That Final Day
The girls first stopped at an Army Navy surplus store to pick up a pair of jeans Renee had on layaway prior to vanishing from the Seminary South Shopping Center in Fort Worth, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. Two pairs of jeans were found later found in the trunk of Rachel’s car.
Before they left, Renee promised Terry she’d be back by 2 p.m. to spend time with him before she had to go to a Christmas party with her parents, he shares. Her grandparents lived next door to Terry, so they’d often spent time together there. But 2:00 came and went, with no sign of the girls.
“I was kind of getting mad,” Terry admits. “I was hoping she'd come back. I gave her the promise ring, and then, bam! They were gone. I was hoping she'd come back so we'd spend some time together.”
When the girls failed to return home in time, Renee's dad, Richard Wilson, and a neighbor recovered Rachel’s 1972 Oldsmobile 98 sitting in the Sears parking lot around 6 p.m. that evening. Presents were found in the car, according to WFAA-TV.
A suspicious letter purportedly penned by Rachel arrived at the home she shared with her husband, Thomas Trlica, the day after the trio disappeared. It was addressed to him and read: “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 the Sears upper lot. Love, Rachel,” KXAS-TV reported.
At first, police believed the letter was written by Rachel, but they eventually sent it to the FBI for handwriting analyses three times for confirmation. Each time, it came back inconclusive, investigator George Hudson said in 1978, per the Telegram. Investigators deduced none of the girls' handwriting matched the envelope.
“The letter seemed bogus,” Terry chimes in, adding that none of the girls had any reason to take off, let alone two days before Christmas. “Renee seemed happy at home, and she was really excited because she knew that she was getting some sort of stereo system from her parents for Christmas. And then my sister was excited; she was a 9-year-old at Christmas time. No one was having an issue that they wanted to run away from.”
Not Home for Christmas
The girls never turned up in Houston, and they never came back home.
Eyewitnesses offered varying accounts of the girls' last movements. One claimed they saw the trio being “hustled” into a pickup by unknown men, while another alleged onlooker said they noticed the girls get into a pickup truck with a security guard just before midnight, according to Solve the Case. The accounts were unverified.
Terry suspects Rachel’s husband, Thomas, had something to do with their disappearance. Thomas was never officially named as a suspect.
“I heard he was at a bowling alley, and the police told him what was going on. And he said, ‘OK, I'll come.’ And supposedly he finished bowling.”
After 51 years of frustration and disappointment, Terry says police have told him the case remains active. However, to his knowledge, detectives are no closer to figuring out what happened to Rachel, Renee and Julie than when the investigation began in 1974.
The Fort Worth Police Department did not respond to A&E Crime + Investigation’s request for comment.
Still, hope remains, experts say.
“We know that a child can be found at any point, no matter how much time has passed,” Angeline Hartmann, Communications Director for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, told A&E Crime + Investigation in an email. “Keeping these cases visible through media coverage, missing posters and age-progressed images is so important. It just takes one person and the right moment to change everything.”
Time has brought about advancements in technology, like the AMBER Alert and the implementation of stricter laws, making finding the girls still a real possibility.
“The way we search for and locate missing children has evolved dramatically,” Hartmann explains. “Federal involvement in these cases began in the 1970s, and over time, Congress passed laws requiring immediate police reports, mandatory NCIC (National Crime Information Center) entries, and stronger information sharing across jurisdictions. The creation of the NCMEC in the 1980s and the elimination of waiting periods (to report a missing person) in the 1990s marked major turning points.”
No suspects have been named in the girls’ disappearance, and some family members don’t believe the girls are still alive.
“I really don’t believe they’re alive,” Renee’s dad, Richard, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 2017, five years before he died. “I would like to think otherwise, but it’s been so many years.”
Rachel’s mom, Francis Langston, also told the outlet, “I don’t believe my daughter is alive, but one day, someone is going to find her.”
Terry shares a similar sentiment and “doesn’t really” think he’ll ever see his little sister, again.
“Where did they put them that they can't be found in 51 years?” he wonders. “How did they make them just totally disappear?”
