Search for Girl's Remains Continues Wednesday

Authorities say Ramona Price, then 7, disappeared after walking away from her home in September 1961

Authorities began digging Tuesday in Goleta as part of an investigation into the disappearance of a girl nearly 50 years ago.

Ramona Price was 7 years old when she disappeared in September 1961. Last week, cadaver dogs "hit" on an area near the Winchester Canyon overpass and 101 Freeway, just west of Santa Barbara.

Authorities said the dig might continue for a few days. On Tuesday, a cadaver dog continued to show interest in the sight, as earth moving equipment dug to a depth of about 8 feet.

Police said they suspect Price was a victim of serial killer Mack Ray Edwards. He confessed to killing more than 20 children before committing suicide on death row in 1971.

Edwards worked at a construction site on the 101 Freeway. 

Investigators said Price disappeared after she left her home near Modoc Road. The case remained unsolved and her body has never been located, but authorities received a break about four years ago.

"Information surfaced that led investigators to believe that her body may be buried beneath the Winchester Overcrossing, which was built the same time period as Ramona's disappearance," said Santa Barbara Police Chief Cam Sanchez.

The area was already part of an overpass construction project. That allowed the trained cadaver dogs to search the area last week.

The dogs can detect remains, even after the remains have been buried for years.

Case Background: Ramona Price Vanished 50 Years Ago

On Sept. 2, 1961, Price watched as her father packed the family's belongings into a truck to move to a house in Santa Barbara. The schoolgirl decided to go on ahead to the new home, a couple miles away.

She was never seen again.

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The case went cold, but throughout the years detectives received periodic leads, said police Lt. D. Paul McCaffrey. About four years ago, detectives received information that Ramona was buried under the overpass and Edwards may have been responsible for her death.

At the time, two brothers who were sex offenders were questioned in the case. They admitted to talking to a girl as she passed them but denied ever touching her. No charges were filed.

In a separate case, authorities in 2008 excavated a stretch of earth alongside a freeway in the arid hills northwest of Los Angeles. They were looking for the body of Roger Dale Madison, a 16-year-old boy who disappeared in 1968 at the hands of Edwards.

Edwards, who hung himself in 1971 while on death row at San Quentin prison, confessed in 1970 that Madison was one of his victims.

That case was revived when a writer looking into a 1957 missing child case noticed similarities with the Madison case.
 


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