In 1974, These 3 Teens Vanished After Christmas Shopping At A Mall: Shortly After, Their Families Received A Cryptic Note, And The Girls Have Still Never Been Found
In 1974, Lisa Renee Wilson of Fort Worth, Texas, was just fourteen-years-old. Despite her young age, she had a boyfriend, Terry – and the pair went from childhood friends to fostering a budding romance.
“Renee and I grew up together because her grandma lived across the street from us. For her and me, it progressed to being more than just buddies in the neighborhood,” Terry recalled in a 2018 interview with Dateline.
And their relationship was going so well, in fact, that on the morning of December 23, Terry decided to give Renee a promise ring.
“I went over early that morning. She had spent the night at her grandma’s. She was happy,” he said.
Before Terry could leave Renee’s grandma’s home, though, the fourteen-year-old told him that she wanted to go to the store to buy some jeans. Renee wanted him to go, too.
Terry ended up backing out of the plan, though. Apparently, he had a friend who was in the hospital for an operation, and he had said he would be there for his friend.
“I didn’t really want to renege on that,” he added.
It was at that point that Renee revealed she would be visiting the store with Rachel Trlica, a seventeen-year-old married friend who lived in the neighborhood.
NAMUS; pictured above is Renee
And once Terry’s youngest sister, Julie, overheard that, the nine-year-old saw the perfect opportunity to go shopping with two older teenage girls. They planned on doing some Christmas shopping that day.
“I know Renee and Rachel didn’t want Julie to go because she was only nine years old. But Julie got our mom on the phone and begged and begged to go. And for some reason, this time, she said okay,” Terry explained.
After all, Terry’s mother knew Renee well since they had been in a relationship, and the trio got the shopping stamp of approval.
So, before 12:00 p.m., the girls headed out. Rachel first drove Renee and Julie to the local Army Navy Store– where Renee picked up jeans on layaway that she had been wanting. Afterward, the group traveled to the Seminary South Shopping Center located in south Fort Worth.
The girls were supposed to shop for a few hours. Then, they were expected to get back at about 4:00 p.m. for a party. The time kept on passing, though, and the girls never arrived home.
Soon afterward, the day slipped into the night, and as the girls’ parents got home from work and realized their children were still not home, panic began to set in.
NAMUS; pictured above is Rachel
Renee’s father, Richard, and some community members ultimately decided to drive to the mall– which was less than ten minutes away– in search of the girls. At the same time, Terry waited at home and sat by the telephone in case anyone called with information.
The Oldsmobile, which Rachel had driven the girls to the mall in, was discovered still inside the mall parking lot. And according to her younger brother, Rusty, there was no sign of struggle in or around the car.
Strangely, though, it did appear as though the girls had gone back to the car after shopping– because there was just one Christmas present sitting in the backseat.
So, Rusty and his mother ran back into the mall and searched every single store before the shopping center closed. Unfortunately, though, Renee, Rachel, and Julie were nowhere to be found.
The Fort Worth Police Department was subsequently notified of the girl’s disappearance that night. By the next morning, though, Rachel’s husband– Tommy – received a freaky handwritten letter with a message to the girl’s three families.
NAMUS; pictured above is Julie
“I know I’m going to catch it, but we just had to get away. We’re going to Houston. See you in about a week. The car is in Sear’s upper lot,” the note read.
And this note ultimately raised many red flags– only intensifying the families’ worries. First of all, the fact that the girls would just up and leave town was beyond uncharacteristic and just unbelievable.
On top of that, though, the message was signed by Rachel. But Rachel’s own name had been misspelled– with what appeared to be an extra “e.” So, it was extremely difficult to believe that the seventeen-year-old girl would have spelled her own name wrong.
“I don’t understand the letter at all. The letter seems to me like it almost points to someone who knew them. People say it’s to throw us off the track. Throw us off of what track? There has never been any track. I don’t know if we will ever know what happened,” Terry revealed.
The three girls were then designated as runaways for the first year of their disappearance by the Fort Worth Police Department. After a private investigator hired by the families voiced their upset over the status, though, the girls’ case was reassigned to the Major Case Unit.
As if the stress of not knowing where the kids were was not enough, though, Renee’s father also revealed how prank calls to their homes became the norm.
“It’s been really bad since they disappeared. We had to get an extra phone in the house people would be calling and saying it was the girls when it wasn’t them,” her father, Richard, said.
And despite this case gaining national attention, authorities have not released many details. So, the families have gotten virtually no answers and, according to Terry, are still in the exact same spot as when the girls went missing almost forty-eight years ago.
Still, it has not only been investigators who are trying to raise awareness and get justice. For instance, Rachel’s brother, Rusty, created a Facebook group entitled “Missing Ft. Worth Trio.” The forum has since gained over twelve thousand and two hundred members.
On the ground, too, Rusty aided in physical search efforts. In September of 2018, he and the Texas EquuSearch organized a dive team that searched Benbrook Lake– located near where the girls had disappeared.
The lake search was prompted after someone in the area had reported their car missing around the same time the girls had vanished.
So, Rusty figured that if someone had wanted to get rid of a car, Benbrook Lake would have been the place to do it. And to his surprise, the search did not just find one car. They actually unearthed three.
Unfortunately, though, five local scientists analyzed two of the vehicles and found that neither of them was linked to the case.
The third car, though, was able to be identified and will reportedly be analyzed further. According to Rusty, it is a vehicle of interest.
Likewise, Rachel’s family created a Facebook group, too– entitled Justice For Mary Rachel Arnold Trlica– with two distinct goals. The first is to obtain and maintain a working relationship with the Fort Worth Police Department.
“At the current time, Detective Wagner will only speak with two family members– both of which are over the age of seventy and none of which are a family member of Rachel’s,” according to the Facebook group.
And the second goal is to obtain the envelope that held the letter received by Tommy Trlica in order to have it tested by Othram Inc.
“They are leading their industry in processing DNA with minute amounts of DNA. The DNA has not been processed since 2001. Leaps and bounds have changed in the field since then. I believe Othram is our best bet if we are to ever get answers from this, and those that could be responsible are quickly aging and may not be here any longer if we continue to stall this process.”
Today, Renee Wilson would be sixty-two years old. Rachel Trlica would be sixty-five, and Julie Moseley would be fifty-seven. Anyone with information on the missing trio is urged to contact the Fort Worth Police Department at (817) 469-8477.
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