Santa Barbara police dig near 101 Freeway in search of Ramona Price remains

Seeking the remains of a little girl thought to have been murdered 50 years ago, Santa Barbara police on Tuesday started excavating an embankment beside a freeway bridge.

Layer by layer, heavy equipment dug into a hillside 15 to 18 feet high. By afternoon, nothing had been found and the mystery of Ramona Price’s disappearance remained unsolved.

Ramona was 7 years old when she took a walk on Sept. 2, 1961, near her parents’ home in Santa Barbara and disappeared. At about the same time, Mack Ray Edwards, who later confessed to killing six California children, was a heavy-equipment operator helping to build the bridge that spans U.S. 101.

Lt. Donald Paul McCaffrey, a Santa Barbara police spokesman, said Tuesday that searchers had unearthed more than 3 1/2 feet of soil and were removing only a few inches at a time to allow for closer scrutiny. He said it was unclear how long the operation would continue.

Last week, four dogs trained to detect years-old human remains alerted authorities to the area now being dug out. The reaction of the dogs, which are owned and handled by members of a Santa Clara County search-and-rescue unit, was seen as “very strong evidence,” McCaffrey said.

Three other dogs were put to use Tuesday as searchers commenced their work.

Over the last few days, the California Department of Transportation has partially demolished the old bridge as traffic streamed across its replacement several hundred yards down the freeway. The long–planned project gave police an opportunity to excavate with minimal disruption, McCaffrey said.

Edwards’ first known victim, 8-year-old Stella Darlene Nolan, disappeared in 1953. Her remains were found years later beneath a bridge abutment in Downey. Edwards, who killed himself in San Quentin State Prison in 1971, had worked on that job. Before he died, he boasted to fellow inmates that he had kept more than a dozen murders secret. Many of the victims, he said, were buried beneath freeways.

In Santa Barbara, McCaffrey said he had no estimate of the operation’s cost. Caltrans provided the heavy equipment and volunteers provided the dogs, he said. Over the years, the department has looked elsewhere for the girl’s remains, he said. Four years ago, an author researching Edwards told detectives about the killer’s past job in Santa Barbara, a piece of information that led to the current effort.

Ramona’s family members were not at the site, but McCaffrey said they had been told of the excavation.

steve.chawkins@latimes.com