Missing daughters of woman murdered in Arizona found 36 years later

MOHAVE COUNTY, AZ (AZFamily) — A mystery that puzzled detectives for nearly four decades has been partially solved.

The two missing daughters of a woman found murdered in Mohave County have been identified 36 years after her death.

On Dec. 12, 1989, a woman was found stabbed to death near Old Temple Bar Road in Mohave County , about 50 miles south of Las Vegas. Authorities say the victim was killed at the scene where she was found. All attempts at the time to identify the woman were unsuccessful; however, detectives were able to obtain her DNA and enter it into CODIS, an FBI DNA database.

In February 2022, the victim’s fingerprints were submitted to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System and came back as a match for Maria Ortiz from Bakersfield, California. Those record