Fort Worth missing trio facts for kids
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| Date | December 23, 1974 |
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| Duration | Missing for 50 years, 6 months and 14 days |
| Location | Seminary South Shopping Center, Fort Worth, Texas, U.S. |
| Type | Disappearance |
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The Fort Worth Missing Trio is the name for an unsolved case where three girls disappeared on December 23, 1974. The girls, Mary Rachel Trlica, Lisa Renee Wilson, and Julie Ann Moseley, went missing while Christmas shopping. They were at the Seminary South Shopping Center in Fort Worth, Texas, United States.
The car the girls were using, a 1972 Oldsmobile 98, was found in the Sears parking lot at the mall. The girls have not been seen since that day. This case shocked the Fort Worth community and left their families with many questions. Thousands of clues have been checked, many searches have been done, and hundreds of people have been interviewed. But so far, no one has found the girls.
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Who Were the Girls?
Mary Rachel Trlica
Mary Rachel Trlica was 17 years old when she disappeared. She was often called Rachel. She had long brown hair, green eyes, and was about 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 m) tall and weighed 108 pounds (49 kg). Rachel was married to Tommy Trlica and was a student at Southwest High School. She drove the 1972 Oldsmobile 98 that the girls took to the mall.
Lisa Renee Wilson
Lisa Renee Wilson was 14 years old when she went missing. People often called her Renee. She had light wavy brown hair and brown eyes. She was about 5 feet 2 inches (1.57 m) tall and weighed 110 pounds (50 kg). When she disappeared, Renee was wearing bluish-purple pants, a white sweatshirt with "Sweet Honesty" written in green, and red and white Oxford shoes. She also had a promise ring with a clear stone.
Julie Ann Moseley
Julie Ann Moseley was the youngest, only 9 years old, when she disappeared. She had shoulder-length sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. She was about 4 feet 3 inches (1.30 m) tall and weighed 85 pounds (39 kg). Julie was wearing a red shirt, dark jeans, and red tennis shoes when she vanished.
What Happened on December 23, 1974?
On the morning of December 23, 1974, Rachel, Renee, and Julie went Christmas shopping. Julie asked to come along at the last minute because she didn’t want to be alone. Her mother, Rayanne Moseley, first said no because Julie didn't have money. But Julie kept asking, so her mom finally agreed, telling her to be home by 6:00 p.m. The older girls, especially Renee, wanted to be back by 4:00 p.m. She had a Christmas party to attend with her new boyfriend, who had given her a promise ring that morning.
The girls first stopped at a surplus store in Fort Worth. Then, they went to the Seminary South Shopping Center. Many people later said they saw the girls at the mall that day. When the girls did not come home, their families became worried. They went to Seminary South around 6:00 p.m. to look for them. They found the girls' car parked in the Sears parking lot. It looked like the girls had made it back to the car because the gifts they bought were inside. The families waited at the mall all night, hoping the girls would return.
The Search and Investigation
When the girls didn't show up, the police were called. The case was given to the Missing Persons Bureau. At first, investigators thought the girls might have run away. The next day, Rachel's husband, Tommy Trlica, received a letter that seemed to be from her.
The envelope of the letter was written in pencil and addressed to "Thomas A. Trlica," not "Tommy" as Rachel usually wrote. The letter itself was written in ink. The postmark was blurry, but it seemed to be from a zip code like "76083," possibly from Eliasville or Weatherford. Over the years, handwriting experts, including those from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), could not say for sure if Rachel wrote the letter.
Despite the letter, the girls' families did not believe they had run away. Julie's mother, Rayanne, said, "I know my daughter and I know those other girls and they are not runaways." Renee's mother, Judy, added, "No nine year old is going to run off two days before Christmas." Rachel's mother, Frances Langston, believed the girls were taken.
The families kept searching, handing out missing person flyers and contacting newspapers. Tips started coming in. In early 1975, a young man who knew Rachel said he saw the three girls in a record store at the mall just before they disappeared. He said another person seemed to be with them.
Private Investigator Joins the Search
Frustrated with the police investigation, the families hired a private detective named Jon Swaim. In August 1975, Swaim found out that a 28-year-old man, who had worked at a local store where Rachel had applied for a job, was making strange phone calls. This man had lived near Rachel's parents but moved away before she got married. However, nothing came of this lead.
In April 1975, Swaim and 100 volunteers searched under bridges in Port Lavaca after a tip. But they found no sign of the girls. A year later, three skeletons were found in a field in Brazoria County. Swaim had the bones checked against the girls' records, but they belonged to a teenage boy and two other females, not the missing girls. In March 1976, a psychic suggested the girls might be near an oil well in Rising Star, but nothing was found there either.
In the spring of 1981, more human remains were found in a swampy area in Brazoria County. After a month of checking, police found that these bones also did not belong to the three girls.
In January 2001, the case was reopened and given to a homicide detective, Tom Boetcher. He believes the girls left the mall with someone they trusted. In 2018, two cars were pulled from Benbrook Lake because they were thought to be connected to the case, but this search also found nothing.
Over the years, investigators have continued to search Texas. The families have walked many roads and creek beds, but they have never found any clues. Decades later, there have been no new major developments in the case.
Other Possible Witnesses
A store clerk reported that a woman told her she saw the girls being forced into a yellow pickup truck near a grocery store at the mall. The truck was described as having lights on top. However, the police could never find this woman, so her story could not be confirmed.
In 1981, a man said he was in the parking lot that day and saw a man forcing a girl into a van. The man in the van told him it was a family problem and to stay out of it.
In April 2001, Bill Hutchins, a former Fort Worth police officer and security guard at the Sears store, said he saw the three girls with a security guard on the night they disappeared.
See also
In Spanish: El trío de Fort Worth para niños
- List of people who disappeared mysteriously
- Springfield Three - An unsolved case from 1992 where a mother, child, and friend disappeared in Missouri.
- Yuba County Five - A 1978 case involving deaths and disappearances in California.
