Cold case breakthrough: 40 years after skull found in OC, investigators have a name

LAKE FOREST, Calif. (KABC) -- More than 40 years after children discovered a human skull in Orange County, detectives have identified the woman and launched an investigation into her murder.

The skull was found in April 1983 by children playing in a culvert in what is now Lake Forest. Investigators searched and dug up the area and found about 70% of a woman's remains.

They were able to determine a few details about her, like her race and approximate age, but could not identify her by name.

Additional DNA analysis in 2022 was unable to provide additional clues. But investigators posted the forensic renderings to a Facebook group for missing Jane Does from the 1970s and '80s. About a month later, they were contacted by a woman who believed the body found in Lake Forest was her mother.

Investigators were eventually able to identify the remains as Maritza Glean Grimmett, a Panamanian native who married a U.S. Marine in 1978 and had a daughter shortly before moving to the United States. The family lived in Ohio and Tennessee and then began divorce proceedings in July 1979.

She told her sister she was going to California and then was never heard from again. She was 20 at the time.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Investigator Bob Taft at (714)647-7045 or email coldcase@ocsheriff.gov. Anonymous tips may be submitted to OC Crime Stoppers at 855-TIP-OCCS (855-847-6227).