Fifty years ago, two fishermen made a gruesome discovery along the Embarcadero near downtown San Diego.
It was June 13, 1973, about 11:20 a.m., and the father and son were checking on their boat tied up near Laurel Street. They spotted an orange suitcase and a green plastic bag floating beneath a now-gone boardwalk.
A woman’s dismembered body was inside. Her torso and arms were in the suitcase. Her head was wrapped in the bag. Harbor police divers found her legs floating in the bay about 500 yards away, according to news reports of the incident in the Evening Tribune.
For decades, investigators didn’t know who the woman was. But in 2020, Othram, a forensic biotechnology company, used DNA collected by the county Medical Examiner’s Office to identify her as 29-year-old Arminda Grangela Rodrigues da Silva Ribeiro.
The dismembered body of Arminda Grangela Rodrigues da Silva Ribeiro was found along the Embarcadero 50 years ago.
(Courtesy of the San Diego Police Department
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It’s the first time investigators have released her name, and they’re hoping it will lead to new clues in the long-dormant case.
Ribeiro was born in Portugal, and her family emigrated to the Ironbound neighborhood in Newark, N.J. — home to a large Portuguese community, police have since learned. She was married, had two children and was working at a trailer fabrication company in Newark at the time of her death. It’s unclear what connections she had in San Diego.
When Ribeiro’s body was found, investigators at the time wondered if her death was related to the mutilation deaths of four men found in Los Angeles and Orange counties whose bodies were also wrapped in plastic bag, according to news reports. But San Diego homicide Lt. Jud Campbell said that may have been an “investigative long-shot.”
“I’m sure they were hoping there might be info from (Los Angeles) that would identify her and they could build off that, just like we’re trying to do,” he said in an email Friday.
San Diego police are trying to learn more about Ribeiro, such as the name of the company she used to work for and any local ties she may have had. Anyone with information about her death or disappearance was asked to call the department’s Homicide Unit at (619) 531-2293 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at (888) 580-8477. Web and mobile tips can also be sent in at sdcrimestoppers.org.
