GUILTY WA - Dole Valley, WhtFem Skeletal UP10045, 18-25, Oct'74 - Martha Morrison *arrest*

On October 12, 1974, the skeletons of two women were found in the Dole Valley area of Clark County. One was identified right away as Carol Platt Valenzuela.

The other skeleton was never identified. But forensic investigators now are seeking more information about Martha Marie Morrison...

Martha Morrison was 17 when she was last seen in September 1974, authorities said in a release. She disappeared from Portland... Martha Marie Morrison was white, 5-feet-4, about 140 pounds with long brown hair and hazel eyes.

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The Clark County Sheriff’s Office in Washington state is now working to identify the second of two bodies found on Oct. 12, 1974, in rural Dole Valley northeast of Vancouver. The first body was identified that same year as belonging to 18-year-old Carol Valenzuela of nearby Camas, Wash., but the second body long has been classified as an unknown “Jane Doe.”

Walker said DNA and other testing at various labs hasn’t eliminated Morrison as the possible victim, “but we need to confirm it.”

Operations Manager Niki Costa with the Clark County Medical Examiner’s Office also noted that the DNA indicators for the unidentified body point to Morrison, but aren’t conclusive. She said she is hopeful something will be generated through the renewed investigation to confirm the identification.

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Walker said DNA and other testing at various labs hasn’t eliminated Morrison as the possible victim, “but we need to confirm it.”

Operations Manager Niki Costa with the Clark County Medical Examiner’s Office also noted that the DNA indicators for the unidentified body point to Morrison, but aren’t conclusive. She said she is hopeful something will be generated through the renewed investigation to confirm the identification.

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EmmaliLucia said:

So many women went missing in the Pacific Northwest in the 70s and 80s.

I hope we can identify this one. If they have a rule-out list then that most likely means that DNA testing has been complete, correct?

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Status: Sample submitted - Tests complete

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In the years that followed, law enforcement took a swab from the inside of the cheeks of Reba Morrison and Martha’s half-brother, Michael Morrison, for DNA comparisons. The results yielded a possible match with the unidentified Dole Valley remains, but nothing conclusive.

“This is the first lead we’ve had on this case ever — since 1974 — for identifying this girl,” Costa said.

She was told by the experts: “You need more DNA; it’s statistically weak.”

But Martha Morrison’s parents were dead. When Costa reached out to more family, they were resistant.
So she tried different avenues: With help from the Eugene Police Department, Costa hunted down a tissue sample of Martha Morrison’s mother that was on file at a Springfield, Ore., medical facility. That sample, she said, was days away from being destroyed.

The sample showed the DNA was consistent, but still not conclusive.

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After a while, experts told her the only thing left to do was to get DNA from Martha’s father, who had died in 1976. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children told Costa that if she wanted to exhume Albert Ray Morrison’s body for a family DNA reference sample, they’d pay for it.

Reba Morrison agreed to the exhumation and the NCMEC spent the next few months coordinating with a cemetery and other agencies in Arizona, where he was buried. While coordinating the effort, Costa considered the possible negative outcomes, such as the possibility that Albert Ray Morrison wasn’t Martha Morrison’s biological father.
And on Wednesday, Costa got the email.

Costa choked up as she read aloud the words that concluded eight years’ worth of difficult and sometimes discouraging work: “It is 59.7 million times more likely to be Martha Morrison than any other unrelated Caucasian person with a probability of relatedness 99.999998 percent,” she said.

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