How Did Marina Ramos End Up in the Arizona Desert?

Episode Overview

• Hosts Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat of the Crime Junkie podcast investigate the December 1989 murder of a woman formerly known as Mohave Jane Doe in the northern Arizona desert, alongside the disappearance of her two infant daughters.
• The narrative traces the investigation from the initial 1989 crime scene and early ruled-out suspects through a 30-year cold period, culminating in the 2021–2022 fingerprint and DNA identification of the victim as Marina Ramos.
• Following recent breakthroughs up to August 2025—which successfully located Marina's two missing daughters alive—the episode outlines the remaining mysteries surrounding unidentified DNA profiles, an elusive suspect known as "Fernando/David," a blocked Ancestry match, and the trio who abandoned the infants in California.
• Disclosure of business ties and sponsors: The episode is produced by the parent network Audiochuck, includes a mid-roll promotional spot by host Kylie Low for Audiochuck's Dark Down East podcast, and features paid sponsorships read by Brit Prawat for T-Mobile 5G Home Internet and YouTube Premium.

Key Concepts

• The 1989 Crime Scene and Forensic Tracking: On December 12, 1989, four friends from Ohio turned onto a dirt road east of Highway 93 in northern Arizona (near Nevada) and stopped three miles down to take a photo in front of a yucca tree. Returning to inspect what they thought was a dead animal, the friends found a naked dead woman in the road, took photos from their rental car, and drove to Kingman, Arizona, to alert the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office. Today, the closest paved road (White Hills Road) is over 200 feet away from the crime scene, and it was a dirt road in 1989. According to The Arizona Republic, this was the fourth body found in Mohave County in four months. Autopsy findings showed the victim was a 20-something Hispanic female with short dark hair, medium complexion, and no drugs or alcohol in her system, who had given birth to multiple children and had milk in her breasts indicating recent childbirth. She was killed on-site 6 to 24 hours prior to discovery; her cause of death was blood loss from blunt force injuries all over her body and slash marks on her neck. Crime scene diagrams drawn by Cpl. James Stull and Det. Will Hada show the killers drove eastbound into the scene in a mid-sized, four-door sedan, stopped, dragged the woman out, got back into the car, ran her over, exited to slash her throat, defecated in the desert, and drove away westbound. Trackers documented two sets of shoe prints: a men's size 10.5 Nike shoe (worn by someone 5'10" to 6'2") and a men's size 7 shoe (worn by someone 5'4" to 5'8"). Looking at crime scene photos, Ashley and Brit claim there are 3 or 4 different shoe prints visible, including one with a proper heel or boot print, and Ashley claims the Nike print looks like an Air Jordan or Nike Dunk. However, both hosts hedge on this visual interpretation: Ashley says she doesn't know if the sand is playing tricks on her, and Brit notes her hopeful heart thinks investigators may have ruled the extra prints out as belonging to law enforcement.
• Physical Evidence and Early Ruled-Out Suspects: Investigators collected a piece of a bra strap, a long piece of black yarn, used toilet paper from the sand (which was later tested in 2025 but yielded no intact DNA), and an empty Coke bottle. Abdominal scrapings yielded unknown biological fluids (initially thought to be semen, failing to yield a male profile in early testing), and partial fingerprints from the Coke bottle did not match the victim. Although those prints were too low quality for database entry in 1989, an FBI agent in Phoenix and a Secret Service specialist enhanced them enough to enter into AFIS in June 2025, resulting in no matches. Ashley hedges that the Coke bottle may or may not even be connected to the murder, as it could have been pre-existing desert trash. In 1990, the FBI noted similarities between Jane Doe and murders in Washington and California committed by truck driver Joseph Michael Nissensohn (who was 38 in 1990 and is 75 in 2026). Nissensohn was charged with two murders from May and August 1989 after his wife witnessed them, and he had lived in Mohave Valley for 2 months in 1987 with a friend named Henry Staub, who was arrested in Nevada a week after Jane Doe was found for using a casino cheating device. Ashley notes this FBI theory was a loose connection and not a smoking gun; neither Nissensohn's nor Staub's fingerprints matched the Coke bottle, and investigators have completely ruled Nissensohn out.
• Digitizing Cold Cases and Identifying Marina Ramos: After going cold in September 1991, Mohave County formed a Special Investigations Unit in 2019, where Investigator Lori Miller and her partner digitized 395 cold case files over 2 years, narrowing them down to 66 actual cold case homicides by 2021. In 2021, Lori Miller entered Jane Doe into NamUs and NCIC and ran her fingerprints through modern databases, matching a June 1989 shoplifting arrest in Bakersfield, California (5 to 6 hours from Mohave), under the name Maria Ortiz. Bakersfield records listed a relative named Esther in Tennessee, who told Lori her cousin's real name was Marina Ramos (who used aliases like Maria) and that she went missing in August 1989 with her two youngest daughters: Elizabeth (approx. 1 year old) and Jasmin (approx. 2 months old, born in jail during the June 1989 arrest). Neither Marina's family nor her live-in boyfriend ever reported her or the babies missing for 32 years, assuming she had run off to start a new life. Crime Junkie reporter Emily interviewed Marina's younger sister, Margarita, who confirmed the family moved between Puerto Rico and Bakersfield and their parents kept custody of Marina's oldest daughter, Maria, in Puerto Rico for stability. Lori obtained a DNA swab from oldest daughter Maria (then almost 40), and in December 2022, the Arizona State Crime Lab confirmed via DNA that Mohave Jane Doe was Marina Ramos. In early 2023, re-testing of the unknown biological material from Marina's autopsy revealed a mixed DNA profile containing a male profile eligible for CODIS, which yielded no hits in CODIS.
• The Two "Fernandos" and Conflicting Accounts: Marina's family pointed investigators toward two different men named Fernando. First, cousin Esther stated she last saw Marina, Elizabeth, and Jasmin in August 1989 leaving Bakersfield for Ontario, California, in a black SUV with a man named Fernando (called "Fernando/David" by the hosts because Esther once heard someone call him David). Second, sister Margarita alerted Lori to another Fernando ("Fernando/Dad"), who lived with Marina in summer 1989. Fernando/Dad told Lori he went to Mexico in August/September 1989 for a family death, and when he returned, Marina packed up the girls and left with two men in a red car (one man was 5'10" with short hair looking like he "just got out of the joint"), claiming there was a natural disaster in Puerto Rico (Hurricane Hugo hit Puerto Rico on September 18, 1989). Ashley hedges on whether they believe Fernando/Dad's story, stating "Maybe?" and noting they do not completely believe him—especially since Crime Junkie reporting uncovered he told Marina's family a different story: that Marina's cousin, William Quinones, picked her up. While Quinones is in prison for murdering his mother-in-law and leaving her on a dirt road, Lori confirmed he was in jail in 1989. Furthermore, although Fernando/Dad had a 1989 assault with a deadly weapon charge, his DNA and fingerprints did not match the crime scene evidence.
• The 2025 Discovery of the Missing Daughters: After releasing a sketch of Fernando/David and age-progressed photos of the daughters via NCMEC, an anonymous tipster called Phoenix dispatch claiming a man named Fernando Coronel killed Marina and left her daughters in a park in Los Angeles. While the name initially seemed untraceable, in August 2025, DNA submitted to public databases matched oldest daughter Maria's DNA to a half-sister named Tina Mangum (biological name Jasmin), whom Lori reached after calling 6 phone numbers. Lori learned that Tina and her older sister Melissa (biological name Elizabeth) were found alive on December 14, 1989—two days after Marina's body was found, some 6 to 7 hours away—at Colonia Park (170 N. Juanita Avenue) in Oxnard, California. At 2:15 PM (1415 hours) on December 14, 1989, park employee Larry heard children crying in the women's restroom, had a female passerby check inside, and found the two girls unharmed on the floor in puddles of water and urine. At 3:45 PM (1545 hours), witness Marylou called Oxnard PD to report that at 2:00 PM (1400 hours)—15 minutes before the girls were found—she saw two Latin men and one Latin woman park a small black pickup truck near the park, and one man (carrying the older girl in a dress) and the woman (wearing a knee-length red skirt and bright white boots, carrying the baby in a yellow blanket) abandoned the children. Melissa and Tina grew up together and only discovered they were adopted near the end of high school when they found old newspaper clippings about their abandonment in their adoptive parents' house.
• Paternity Twists and Unresolved Links: Crime Junkie interviewed Melissa, and DNA testing confirmed that Fernando/Dad is the biological father of Tina (Jasmin), but not the biological father of Melissa (Elizabeth). When Melissa's DNA was entered into Ancestry, it matched a paternal relative named "Victoria Garcia," who immediately blocked both Lori Miller and Melissa without responding; Ashley notes Lori thinks it is very possible Garcia is using a fake name, though she cannot say for sure. Regarding the connection between the Arizona murder scene and the Oxnard abandonment, Ashley notes Lori is open to the possibility that the park trio is unrelated to the killers (perhaps acting as babysitters), and Ashley hedges on her own theory that they are the same group by pointing out the vehicle discrepancy between the mid-sized four-door sedan at the murder scene and the small black pickup truck at the park. Tragically, after Melissa flew to Puerto Rico to reunite with her grandmother, aunt Margarita, and oldest sister Maria, both Maria and cousin Esther passed away recently while the podcast was reporting on the case.

Quotes

• At 2:24 - "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." - Ashley Flowers explaining how four tourists from Ohio discovered the victim's body three miles down a remote Arizona dirt road in December 1989.
• At 6:53 - "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." - Ashley Flowers detailing the forensic tracking evidence that proved the victim was murdered on-site rather than dumped there after death.
• At 18:21 - "In the next breath, Esther says, 'But I do have a cousin who went MIA in 1989. Her name was Marina Ramos.'" - Ashley Flowers recounting the 2021 breakthrough when a relative in Tennessee helped Investigator Lori Miller connect a 1989 Bakersfield arrest record to Mohave Jane Doe.
• At 26:59 - "And the tipster says that they not only know who killed Marina, but they also know where Marina's daughters were taken after her murder." - Ashley Flowers describing the anonymous call to Phoenix dispatch that named "Fernando Coronel" and accurately stated the babies were left in a California park.
• At 36:00 - "Because what Lori ends up learning is that Tina and Melissa were found on December 14, 1989, by an employee at Colonia Park in Oxnard, California." - Ashley Flowers revealing the August 2025 genetic genealogy breakthrough that proved Marina's two infant daughters survived.
• At 39:02 - "Never in a million years did she expect a detective to call her and tell her that the mother she never got to meet had been murdered." - Ashley Flowers sharing the emotional impact on Tina (Jasmin) when Investigator Lori Miller reached her on the 6th phone number attempt in 2025.
• At 43:30 - "Not only does Victoria Garcia not respond, she blocks Lori." - Ashley Flowers explaining the suspicious reaction of Melissa's paternal DNA match on Ancestry when contacted by investigators and biological family.
• At 49:49 - "She thinks David is his real name, and that he works in maintenance at a hospital in the Phoenix area, and again, sometimes goes by Fernando Coronel." - Ashley Flowers summarizing Investigator Lori Miller's current profile of the primary person of interest, "Fernando/David."

Takeaways

• Help identify "Fernando/David" (aka Fernando Coronel): Review the police sketch and consider anyone you may know who fits the profile of a man likely named David (who also used the names Fernando and Fernando Coronel), who had dark hair swooped to the side, a full face, glasses, an Ecuadorian or Costa Rican accent, always wore a suit (even in 108-degree heat), had ties to Bakersfield, California, in the 1980s and 1990s, and is believed to work in maintenance at a hospital in the Phoenix, Arizona, area.
• Provide leads on the "Victoria Garcia" Ancestry match: Consider individuals who might be connected to the paternal lineage of Marina Ramos's daughter Melissa (born around 1988 in California or Puerto Rico) and who may be using the name or alias "Victoria Garcia" on Ancestry.com.
• Recall the 1989 Oxnard Park trio: Think back to December 14, 1989, in Oxnard, California, and report any knowledge of two Latin men and one Latin woman (who wore a knee-length red skirt and bright white boots) driving a small black pickup truck near Colonia Park (170 N. Juanita Avenue) around 2:00 PM (1400 hours).
• Contact the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office with tips: If you recognize any of the individuals, vehicles, or aliases described in this active investigation, call the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office Special Investigation Unit directly at 928-753-0753, ext. 4408.
• Utilize public DNA databases and never assume a disappearance is voluntary: Apply the broader lessons of this case by reporting missing loved ones immediately regardless of their lifestyle or past movements, and consider uploading your DNA to public genetic genealogy databases if you are an adoptee or have missing relatives, as it can resolve decades-old mysteries.