Catherine Rusoff
A victim whose skull was found in a storm drain by children in a Southern California town in 1983 has been identified 41 years after his remains were discovered, authorities said.
Orange County Sheriff’s Department identified the victim Friday as Maritza Glean Grimmett, a Panama native who moved to the U.S. in the late 1970s. Grimmett was 20 years old at the time of her disappearance, authorities said in a news release. The investigation involved a DNA analysis using Grimmett’s remains that helped investigators identify relatives.
After children discovered Grimmett’s skull while playing in an area that is now part of Lake Forest, a city about 70 kilometers southeast of Los Angeles, about 70 percent of his remains were excavated from the ground.
An initial anthropological examination revealed that the victim was a black or mixed-race woman, aged 18 to 24, with a slender build and a characteristic gold tooth. But in the decades that followed, authorities were unable to identify the woman.
Othram
In 2022, a DNA sample from Grimmett’s remains was sent to Othram Laboratories, a Texas-based forensics group, the sheriff’s department said. A U.S. Department of Justice missing persons program funded the DNA extraction and testing. Authorities later discovered “a direct family lineage” to Grimmett and contacted one of his distant relatives in 2023, they said.
The relative recommended that the forensic investigation’s findings be posted to a Facebook group focused on missing women in the 1970s and 1980s, the sheriff’s department said. A month after the findings were published, a woman approached investigators and said she believed she was the victim’s missing mother.
Orange County Sheriff’s Department
Relatives later sent DNA samples to authorities, who identified the victim.
Authorities said Grimmett married a U.S. Marine in the summer of 1978 and gave birth to a daughter. After the family lived in Ohio and Tennessee, the couple began divorce proceedings in 1979. Grimmett told her sister she was going to California, but her family never heard from her again, authorities said.
Othram said Grimmett’s case marked the 39th case in California where authorities have publicly identified a person using their technology. Last month, Othram helped identify skeletal remains found in a plastic bag in California in 1985 as those of a woman who was born in 1864 and died more than a century ago.
The investigation into Grimmett is ongoing. Anyone with information about this case is asked to contact investigator Bob Taft at 714-647-7045 or coldcase@ocsheriff.gov. Anonymous tips can be sent to OC Crime Stoppers at 855-TIP-OCCS (855-847-6227) or at occrimestoppers.org.
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