Investigators have launched a homicide investigation after a woman was identified 41 years after children discovered her skull in Orange County, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
According to authorities, the skull was found in April 1983 in a culvert in what is now Lake Forest. Once investigators dug up the body, an anthropology examination was performed, showing the victim was a black or mixed-race female, between 18–24 years old and about 5’3 to 5’6, however, a full identity was not determined.
DNA analyses made in 2022 were unsuccessful, which then led investigators to post forensic renderings to a Facebook group for missing Jane Doe’s from the 1970s and ‘80s.
A woman who contacted investigators in late 2023 said the body found in Lake Forest could be that of her missing mother.
Get Southern California news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC LA newsletters.
After further investigation, the woman was identified as Maritza Glean Grimmett, a Panamanian native, who married a United States Marine in the summer of 1978 and gave birth to a daughter shortly before moving to the United States. The family lived in Ohio and Tennessee, then began divorce proceedings in July 1979.
Grimmett, who was 20 years old the last time she was seen, apparently told her sister she was going to California.
Investigators are asking anyone with information on this case to contact Investigator Bob Taft at 714-647-7045 or email coldcase@ocsheriff.gov.
