40 years after skull discovered in Lake Forest, investigators name 20-year-old Panamanian woman as murder victim

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

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

They were able to determine some details about him, such as his race and approximate age, but were unable to identify him by name.

Additional DNA analyzes carried out in 2022 failed to provide additional clues. But investigators posted the forensic results on a Facebook group for the disappearance of Jane Does in the 1970s and 1980s. About a month later, they were contacted by a woman who thought the body found in Lake Forest was that of his mother.

Investigators were eventually able to identify the remains as those of 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, then began divorce proceedings in July 1979.

She told her sister she was moving to California and was never heard from again. She was 20 years old at the time.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Investigator Bob Taft at (714)647-7045 or by email at [email protected]. Anonymous tips can be submitted to OC Crime Stoppers at 855-TIP-OCCS (855-847-6227).