Children found skull while playing in 1983, CA cops say. Now it’s ID’d as missing mom
More than four decades after children found a skull while playing, it’s been identified as a missing mother, California deputies say.
The remains, found by children playing in a Lake Forest culvert in 1983, have been identified as Maritza Glean Grimmett, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said in a June 14 news release.
After the children stumbled upon the skull, about 70 percent of the woman’s remains were recovered during an excavation, deputies said.
An anthropologist determined the woman was between the ages of 18 to 24 years old and stood between 5 feet, 3 inches to 5 feet, 6 inches tall, according to deputies. The woman also had “a distinctive gold tooth.”
Investigators shared forensic renderings of the woman in 2019 and 2022, according to deputies.
Despite attempts to identify the woman, her identity remained a mystery.
In 2022, investigators turned their efforts to forensic genetic genealogy.
Genetic genealogy uses DNA testing coupled with “traditional genealogical methods” to create “family history profiles,” according to the Library of Congress. With genealogical DNA testing, researchers can determine if and how people are biologically related.
After deputies sent evidence to Othram Inc., a forensic genetic genealogy company, its scientists created a comprehensive DNA profile for the unknown woman, the company said in a news release.
The profile was handed off to the FBI’s forensic genetic genealogy team, which worked to “generate new investigative leads,” Othram said.
Through follow-up investigation, deputies said they found a family line for the unknown woman and contacted a distant relative in late 2023.
The relative suggested that investigators share the forensic sketches of the woman “to a Facebook group for Jane Does and missing women from the 1970s and 1980s.”
About a month after doing so, a woman came forward saying she thought the woman may be her missing mother, deputies said.
Through DNA testing, deputies said the remains were positively identified as the woman’s mother: Grimmett.
Grimmett, a Panamanian native, was married to a United States Marine in the summer of 1978 and had a daughter, deputies said.
The family moved to America in late 1978 and lived in “Columbus, Ohio and Millington, Tennessee in late 1978 through mid-1979,” according to deputies.
About a year after they were married, the couple started the process of divorce, deputies said.
“Maritza told her sister she was going to California,” deputies said. “Her family never heard from her again.”
Deputies said they are actively investigating Maritza’s homicide.
Anyone with information is asked to contact deputies at 714-647-7045 or email coldcase@ocsheriff.gov.
Lake Forest is about a 50-mile drive southwest from Los Angeles.
This story was originally published June 17, 2024 at 1:04 PM with the headline "Children found skull while playing in 1983, CA cops say. Now it’s ID’d as missing mom."
