Texas Wine and True Crime
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Texas Wine and True Crime
Fort Worth Trio: 50 Years Missing
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A car left in the Sears upper lot. Christmas gifts still inside. A letter to “Thomas” that Rachel likely never wrote. Nearly five decades after the Fort Worth Trio vanished from a Texas shopping center, we return to the heart of the mystery and scrutinize the few artifacts that have ever mattered: the Oldsmobile, the layaway jeans, a handful of shaky eyewitness accounts, and a baffling note that arrived almost too fast for 1974 holiday mail.
We walk step by step through the known timeline—Rachel, Renee, and Julie shopping on December 23rd—then trace the details that undercut the “runaway” narrative. The gifts weren’t opened. The keys were left behind. Promises to be home by two were never casual. From there, we turn to the letter: addressed to “Thomas” instead of “Tommy,” penned with language that family says doesn’t sound like Rachel, bearing a debated postmark and a misspelling awkwardly corrected. Handwriting reviews never bring certainty; modern opinions suggest none of the girls wrote it. So why write it—and why so quickly—unless the goal was to distract, delay, and misdirect?
We balance two competing frameworks. On one side: the local context of the 1970s and 1980s—multiple unsolved disappearances, confirmed serial predators, open land where evidence disappears, and the grim reality that stranger-on-stranger crimes are hardest to solve. On the other: the intimate signals around Rachel—household tensions, the letter’s personal address, and the question of whether someone close would risk acting when two other girls were with her. Could one person control three victims in daylight, or does this scenario demand at least two offenders—or a trusted face that lowered every guard?
Along the way, we surface a haunting footnote: a private investigator who later died by suicide and ordered his case files destroyed. Whether that choice reflects despair, fear, or protection, it pulls potential clues out of reach and leaves the car, the purchases, and the letter to carry the investigative weight. If the note is a map, it points to someone close. If it’s a smokescreen, it favors a predator in motion.
If this case grips you as deeply as it grips us, share the episode with a friend, hit follow, and leave a review with your theory—does the letter expose the culprit, or hide them in plain sight?
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Welcome, all of you wine and true crime lovers. I'm Brandy. And I'm Chris. And this is Texas Wine and True Crime. Thank you for being here, friends, for this week's episode Updates from the Fort Worth Trio. Hey, Chris.
SPEAKER_02:Hey, Brandy.
SPEAKER_01:All right. So we have actually covered this case. Um, I think we covered it just a couple of years ago.
SPEAKER_02:So it's been a little while.
SPEAKER_01:A few parts. I don't think it was just a one-parter. I think at least two, possibly three parts to this um episode that we covered. So if you want to get a really deep dive, you can go um and check out the Fort Worth Trio um on our um really where wherever you listen to our show. But tonight I want to recap a little bit. So I said I was going to um put this case back in the forefront. Um 2023, 2024 police sort of the there were more articles coming out.
SPEAKER_02:The theories are the same.
SPEAKER_01:Not really, um, I think it's just all the theories that really are around this case that surround this case.
SPEAKER_02:Um it's quite a weird one.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's quite baffling. Um, so tonight, um, we're just gonna sort of recap, and then I kind of want to focus on after 50-something years of three girls going missing at the seminary shopping center in Fort Worth, Texas. Um a few ideas and theories have been put out there. Um, police, I do believe, after, you know, this is 1974, December 23rd, 1974, the day before Christmas Eve. Um, I don't think they're any closer to solving this case, unless they know something we don't. I don't think they're anywhere closer to solving this case than they were in 1974, if I'm being honest.
SPEAKER_02:I I mean, yes, because just to essentially vanish from thin air.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I mean the leads were very poor as to, you know, different people saw different things and nothing really added up, you know. So every lead really led to a dead end.
SPEAKER_01:It did. And I think for a long time, you know, I think it's easy to point the fingers at family, I think it's easy to point the finger at friends, I think it's easy um to guess right now because I think I think that's and you know, we don't know, we don't know enough about what happened to them. Um, what we do know is on December 23rd, 1974, Rachel, Trulissa, Renee Wilson, and Julianne Mosley went to the mall to do some Christmas shopping. Their vehicle was later found abandoned in a Sears parking lot at the mall, and the girls have never been seen again. The big key evidence in this case is that 1972 um Oldsmobile that was found in the Sears parking lot. It had presents that were still in it. Remember, they were going Christmas shopping, and also the keys were found.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, as though they did return the vehicle, and I mean, but they never left.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Well, we don't know. We don't know if that was where they parked when they got there. We don't know if somebody moved the vehicle. We know the keys were left in the car. I don't know why a female driving two other women or two, excuse me, these are a 15 and a nine-year-old that Rachel's driving. Rachel's 17 at the time.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I was gonna say they're all right.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know, I don't know the point of keeping keys in the car. Did people used to do that in the 1970s?
SPEAKER_02:All the time. You would put them, um, I mean, old movies, you see them pull the uh sun visor down. You know, I mean, it just sure. I guess it's a different time. And I would find, I mean, I guess just thinking you go to the mall, you park at the mall, you've got your spot, what is the likelihood that you went out to your car to go move it to another location to go into another part of the mall? You know. Um, well, or um It's like you said, somebody moved it, but somebody could have moved it, right?
SPEAKER_01:And here's and here's why. But let me get I'll get to that in a second of why that's important. Um so for over 50 years now, it's been a total mystery what happened to these young girls. Um we have a nine-year-old, a 15-year-old, and a 17-year-old. Rachel is married um at the time, and she and her friend, 15-year-old, and then you have that, and that's Renee, and then you have the nine-year-old Julie. So Julie's brother was actually dating Renee. So the day she left, he had given her a promise ring. And they were supposed, she had promised him that they were gonna be back by two o'clock that day, so she could visit with him before he um before she had to go to a Christmas party with her parents. So it's his little sister, the nine-year-old, who was also with her. The mother of Julie, the youngest nine-year-old, she was a single mom. The brother has always said that the mother was very strict.
SPEAKER_02:She usually Yeah, she really didn't want to let her go.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, she didn't want to let her go. There's girls 15, these girls are 15 and 17. She's nine.
SPEAKER_02:Don't disagree with her um stance.
SPEAKER_01:It is 1970s, though. So I think about this as well. They all, you know, I think one set of grandparents lives next door to one of their families. So this is like a close, at least a close group of friends, enough for the mother to allow this nine-year-old to go to the mall with them. Um, so um, Julie's brother, Terry, who I believe now is in his 60s, he was 15 at the time. I think I I think I've said Renee was 15. I think she was actually 14 at the time that this happened. But, you know, she asked him to go to the mall with them that day. And he had told her no. His friend, I think, was having some sort of surgery or just to go to supervise and just be part of it. Yeah, just to go. I mean, he they were, you know, this is 14 and 15-year-olds dating, and you know, she wants him to go to the mall, but he declined. Um, you know, and I'm sure he probably lives with a lot of that. I mean, his girlfriend goes missing the same day. He gives her a promise ring and he never sees his sister again.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So he has um he had come out and did an article um and interviewed uh last year, and you know, had basically said that uh she was kind of upset he didn't go. She had promised she'd be back by two, that his little sister um usually was not allowed to go places, and that you know, the mom gave a little leeway. So all three girls set off um to go uh uh to the mall. Now they're all they're going to get some Christmas presents. Now, at the time, Rachel is married to Tommy Trulissa. Now, what we know about that, um, and really you can go back and listen to the episodes, but we know that Tommy had once been engaged to Rachel's sister. Okay. So at the time, Rachel's sister was living in the house of with Tommy and with Rachel. Now, I have come, I have seen several sources that says there it was a mild engagement, you know, that he was that he wanted to be with Rachel. Um, but I think this is important because her sister never takes a lie detector test. Everyone else in the family had taken lie detector tests. Um, but her sister did not, and she still has continued over the years to to refuse a poly. Um, the family, the families of all three have asked her to take a polygraph. Um, but uh she has not. So why that is important is because a letter shows up at the house the next day after the girls go missing. They go shopping, clearly they're not coming back. The the the fathers are the ones who find the cars or the car. The they go looking for them, they find the car at Sears, they go back to the mall. So it wasn't as though like they were reported missing, and then the police came and found the car, like the the fathers found the car.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and like the letter showing up that quick. Yeah. I mean, and it was an odd um it's not postal code, but whatever the um It's like the stamp you're talking about the mail machine. Yeah. The stamp it to be sent. And like I and I apologize, I can't remember exactly where the zip code was that it said it came from. It came from Tex inside of Texas, but it was like it was just kind of peculiar, like and it came that quick.
SPEAKER_01:It just well, I'm not even totally I'm not even totally um convinced that it actually went to the post office.
SPEAKER_02:I think like it was an envelope that had been used or something before and they stuffed it in there. Yeah, because I mean that's possibly that's what's odd, is that I think the proximity to Fort Worth just wasn't a light.
SPEAKER_01:I think it was an hour. I think we're they I can't remember the city either. We did say it in the episodes when everybody goes back to the city.
SPEAKER_02:But I think too, just even the mail, if you think about if you mail something one day, it has to go to the post office, it has to be sorted, it has to be put on the trucks, and just you know, if it even Well, things didn't even move that fast in 1974.
SPEAKER_01:The mail was much slower. This is Christmas mail, too, right? This is Christmas time mail, which is gonna take even longer. Um, we'll get back to the letter in just a second, but I want to make sure people know that they actually stopped at the Army Navy surplus store to pick up a pair of jeans that um that one of the girls had put on layaway. So they had picked up the jeans, so they went there first before they actually went to the mall.
SPEAKER_02:Girls used to shop at the Army Navy store.
SPEAKER_01:I like the Army Navy store. I've I've gotten one or two things from there. Two pairs of jeans were found in the trunk of Rachel's car. So we know they went there. Before they left, again, they said we'll be back by two o'clock. Um, you know, uh there these girls did not plan to run away. I want to make that clear, and I think police have made that clear.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and I mean that's the suspicion initially because you know it's kind of like um oh my gosh, you know, the uh Forest Lane in 1988, the two girls, um, that was too common kids would just kind of especially 17, you'd take off and uh they would consider you runaway, but I mean it just it wasn't like a even the search for it, you know. It just like I mean, I think that's what's so odd. The car still there too, but I mean, like you would think if they had run away.
SPEAKER_01:Well, first of all, I don't think if Rachel and Renee, well, first of all, I don't think Renee would have told Terry that she was coming back at two o'clock. And if Rachel wanted to go somewhere, she wouldn't have taken a nine-year-old.
SPEAKER_02:I was about to say they're not gonna take a nine-year-old.
SPEAKER_01:They're not gonna take a nine-year-old. So I don't believe that this was some sort of plan or ruse to get out of the house and then disappear. Um Renee's dad.
SPEAKER_02:Much less not have any wheels to go anywhere unless they were there to be too.
SPEAKER_01:Um, Renee's dad, Richard, um, he is actually the one he found the car with. He, I think he had brought a neighbor or two with him. Um, and that was around six o'clock that night.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and this mall, too. I mean, it's not a what you think of a mall. I think it's more of like a shopping center. Center. Yeah. That's what it was. Yeah, more or less.
SPEAKER_01:So a suspicious letter, like we mentioned, um, shows up at the home, and it is addressed to her husband, but it says Thomas Trulissa, but he went by Tommy. And if Rachel wrote the letter, she would not have, at least this is what people and family think, that she would have not used Thomas, she would have addressed it to Tommy. The outside of the envelope was penciled with the address.
SPEAKER_02:And it's different handwriting as well, too, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we'll get to that in a second. But the outside is pencil, the inside is pen. So to me, that's you're doing one to two things at different times. I think they used pencil to uh just in case maybe they misspelled something or got an address wrong, or they used pencil because that's all they had to address the envelope after the letter is written.
SPEAKER_02:You know, and that is so it's sealed, right? So you wonder, like, did they say was it delivered by the mail or did it actually I personally do not think it was delivered by the mail. Unless I mean, was it just dropped off by the box? So you would have to box.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I mean, how would you know unless you worked unless this person works for the post office, which they could, they would know when the letter arrived. But it's almost like you would have to know that the letter's going to arrive the day after you have kidnapped these girls.
SPEAKER_02:I feel like if I mailed a letter to my sister across the street in Dallas, that it would still take two days for her to receive that mail from me right across the street.
SPEAKER_01:So Right. And I I just with the with the outside being pencil.
SPEAKER_02:But being said, you did mention it's 1974. We think of today's date with the volume of mail. I don't know. Is it possible with less population and less mail to even sort of but then when do you mail it? I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Like, how do you know when it's going to arrive unless you work for the post office?
SPEAKER_02:I have no or if you take it directly there. I mean Right.
SPEAKER_01:Which is what I think happened. I think somebody put it in the mailbox. I don't think this was actually.
SPEAKER_02:No, no, I mean um the mailbox at the residence. I'm saying I guess if you physically went to like a post office and submitted it there, does it bypass the picking it up of like you know, an actual post office box? Not post office box, but a mailbox.
SPEAKER_01:Because whether you pick it up at the mail in someone's home, you have to bring it back to the post office to be processed, right? So sometimes that's the next day.
SPEAKER_02:But does it get into the mail quicker, like for processing if you were to physically take it there, versus all the mail trucks that go and pick up all the mail that people put like I'm and I'm talking like the public mail boxes that are like on the side of the street. Like you got to think that mail gets processed much later than somebody taking something directly to the mail, to the post office. Like that's gonna go to the back, it's gonna whatever they do, you know, yeah, put it in this box. So who knows? Maybe in 1974. I don't know. We have some sort of 1974 mail expert and the frequency. I just volume that there is uh please speak up.
SPEAKER_01:Well, in the letter, um, it says, 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. Okay. So there's a few things here I want to talk about with what was said. Um, well, first of all, we know they had never got to Houston. They but once they saw this letter, they contacted Houston police and they were going to Webster.
SPEAKER_02:It's addressed to Thomas, right? It's addressed to Thomas.
SPEAKER_01:And I mean on the outside of the envelope, it has Thomas' name, not Tommy.
SPEAKER_02:Who calls him Thomas?
SPEAKER_01:Um, that's his formal name.
SPEAKER_02:I know. So I'm just saying though, like, did the um you know, was there I wonder if it was ever investigated the sister who was engaged to him before. Was that her name? Did she call him Thomas? Like when he was in trouble. Kind of like Chris or Christopher, you know, if it's Christopher Dolphin. I don't know. It's much like serious.
SPEAKER_01:So they okay, so let's try to talk about what is in this letter. So it says, I know I'm going to catch it. We just got away, we're going to Houston. Houston, they never arrived. We know that. See you in about a week. Okay. The cars in this year's upper lot. So that's what's very interesting about this letter, in my opinion, because we know, I well, I know, and I'm sure police know that whoever put this letter in the mailbox knew where the car was. They were the ones responsible for kidnapping these girls. Um, it was later determined. I think they did a uh handwriting analysis on this five different times sent to the FBI. All five times it came back inconclusive. But I do believe a couple of years ago, there was another expert that came out and said that it is definitely not any of the girls' handwriting. So I don't believe that this was actually written by Rachel. I believe that this letter was taken there.
SPEAKER_02:Can they determine if it's a more male-dominant uh stroke versus the female dominant?
SPEAKER_01:I don't know. I mean, I would uh I don't know. Um, I don't know if they can actually tell that in handwriting analysis, but um the but what is really interesting to me about this letter is there was about 14, 15 men young boys and girls that disappeared between around 1973-ish, 74-ish, to 1990 in Fort Worth. There was there was at least one serial killer we know about that was in the streets of Fort Worth at that time. There is suspected to be one or two others. Now, why this is interesting is I have always we all know that the stranger on stranger crimes are the hardest to solve. So let's kind of take that theory first. Um, when they got to the mall, I mean, they were seen at the mall. Um, somebody came forward and said that they saw the girls in the record store and that there was um a male uh sort of behind them. He felt like he maybe he was with them, but he never really um there wasn't just any definitive for sureness that this guy was actually with the with the three girls, but it looked a little suspicious, I suppose.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I think the key too is because it's three girls. Yeah, like one person wrangling three girls. Three girls. Um maybe.
SPEAKER_01:We don't know if there was one. Could have been two.
SPEAKER_02:No, that's what I'm saying. That's what leads me to believe it's like not a but I mean But you don't have to wrangle any girls if you know them.
SPEAKER_01:They'll go with you willingly.
SPEAKER_02:I guess, but what's the um Wha where would they go? Like you said, the one girl had to be home. Why is she gonna get in the car and go someplace else? They already have a car, they don't need a ride, they have Christmas presents. You know, it's um it doesn't that's it's one thing if they're broken down the side of the road and they get in the car of the stranger. Like, what's the point purpose of um what would be the purpose of them getting, even if they knew the person, you know, somebody that they recognize, like hop in the car, we're gonna go cruise.
SPEAKER_01:The one girl, we don't know. I mean, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:No, I mean it's certainly it's possible, but I mean you just gotta this is the daytime in the middle of the day at the mall.
SPEAKER_01:They nobody saw anything, they didn't see any girls getting, you know, abducted. There was a security guard that was under some heat for a while, but definitive like sight, you know, eyewitness sighting of what happened to them, there's none of that. No, I just which is a little strange, being that there's three of them, and if they were being abducted, wouldn't somebody have maybe heard or seen something?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I know, and I kind of think too, what if they um that's what's puzzling. Like, what is the purpose of them getting car? It is the middle of the day, it's not like it's night, they're out partying, they have a nine-year-old girl with them, right? So, you know, you could swoop somebody, pull up in a van and swoop up against somebody if they're kind of that's right.
SPEAKER_01:And you know what? There are listen, there's abductions that happen all the time in parking lots during the day. I mean, we there I can think of like three or four off the top of my head that cases I'm aware of that have happened in front of Walmart during the day or in front of a target during the day.
SPEAKER_02:But I guess too, like and followed. These girls were followed out of the store. I assume as well that um because you like you say, it is three. Um, oh, why wouldn't they fight? I mean, fight back. But then again, you know, I don't know, they are very young, and so maybe they're somebody was very intimidating as well, too.
SPEAKER_01:So they know, so we know they were spotted at the mall. So at least we know that um the it it it does appear that they actually made it there because the car was parked at Sears, right? So we know that the car was parked there. We know that the girls probably um had made it inside. So at first, the letter that had been supposedly written by Rachel, um they called it, you know, they they think the letter was bogus, but I don't think they think the letter is bogus as like it has nothing to do with their abduction, because I think it does. What I what they don't think is that like Rachel wrote it. And here's another thing about being having three girls. Now, I won't before before I say this, I want to preface there are serial killers who have had their victims write letters to the family letters. Letting them know that they are gone or have run away or decided to take a break. And they do that to throw on delay investigation. But this is the day after. And you have three girls that you have taken. So you're just going to kind of keep them alive and have Rachel write this letter. Um, and then you're gonna have them go take it to the mail because you don't, if if if this is a serial killer, you don't know where she lives. I mean, unless you have followed them from the house, which I am not, I do not think that happened. I think this either went down at the Army Navy store and they were followed to the mall, or they were watched and and saw at, you know, they were at the mall and someone saw them. But here's another thing. If you're going to take someone, why are you gonna take three of them? Why would you just not target an individual? But that has now come to light that could the have could the victim have possibly been Rachel and the other two were just sort of there and became victims. This is why this case is so mind-boggling, because you typically don't have an individual going and taking three people. Usually you have now, yeah, I guess, but the Springfield three, we know somebody went in their house too.
SPEAKER_02:Think about too though, somebody somebody's got beef with her. These are not like mafioso and you know, just collateral damage if somebody happens to be in the way. Like that seems more of like a designed kind of, you know, planned. They're gonna take everybody, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, like just alone. I mean, think about a nine-year-old girl trying to keep them contained. I mean, it's not like they're they're various ages. It's not like a um I mean, I guess in some ways it is a child abduction, but I mean it's like it's a mix, the whole kit and caboodle, you know.
SPEAKER_01:I just don't know that one person is going to take three girls.
SPEAKER_02:No, no, no. I don't think so either, because I just think it's hard to manage. If you grabbed one, the other two could scream.
SPEAKER_01:Unless you have a gun. Listen, we have no idea. We know that they were abducted by somebody, but here's another thing. They have not been found in over 50 years. To me, in no, in no word, right? No whispers of that it could have been somebody besides Tommy Trulissa, because he was sort of considered a suspect, because um there he maybe he didn't have the most um upset reaction about what had happened. Um, so there was a little bit, and then and then the sister doesn't take a lie detector test. Eventually, family is asking her to do it, and and she and she didn't want to do it. Um, but again, you have three girls. And so because they have not found been found in this long, my thought does go to randomness because if you take three girls and you're a serial killer on the move, you you're gonna dispose of them somewhere, right? And we know that there are lots of serial killers out there with lots of victims. These victims have never been identified. Um I mean, it's very there's a lot of missing people and a lot of murder that is unsolved.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah, no doubt.
SPEAKER_01:So I don't know, I am not convinced they stayed in this area. I am ca I tend to feel like they were drove that they were driven somewhere. And that is really the piece of this that makes me feel like it's random. What is not random is the letter showing up at the house, and which puts it closer to home.
SPEAKER_02:Fort Worth in 1974. Um, you didn't have to go very far to kind of be in pasture. I mean, it it's it was very country around there.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_02:So the you know, the likely that I mean that's probably why if they were disposed somewhere, then the difficulty finding them and somebody seeing them, because I mean you'd had, you know, a drive to Dallas from Fort Worth back then would have felt like an eternity because you would have just not seen much in between, you know.
SPEAKER_01:So, like I mentioned at the mall, all the accounts and visuals of them have not been verified. So um one person claimed they saw them being hustled into a pickup truck by an unknown man. Um, another person said that they noticed the girls get into a pickup truck with a security guard just before midnight. But again, that seems very strange.
SPEAKER_02:But think about the whole gun thing as somebody pulling a gun. Like you're going to pull a gun on three girls, you're going to keep the gun trained on them, you're going to hop in a car and drive down the road with unless, like I said, they're just scared. So it could be.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, they would be going crazy to get out of there, right?
SPEAKER_02:Like a second person.
SPEAKER_01:Unless you had a second person. But what's interesting is that the brother, Julie's brother, he actually thinks Rachel's husband was involved in this.
SPEAKER_02:He actually came out and said, I think from that angle too, is how many but he's never been officially named as a suspect.
SPEAKER_01:I want to be clear on that.
SPEAKER_02:We don't we haven't talked about too many like murdering pairs of people. You know what I mean? So, like, are two guys gonna get together and go take three girls and murder them? I mean, that's two. So the once again, you lead back to is it somebody that's a little closer to the circle?
SPEAKER_01:Well, that is why I feel like the letter has a lot of significance um in this case, even though they may feel like she did not write it. This is somebody who wanted to delay investigation. They wanted to throw off local scent. Um I don't see a serial killer taking the time to drop off a letter at a house. I don't. They're gonna get out of they're gonna get out of the seminary parking lot.
SPEAKER_02:I just think of the exposure and the risk of you know, serial killer too. Three little girls, and you're going to, I mean, middle of day, I don't know. You know.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, it happens. I mean, we're not gonna say it doesn't happen because it does happen. But three that's I mean, there's there's been a serial killer who's killed three people in one day. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02:I'm saying about the same group, like you know, you jump out of the car, bah, you have to have two people are gonna get away. You can't grab that's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01:You're gonna have to have either an accomplice or you're going to or how do you control them? Like how you yeah, you're gonna have to like somehow subdue them for them to actually want to go with you. Um it's just very the the letter has always um it's always kind of bothered me. I I feel like you know, it's hard because 50 over 50 years and the fact that they have not been found, I feel like they were brought out of the area. I I just don't unless the person was local and they had land or property or knew exactly where the he was he was going to take them. I mean, I don't know. People do people do strange things.
SPEAKER_02:And nobody would know. And this is we're talking pasture. Now all that stuff's developed now, but even so, um, fifty years a body that's not preserved in a you know, a regular grave that's dug out. I mean, it's possible, you know. Yeah, there's no doubt, because you wouldn't have to go very far and just the the amount of people that um you would not likely encounter.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and then I think of the husband, okay if I I try to I try to always think of like how how people are thinking, even though we're really not supposed to do that when it comes to things like this because it's psychopathic and sociopathic, but you have a husband who may or may not have targeted his 17-year-old wife for her to disappear, but she has now two people with her. Are you gonna go through with it? Are you gonna maybe wait until she doesn't have two other people? Are you that confident that you're gonna be able to do you all do you just hate her so much that the other two girls become collateral damage?
SPEAKER_02:This is why Because whatever became of him.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, he um I mean he was under fire, of course. I mean, he has always said that none of, you know, that he was not responsible for this, that he had nothing to do with it. And so I feel like there's these two pieces of like a personal vendetta against one or all of them, which I don't believe that. I think Rachel was if this was targeted, it was at targeted at her, not the 14-year-old to the nine-year-old. But then you have the serial killer stranger on stranger thing, which is the hardest to solve. They can drive off and be never be seen again. Um, you know, I it's um and be able to hide them, get out of town.
SPEAKER_02:I just think from the angle if he to murder one person and go through life and just live a normal life is I guess you could say that's one thing to have that noodling around your brain. But to have murdered three people and you just go on about your normal life, you know. So I don't know. And the guilt of that, and I mean it's just it seems that's that's makes him a peculiar suspect as well, too, because I mean, I just I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I think of like again, they of they have always felt that Rachel was the target. In fact, there were sightings of her after this in Fort Worth for a very long time. There was a private investigator who worked on this case, and we talked about him in that in the episode we did, and he ends up taking his life and requests that all of the of the files and everything he collected on this case be destroyed, and nobody knows why. I mean, this is why this case is so mind-boggling. What did he uncover? What did he know that he didn't want anyone else to know?
SPEAKER_02:I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, why destroy the files?
SPEAKER_02:Do you want do all of his files or just files on this case?
SPEAKER_01:Just specific to that also has had me a little mind-boggled when it comes to this. Um, and they did destroy them. It was his last one of his last will and test, it was in his last will and testament or his last wishes that this case that these files be destroyed in this case that he has collected.
SPEAKER_02:Epstein wasn't operating around this time.
SPEAKER_01:No, I don't think so. No, maybe I don't know. But I find that very interesting.
SPEAKER_02:We're scared of that guy.
SPEAKER_01:And it it that doesn't make much sense.
SPEAKER_02:Not really, no, because I just can't see um did he uncover something?
SPEAKER_01:Did he uncover something a local, more to a local figure that could get someone, you know? I I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:Or did he just drive himself crazy trying to solve it and just like out of frustration and frustration and just said um get rid of it? I don't know. I mean, that doesn't make much sense, though. I mean, it's like if there was any sort of potential lead.
SPEAKER_01:Well, then why not turn it over to police? Why not tell someone what you've uncovered? Um, I that has always bothered me. And the fact that he took his own life. Um, did it have to do with this case? Was there something he uncovered that he didn't want people to know? Did he and then sometimes I think that people make decisions like that that are probably he probably was not in his right mind.
SPEAKER_02:If he's dead, what is the risk of somebody finding it?
SPEAKER_01:Well, they destroyed it. I know, I'm just it's um because it's misinterpretation.
SPEAKER_02:Family would be harmed if they would be able to do that.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's I think it might be a little of everything, just misinterpretation, going through files and misinterpreting what maybe his notes or what he did uncover. And you don't want false information like that, an accusation rolling out, you know.
SPEAKER_02:That's um yeah, it's a bit of a reach, but you never know. Some local Fort Worthian official.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I don't know. I know that he wanted them destroyed, so there has to be some rhyme rhyme or reason to it.
SPEAKER_02:Um it is just odd three girls taken at the same time.
SPEAKER_01:So odd.
SPEAKER_02:Various ages. And um I mean, that's just always the feat it would be to pull that off.
SPEAKER_01:So the sightings at the mall, the few of the people that came forward said police talked to them one time, they never went back to reinvestigate this. Um, people had blamed the Fort Worth Police Department for not really um doing everything that they possibly can to solve this. I think the real piece to um, you know, this case is the letter. And um, you know, it's been 50 something years.
SPEAKER_02:How many kids you say disappeared around this time? 13, 14?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, about I think there was said to be around 14 to 20, boys and girls.
SPEAKER_02:Same age, though, right?
SPEAKER_01:Of various ages, but yeah, I mean young.
SPEAKER_02:Unsolved as well, too.
SPEAKER_01:Most of them are unsolved, a few of them have been found, a few of them have been identified that to be victims of the serial killers that were local, you know, to the Fort Worth area during this time. I that's why I'm kind of excuse me. That's why I'm kind of split in this case, because again, you have and I don't know why a private investor would want to protect a serial killer. That's the first thing. If he if this was so random, to me, that would be information that you would want to give up.
SPEAKER_02:Um, why does it have to be a serial killer?
SPEAKER_01:The private investigator. Well, first of all, it's three. If you're going to take three girls, you this isn't your first role. This isn't your first game.
SPEAKER_02:No, I know.
SPEAKER_01:I'm just um and after over that qualifies as a serial killer.
SPEAKER_02:Here's the thing. Um, you know, obviously we talk about human trafficking in this day and age. I mean, was that something back then that just you know it's been considered?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, it is a possibility. There's all kinds of possibilities. I mean, we know I think they've sort of ruled out the fact they ran away.
SPEAKER_02:And it's all linked to the Bass family of Fort Worth, and they just that's why they're going.
SPEAKER_01:No.
SPEAKER_02:No, let's strike that. That's not true.
SPEAKER_01:No, that's not true.
SPEAKER_02:Not true at all. I'm just saying, but like you you mentioned, this did it, did is there some powerful person that's involved in this and this guy, you know, burn burn upon reading, or you know, after or not burn upon reading upon his death, um and didn't want anybody to know, didn't want to come out, maybe it would affect his family. I don't know. Did he uncover something or some powerful family?
SPEAKER_01:Um, I don't know. I mean, I just it's we just have an idea. Mind you, it is just what happened to his own.
SPEAKER_02:It is just odd though. Why not share that information?
SPEAKER_01:I also don't know. Um, I think it's very interesting that two eyewitnesses came forward and both mentioned a truck. Three the girls, three girls getting into a truck. Um, one of them thought it was with the security guard around midnight. I don't know if time would be off with the other one who said it was more during the day when they saw this. But I do find it interesting that there were two eyewitnesses that saw three girls enter some sort of truck fan.
SPEAKER_02:Uh that's this occurred during the day, though. I mean, like they were the mall would be closed at that time.
SPEAKER_01:So we don't know that. I think the mall had stayed open. It was Christmas.
SPEAKER_02:Midnight, though.
SPEAKER_01:Um, I think the mall was opened. 10, 11-ish.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, but they that's why I'm saying I can tell you at that time of I mean they would have already been home, right?
SPEAKER_01:So they would have had to been kept somewhere or taken before that.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I can see malls staying open late, um, just because I think about back when they used to have the blue law where you couldn't um shop on Sundays and oh, that's true, yeah. So I mean, I don't know, people shopping that late. I mean, it's so commonplace now in the midnight madness and whatnot, but I don't know. Well just getting in a pickup truck, too. I mean, think about a single cab pickup truck. They didn't have these extended cabs and things like that back in the day, and you're gonna have three girls pop into I mean, it's possible.
SPEAKER_01:I just don't think a stranger is going to go put a letter in a mailbox. No, it just seems very odd that that's why they believe Rachel was the target because the letter was addressed to him from her. They didn't have the 14-year-old write a letter to her family, they addressed it to Thomas, and then and you're right, they should be kind of considering who called him that. And you should I and who who who called him by his legal name. But uh, I hope that they did the look into those types of things, especially family.
SPEAKER_02:And somebody would have to know they were there at that time, if you're planning this to take them from the mall or her from the mall.
SPEAKER_01:What do you mean?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I mean if it's somebody they know where they just happen to be driving by, did they know they were at the mall? And if they knew they were going to the mall, wouldn't they have knowledge that they're gonna be going with these other all these these other two girls? You know, if her going there. Well, that's why I think or you know, I mean, just like I don't know. Well, that's why you would know what you'd be encountering, you know. Like if you knew that she was going to the mall, you knew she was going with these other two girls, you knew if you were gonna go dispatch with her, you're gonna have two other people there that you're gonna have to deal with.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, well, we said that earlier about Tommy. If if if somebody was going to take, if they knew them, they were gonna take all three of them, then then why?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I know. I'm just saying, like, that that's um like a rando person wouldn't know that. They'd be come up and they just see three people and they're like, okay, I'm gonna take all the three of these. But if they if she is the target, you know, like isn't it easier if somebody that's close to her and knows her and wants to take her out? Wouldn't they I don't know, just wait for another day when she's by herself, you know, like they kind of already know she's gonna be going there and be with the other people and make their job easier, so to speak. I don't know, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Unless there was a reason to get rid of her before Christmas. Um I mean the letter arrived the day the letter arrives on Christmas Eve. The outside of it is written in pencil, the inside of it is written in pen. This was done at two separate times.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, right? They're not gonna use pen and pencil. Was she pregnant or anything like that? Nobody ever knew that. That's nothing that ever came out to.
SPEAKER_01:I don't believe that came out. I think there may have been rumor around that or possibility of that, but I don't, I think that is one thought that came, or that maybe she was seeing someone else, and that there was maybe some little heated jealousy. And there was also rumors that Tommy and the sister had a thing, even after they were married. Um, neighbors had actually said that they heard arguing in the backyard of the couple the day before Rachel disappeared. So I think that this is why this case has been so difficult to solve. Because you have a personal letter written to the husband using his formal name. It looks bogus, half of it's written in pen, the front's written in pencil. It shows up on Christmas Eve, the day after they disappear.
SPEAKER_02:It says where the car actually is, which um, you know, again, it's like it all points to somebody knowing exactly what they were doing.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, and exactly what happened to these girls. Um, but then the other side of it is you have three girls at a mall. Eyewitnesses have come forward and saying they saw one of the three of them being hustled, right?
SPEAKER_02:Unless somebody tells them to um, like you mentioned, do they have the victim write the letter? They could probably get that information out of what your address, you know. Seems awful risky to hand deliver that, uh, considering if you've abducted three people, but you know, once again, I still think.
SPEAKER_01:It may have been possible to Well, the letter was intended to throw off investigation. I mean, that was the intention of the letter, right?
SPEAKER_02:I realize I realize that.
SPEAKER_01:So who would want to do that?
SPEAKER_02:I'm just saying it didn't necessarily need to have to be somebody they knew to know what their address was and where to mail it because they could have I mean, let's say they're home with a gunpoint. What's your address? Her pointing a gun at their head.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but that has to be planned. The letter was already planned. I don't believe that this letter, this person just was got the idea to have this girl write a letter. Do you know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_02:I have no once again, we have no knowledge of this, but there ain't no way.
SPEAKER_01:There ain't no things. This is a spur-of-the-moment decision to write a letter.
SPEAKER_02:Um, I don't know if you could walk in the mail office and and drop a letter at the post office, you know, physical address, physical post office, and expect that letter, you know, I don't know what time it goes out, but if you dropped it off by noon or two that day and it would return, go to an address still within Fort Worth, you know what I mean, within that same day. That I don't know. But I think too, that would be risky if somebody, especially not knowing the family or anything like that, to go show their face, but crazier things have happened.
SPEAKER_01:I I excuse me. I just um I think the hard part is that so we know it arrived at the home, and we know it arrived on December 24th, the day after they vanished. Um they all the family also said immediately that they thought it was fake because of not only what it said, but the tone in the letter, which they did not believe. Well, first of all, she never called him Thomas, right? So they the family had come forward and said um she never called him that. If she was gonna write him a letter, and if she had anything to do with the with the address on the front, it would not have said Thomas. Um and and also the name Rachel on the envelope was actually misspelled. The L was left off, it had two E's, but then like you can tell someone went over it and corrected it. The letter was postmarked, postmarked on December 24th. That that we do know. So it would have had it had a clear city, it had a blurred, the blurred zip code. Um, it was interpreted originally, Chris, as 76083, which they then believed came from Weatherford. That's basic basically that would be the closest like major city Weatherford. Um but the US Postal Service leader determined it was actually mailed in Fort Worth. This is why this is kind of boggling, because they talk we I think even we talked about the scanning machines in the post office. Did someone you know, you have it postmarked an hour or Weatherford's what? 30, 45 minutes outside of Fort Worth, I think. If that about 30 minutes, 30, 45 minutes, I think. Not far.
SPEAKER_02:No, but if it was mailed in Fort Worth in Twitter.
SPEAKER_01:But you're going postmark it in Weatherford and then mailing it in Fort Worth. Why? So then it gets there.
SPEAKER_02:I think that occurs after it's already get gone into a mail clerk's hands, though. You don't get them to stamp it.
SPEAKER_01:I know that. Yeah, but you would have to have access, you could have access to that if you had access to that. I don't believe that. I think that this person probably postmarked it in Weatherford and mailed it in Fort Worth. I mean, that's why this is so mind-boggling. And then they say that it was mailed in Fort Worth, but could this have been hand delivered and already postmarked? I mean, the outside is written in pencil, which is a little strange. To me, the ink and the pencil show me two separate times, two separate instances. This did all did this all did not happen simultaneously.
SPEAKER_02:You're suggesting that a postal worker could be responsible for this.
SPEAKER_01:I'm suggesting that we know that it arrived the same day it was postmarked. I find that very unusual.
SPEAKER_02:I and that's the thing one well, I don't know. We keep it in. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if you like I said, during this time, like, do you, you know, um gotta get your bill paid or whatever. I don't know. Do you go in the morning and expect it to arrive within that same city in the afternoon in 1974? Fort Worth is kind of a small little town.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, it's not a small town, but it's I think that this letter has been a red herring this whole time.
SPEAKER_02:I almost I almost think um Fort Worth population at that time could be where we're currently at right, you know, right now.
SPEAKER_01:What does the population have anything to do with this? I'm I don't know where you're going with that. I'm just gonna go. I mean, post yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like to be postmarked and mailed, right? But postmarked an hour away in Weatherford. Why would someone do that though? I'm trying to understand that.
SPEAKER_02:I don't think you can, I don't, but I don't think you can postmark something and then get it back in your hand and take it somewhere else. I'm saying that's it doesn't hit that machine until they've you've gone and dropped it off, you've got stamps, you give it to person, they go stick it in a box. That happens in the background. You're never gonna see that letter again.
SPEAKER_01:Right. But the postmarked zip code is a little blurry. This is that's what they think it says.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it might not be.
SPEAKER_01:Is Weatherford and mailed out of Fort Worth. To me, why doesn't someone want to go have something postmarked in Fort Worth? Will they be recognized?
SPEAKER_02:Um or I don't know. I mean, that you said, well, I'd have to look at the envelope, but I mean there is a picture of it. Things are kind of scratched through. Could did somebody reuse, but you can't reuse, I mean, you could stick it in somebody's mailbox, but you can't take an envelope that's already has a postmark stamp and reuse that stamp.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, that's the No, but you can reuse an envelope that has been postmarked and not mail it through the mail.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, that's what I mean. They could take that and just hand deliver it because that's your that postmark is what kind of makes your stamp null and void at that point. That's the cost that price you paid to send it.
SPEAKER_01:So there is a picture of this letter. Um, the picture of the letter and the envelope, actually. And they even tested it for DNA. They did not um really find anything of of use um in this, but there is uh and it does look a little blurred out.
SPEAKER_02:Um gosh, you wonder how many people even touched that sucker tube before.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's another thing.
SPEAKER_02:You think with the DNA aspect? I mean, it comes to a house, people are grabbing their hand, they're taking it around, it's going to police officers, and kind of crazy as things though. Um nobody would know any different, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, yeah, and also really the family just said that the words she used, um, it just didn't really sound like her. Um, and so was this you know, I I don't know. This is why this case is so difficult because you do have three missing girls. Um was this some sort of was this some sort of target, some sort of higher target, and because they were there, they were sort of collateral and you had to kill them. Uh, you know, that's why this is this is such a difficult case, because you think how many people would it take to subdue three girls? And then, but what we do know is that people go willingly all the time with people they know. Would there have been a reason to get in the car with somebody that they knew? Um, but it's kind of wild to think that over 50 years the police really are just no closer to solving this than they were from day one. Uh, Tommy Trulissa has never been named as an official suspect. Um, but some of that family has definitely pointed the finger towards his direction, um, mainly because of his reaction when this happened. And then you have a letter that shows up at his house, which is why they have always believed that Rachel was sort of the target, because again, this person did not have the other two girls write a letter, only her, supposedly. Um, but this has remained unsolved. Um, and unfortunately, there's just no additional leads. But I hope one day these girls are either found or someone is tired of keeping a secret that they've been keeping for over 50 years.