On December 23, 1974, three girls went to a Fort Worth shopping center to do some last-minute Christmas shopping. They arrived at Seminary South Shopping Center expecting to spend only part of the day there.
Instead, they disappeared without a trace.
The three were 17-year-old Mary Rachel Trlica, known as Rachel; 14-year-old Lisa Renee Wilson, who went by Renee; and 9-year-old Julie Ann Moseley. Their car was eventually found sitting in the shopping center parking lot, but the girls were gone.
More than five decades later, none of them has ever been found.
A Christmas Shopping Trip
Shortly before noon that day, Rachel Trlica and Renee Wilson headed out to shop for Christmas. Julie Moseley asked if she could come along because she did not want to stay home alone. After initially hesitating, her mother gave permission and told Julie to be home by 6:00 p.m.
Renee had an especially strong reason to return earlier. She had received a promise ring from her new boyfriend that morning and planned to attend a Christmas party with him later that day. She wanted enough time to get home and prepare.
The girls first stopped at a Fort Worth surplus store so Renee could collect items she had purchased on layaway. From there, they continued to Seminary South Shopping Center.
Several people later reported seeing the girls inside the mall.
Then something happened that remains unexplained.
Their Car Was Still There
When the girls failed to come home, their families became increasingly worried. Around 6:00 p.m., relatives went to the shopping center looking for them.
They found Rachel’s 1972 Oldsmobile 98 in the upper-level Sears parking area.
The vehicle was not abandoned in the sense of being stripped or damaged. In fact, the Christmas presents the girls had purchased were still inside. That suggested they had returned to the car sometime during the afternoon.
But Rachel, Renee and Julie were nowhere to be found.
Their families remained at the shopping center throughout the night, hoping the girls would somehow return.
They never did.
The case was turned over to the Fort Worth Police Department’s Missing Persons Bureau. Investigators initially considered the possibility that the girls had simply run away.
Their families strongly disagreed.
The Mysterious Letter
The day after the disappearance, Rachel’s husband, Tommy Trlica, received a letter that appeared to have been written by Rachel.
The message claimed that the girls had gone to Houston and would return in about a week. It also referred to the location of the Oldsmobile in the Sears parking lot.
But almost immediately, questions arose about whether Rachel had actually written it.
The envelope was written in pencil, while the letter itself was written in ink on paper that was wider than the envelope. The letter was addressed to Thomas A. Trlica, rather than the more familiar name “Tommy” that Rachel normally used.
There were also unusual details involving the handwriting and the postmark. The postal marking contained what appeared to be an unclear ZIP code, leading investigators to consider several possible locations.
Over the years, handwriting specialists—including experts associated with the FBI—examined the letter. Their conclusions never definitively established whether Rachel had written it.
For the families, the message did little to ease their fears.
They did not believe the three girls had voluntarily disappeared.
Julie’s mother said she knew her daughter and the other girls and did not believe they were runaways. Renee’s mother pointed out that Renee had been looking forward to her Christmas party and had no apparent reason to abandon those plans.
Rachel’s mother also remained convinced that the girls had been taken.
A Search That Spanned Decades
The families refused to stop looking.
Missing-person flyers were distributed throughout Texas and beyond, while newspapers were contacted across the country. Numerous tips followed, producing possible sightings and theories—but no confirmed answer.
One man claimed that he had seen the girls inside a store’s record department shortly before they disappeared. He said Rachel spoke briefly with him and that another person appeared to be with the girls.
Investigators also followed reports concerning clothing discovered in another Texas community, but those items were eventually determined not to belong to the missing girls.
The families eventually became frustrated with the police investigation and hired private investigator Jon Swaim.
Swaim pursued numerous leads, including a man who had worked at a local store where Rachel had previously applied for a job. The man was later discovered to have been making obscene telephone calls to women whose information he had obtained through employment applications and references.
Although the man’s behavior raised serious concerns, investigators were unable to establish that he had anything to do with the disappearance.
Search After Search
In April 1975, Swaim organized a large search near Port Lavaca, Texas, after receiving information suggesting that the girls might have been killed and taken there. Approximately 100 volunteers searched beneath local bridges.
Nothing was found.
The following year, three sets of skeletal remains were discovered in Brazoria County. The remains were compared with the girls’ records, but they belonged to other individuals.
Another investigation took place in 1981 after human remains were discovered in a swampy area of Brazoria County. Once again, the remains were determined not to be those of Rachel, Renee or Julie.
Other tips sent investigators searching in different parts of Texas, including one that led searchers toward Rising Star after a psychic claimed the girls could be found near an oil well.
That search also produced nothing.
The investigation suffered another major setback in 1979, when private investigator Jon Swaim died from a drug overdose in what was ruled a suicide. Before his death, he reportedly ordered his case files concerning the girls destroyed.
Years of investigative material were therefore lost.
Questions About an Abduction
Although the runaway theory was initially considered, the families never accepted it.
There were also reports that raised the possibility that the girls had been taken by someone they knew or trusted.
One woman reportedly told a store clerk that she had seen the three girls being forced into a yellow pickup truck near a grocery store at the shopping center. The truck reportedly had lights mounted on top.
However, police were never able to locate the woman who supposedly witnessed the incident, and the account could not be independently verified.
Another man came forward in 1981, claiming that he had been in the parking lot on the day of the disappearance. He said he saw a man forcing a girl into a van. According to his account, the man told him it was a family dispute and warned him to stay out of it.
That account, too, did not provide investigators with enough evidence to solve the case.
Then, decades later, another potentially important account emerged.
A New Investigation
In January 2001, the case was reopened and assigned to homicide detective Tom Boetcher.
Boetcher believed the girls may have left the mall with someone they trusted. Investigators also believed that more than one person could have been involved.
The possibility was significant because it shifted attention away from the idea of three teenagers simply deciding to disappear together.
In 2018, investigators went even further when two vehicles were recovered from Benbrook Lake because of possible connections to the case.
Neither vehicle produced the breakthrough investigators had hoped for.
The families continued searching, walking roads, creek beds and remote areas throughout Texas. Investigators repeatedly followed tips, conducted searches and interviewed people who might have known something about the girls’ disappearance.
Still, there was no definitive answer.
Three Lives Frozen in Time
Rachel was 17 and married to Tommy Trlica. She was a high school student at Southwest High School and had long brown hair and green eyes. She was approximately 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighed 108 pounds.
Renee was 14 and attending ninth grade. She had light, wavy brown hair and brown eyes and stood about 5 feet 2 inches tall, weighing approximately 110 pounds.
Julie, the youngest, was only 9. She had shoulder-length sandy-blonde hair and blue eyes. She was approximately 4 feet 3 inches tall and weighed 85 pounds.
They left home expecting a normal day of Christmas shopping.
Instead, their families spent Christmas searching for them.
And the mystery has remained alive ever since.
A Mystery Without an Ending
Thousands of leads have reportedly been pursued. Numerous searches have taken place, and hundreds of people have been interviewed.
Yet there has never been a confirmed explanation for what happened after the three girls returned to their car at Seminary South.
Were they approached by someone they knew?
Did they willingly leave the shopping center with another person before something went terribly wrong?
Was the mysterious letter an attempt to make the disappearance look voluntary?
Or did something else happen entirely?
Those questions remain unanswered.
The Fort Worth Missing Trio—Rachel Trlica, Renee Wilson and Julie Moseley—have never been found. Their families have spent decades waiting for answers, while investigators have continued to treat one of Texas’s most enduring missing-person mysteries as an unresolved case.
On that December afternoon in 1974, three girls disappeared just days before Christmas.
They have never come home.
This story is based on publicly available information and reported facts. It has been independently written and presented for informational purposes. Images, if any, belong to their respective owners.