Speaker 4 (6:32) Men's Speaker 5 (6:32) 7, yeah. Okay. So, I have to ask about the other shoe prints. Like... Speaker 4 (6:37) So I'm not losing my mind, right? Like there are distinctly, I mean, three or four different prints, right? There's definitely like Speaker 5 (6:44) shoes that don't match either of these prints in here. And even in like the third image I sent you, like they only talk Speaker 4 (6:49) about two prints like ever. The tracker's only ID'd two people walking around. I don't know if the sand is like playing tricks on me or what, but like. It looks like, and maybe they've, I Speaker 5 (7:02) mean, my like hopeful heart is like maybe they've like ruled them off as an. investigators prints Speaker 4 (7:07) or something, but like... But I don't know. So like, if you go to the other picture, there are some where I'm like, okay, the pattern looks distinctly different. It still looks like sneakers, but distinctly different. And then look at the top of that one. This one looks like it has a proper heel on it. Like, not a sneaker at all. What Speaker 5 (7:22) is that? Speaker 4 (7:23) Now, I am pretty convinced that the Nike shoe is either an Air Jordan or a Nike Dunk. Now, some of our crime junkies out there I know are sneakerheads, so maybe they'll know. I'm actually going to post these pictures on social media so people can see and utilize them with us. But the tire tracks and the drag marks also tell an interesting story all on their own. And I actually have a picture of the tire marks, too, that's included in with one of the shoe prints. This one here? And I have some of the original crime scene diagrams, which show that the killers... drove eastbound into the crime scene, stopped, dragged this woman from the car, got back in the car, and then ran her over. Then they say that they got back out of the car after they had run her over, and that is when they slashed her throat. And they didn't get out in a hurry. After they killed her, that is when one of them walks a little ways away and proceeds to go to the bathroom out there in the desert. And then... They leave heading westbound, which is the same way that they came. So it's not like they're passing through this area. Yes, Speaker 5 (8:32) they didn't just like drop her on the way to somewhere. They came there specifically just to kill and leave her body. Yes. Speaker 4 (8:39) Now, investigators lose the tire tracks at the main road. So it's unfortunately impossible to tell if they headed toward. Kingman, Arizona or to Las Vegas, Nevada. Basically, those are the two cities that you would head to from here, even if you were going beyond them. Speaker 5 (8:55) Right, because this is in the middle of nowhere. Of nowhere, Speaker 4 (8:57) yes. But this scene, however rural, is only about an hour from Vegas. So detectives in Mojave County, Arizona, are... quite accustomed to homicide victims being left in their jurisdiction. Actually, according to reporting from the Arizona Republic, this is like the fourth body that they have found in their county in as many months. So as much evidence as they might have that seems promising, they know from the jump that solving this case, even IDing their victim, is going to be no easy feat. And the truth is, some assumptions are probably being made off the jump about who this woman is and how she ended up there. They thought that she could be what they called a Vegas girl who basically got caught up in something bad. But the autopsy ends up throwing that into question because there are no drugs or alcohol in her system. What she has is milk in her ducts, meaning that she must have given birth somewhat recently, and they can tell that she had had other kids too. So surely someone has to be missing this woman. Speaker 5 (10:05) Yeah, and there's probably a breastfed baby out there somewhere, like, missing their mom. You Speaker 4 (10:10) would think. But there are no missing persons reports in the surrounding areas that match this 20-something female with dark hair and medium complexion. Without knowing who this woman is, the motive for the crime is as perplexing as anything else. I mean, this was so over-the-top violent that it feels... I Speaker 5 (10:31) mean, was it sexually motivated? Speaker 4 (10:33) I mean, it could have been because, I mean, she's found naked, right? But they don't find clear evidence of sexual assault. I mean, they checked at autopsy and first they think that they did find semen. But later, whatever it is is tested. They don't get a male profile out of it. So no one is sure what that is. And today that is listed as unknown biological fluids that they got via abdominal scraping. And Speaker 5 (10:56) were they able to run prints for her to try to ID her? That way, like her fingerprints? Speaker 4 (11:00) Yeah, Speaker 5 (11:01) more Speaker 4 (11:01) of a manual process back then, no national system. But they had them run against databases in Arizona and the surrounding states, including Nevada. Don't get any hits. Which Speaker 5 (11:10) kind of contradicts the Vegas girl thing even more. Speaker 4 (11:14) And her prints do give them another small clue. There were some partial prints that they lifted off the Coke bottle that they found at the scene, not enough to like send off out of state or even put into their database. But they're good enough to do direct comparisons with. So they find out right away that the prints do not belong to their victim, meaning that they might be useful in putting a suspect at the scene someday. Unfortunately, as wonderful as those shoe and tire impressions were at the scene, that can't get them much. Like, it's a common shoe in a common size, a common car, maybe. Helpful, again, if they ever find a suspect to compare all this to. But without one. It's so useless. So over the next year, investigators put their focus on trying to identify their victim. At least they have a description. A young Hispanic woman, short, dark hair, who has had children before and was still making milk for a baby when she was murdered. They distribute that description through teletypes to agencies all around the West, hoping to get a hit. But surprisingly, this woman. hasn't been reported missing, whoever she is. So, not being able to ID her, they try to build a picture of their killer by asking the FBI for a criminal profile. Now, they don't end up getting one. I don't know why. Like, the details they had might not have been enough. But the FBI does have one takeaway after reviewing the information that they sent. They think that the Mojave Desert case sounds a lot like some other cases that they just solved up in Speaker 2 (12:54) Washington. Speaker 2 (12:58) In 2024, a man was killed by the FBI. And to this day, the authorities have refused to say why. He was a father, an ex-husband,