TX TX - Julie Moseley, 9, Mary Trlica, 17, Lisa Wilson, 14, Fort Worth, 23 Dec 1974 - #1

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i DONT KNOW IF I TURNED ON ANYTHING LIKE A PM?

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edited by me, with respect...

Does anyone know of any other cases in/around the area back then that also had a note delivered to family/roommates/friends to excuse or explain the sudden and immediate absence of someone missing? (this thinking came from Princess Rose bringing forward an older post regarding statistics of missing/found girls in the area of the time)

... But what if the letter's purpose was to throw attention onto Rachel and away from the idea that one of the other girls was the reason for the incident?
I don't know of any other cases with a note quite like the one Rachel supposedly wrote, unfortunately. However, there was a note comprised of words cut from newspapers in the Killing Fields murders. There were lots of disappearances (over 40) and I'm still not convinced the trio's disappearance wasn't part of the I45 Killing Fields murders. There is another I45 Killing Fields murder that included 2 girls - both around age 14 - so it is not beyond the spectrum of belief that whoever was responsible for those murders had a methodology to capture more than one victim at the same time. As I noted earlier I45 leads to Mansfield Hwy which leads directly to E Seminary Dr. which is exactly where Seminary South Mall was - and E Seminary Dr, I believe runs along the side of the mall where the upper parking lot was (North side of mall.) It seems to me that the timing, just before Christmas and the number of girls taken would be "attractive" to an unsub or unsubs who prided themselves on taking women and enjoyed the resulting media attention. If it was the same unsub(s) then he/they would especially enjoy the notoriety the timing (Christmas) the number taken would bring them. Link to story about these murders below:

http://www.geocities.com/verbal_plainfield/activecases/i45linkage.html


What if the unsub(s) in the I45 Killing Fields cases returned home to Ft. Worth, Throckmorton or some other town nearby for Christmas that year? Could the mention of Houston in the letter purportedly from Rachel have been to connect the trio's disappearance to the Killing Field murders? (Diege, this is why I was asking if Rachel had any relationship to Houston whatsoever - a friend's name or where she went on a honeymoon or anything, if not, I believe the mention of Houston may have been to tie the trios' disappearance to the I45 murders.)

Adding complexity to this case, back in the 1970's police in Texas were very territorial, so they wouldn't particularily work together or share information on similar cases from city to city, much less state to state.

Julie only decided to go on this shopping trip that morning - in fact, her mom didn't want her to go because she didn't have any money, but relented because Julie said she was bored. So, it is hard to think that she could be the victim of a premeditated crime. But anything is possible.

I do think that Renee needs to be considered in terms of could she have been the victim of a premeditated crime. We know she got that promise ring that morning...
 
More on the I45 Killing Fields, look at this website and look at the circumstances under which Maria Johnson, age 15 and Debbie Ackerman, age 15 disappeared together - from Galveston Mall. http://www.crimesearch.net/Fact_Page_I-45S.html

http://officialcoldcaseinvestigations.com/showthread.php?t=1050&page=2

I also noticed that Amber Hagerman's disappearance from Arlington, TX in the 1990's is now listed as a possible I45 murder:

http://psu-sk.tripod.com/frames/i45-victims.html

Arlington, TX is 14 miles away from Ft. Worth, TX.

The trio's disappearance bears striking resemblance to other I45 murders and, IMO should be classified with this group until such time as it can be utterly ruled out as not belonging to this group of disappearances and murders.
 
Was there a book on the I-45 killings?

Doesnt look like the bodies were hidden, just dropped off the beaten path, am i correct?

Any DNA available from the killer from these murders?
 
Was there a book on the I-45 killings?

Doesnt look like the bodies were hidden, just dropped off the beaten path, am i correct?

Any DNA available from the killer from these murders?

No book that I know of, the name is probably familiar to you due to the movie "The Killing Fields" - about Cambodia or possibly the other so-called Killing Fields murders in Juarez Mexico.

The I-45 Killing Fields victims include Texas Equusearch, Tim Millers' own daughter.

Police believe that these murders that span the 1970's up until present day are the work of more than one killer. The known suspects are listed here:

http://psu-sk.tripod.com/frames/i45-suspects.html

The victims were murdered and left in many different ways both hidden and unhidden. This index includes a link for the Case Analysis which describes all the different ways:

http://psu-sk.tripod.com/frames/contents.html

The problem is there are so many potential suspects, some still unknown.
 
Thanks for the links, Princess. I agree, they should all be looked at as a group until shown not to be connected. The close proximity to the same highway and general age range are two similarities.

I agree it is highly unlikely that a letter would get there in less than 24 hours going through the post, on Christmas eve, especially with a postmark from a different town. I think this post mark needs to be looked at closely to determine which post office it came from, along with any potential DNA, of course. I just can't believe that hasn't been done yet. And why all the silence in the investigation and apparent lack of cooperation between agencies?

A thought occurred to me as I was thinking about the postmark and the highway, while looking on Google Earth. Who would travel the highway regularly, make stops at convenience stores, malls, etc, and have access to a postal meter? A postal worker, especially one who transports mail from town to town, from the airport to the post offices, etc. The post mark, the DNA evidence and the long term postal employees is where I would start. If there is a way to hand load the meter he could put any meter number in there. I wonder if there were letters in any of the other cases. He wouldn't necessarily have had to mail it if he put the meter stamp on there himself and put it in the box in the middle of the night.

Also, many of these abductions seem to focus on the head area. I would look for a clue there, such as the head post office, not the local or a small one from a small town, the head of something, maybe the head of the highway. It could be a late March-late April connection such as a birthday then. Aries is connected to the head. Maybe the perp likes to drive a Dodge, the ram as the symbol.
 
I believe I already posted this but will say it again... in reference to the letter and dna... Rusty said "dna was found on the letter but it cant be identified."

Not sure if that means no match was found...or if it the sample was degraded or what..but wanted to point out that they have attempted to use modern technology on the letter.
 
I believe I already posted this but will say it again... in reference to the letter and dna... Rusty said "dna was found on the letter but it cant be identified."

Not sure if that means no match was found...or if it the sample was degraded or what..but wanted to point out that they have attempted to use modern technology on the letter.

I'm sorry. I must have missed that. I wonder if they compared to any DNA in any of the other cases in the area. Hmmm If no match was found then it couldn't have been Rachael's then, correct?

Thank you Sandman.
 
I'm trying to remember if there was a post office just outside of the Seminary South Mall. Does anyone remember? I do remember there were government offices there - I got my Social Security card there at one point in the 1980's.
 
I believe I already posted this but will say it again... in reference to the letter and dna... Rusty said "dna was found on the letter but it cant be identified."

Not sure if that means no match was found...or if it the sample was degraded or what..but wanted to point out that they have attempted to use modern technology on the letter.

Texas Sandman, thank you for posting that. Somehow, I too missed that.
 
Princess the closest Post Office was on Felix Street...maybe half a mile to a mile from the Mall by back roads. However, I'm certain there were drop mailboxes at the mall but I think it would be next to impossible for a letter mailed from there to reach Rachel's house the next day. Even sent from that post office it would've had to have been sent quite early on the 23rd in my opinion. And the postmark would have been different I'm sure.
 
I've been thinking about several possibilities in this case.

In the I45 Killing Fields murders, on November 11, 1971, two 15 year old girls, Debbie Ackerman and Maria Johnson were taken from Galveston Mall, last seen getting into a White Ford van. Their bodies, hands and feet bound and shot twice were found two days later in Turner's Bayou in Texas City - that's around 10 miles North of where Galveston Mall was and close to I45 and Hwy 3. A suspect named Ed Bell confessed to this and many, many more murders of young women in a letter. He gets out of prison in 2011 and has not been charged in any of the cases he confessed to which crossed multiple jurisdictions in Texas and Louisiana. Apparently what he wrote was such that prosecutors didn't feel it strong enough to charge him - he could be yanking their chain or he might actually be the killer. The I45 case is discussed here - very interesting discussion:
http://www.topix.com/forum/houston/TE13NVCQME9TU1JUK/p8

I found a post on this page by Jane very interesting:


"We are swiftly approaching the 36th anniversary of the rape and murder of Debbie Ackerman and Maria Johnson of Galveston. These two 15-year-old girls were last seen alive talking to someone driving a white van on a street in Galveston. Their raped and bound bodies were found 3 days later in Turner’s bayou near Dickenson. They had both been shot in the head and dumped into the bayou.
Debbie’s parents both went to their graves with their souls in turmoil. They never knew what had happened to their little girl. They anguished over their loss every day of their lives since November 15, 1971.
I never met Debbie, but I was also a 15-year-old girl in 1971. I would have thought Debbie was one of the luckiest kids in the world to live in Galveston. I have since become a family-member by marriage.
I have learned that the state of Texas has in it’s custody a man who very likely murdered Debbie and Maria, and probably many more young girls. I have learned that he mailed handwritten, unsolicited confessions to officials in Harris and Galveston counties some time in the 1990s. Detective Fred Paige in Galveston has a list of over two dozen “coincidences” placing this man in close proximity to many young girls who turned up missing or dead during that time.
This man has a life. He has children and grandchildren who he has contact with. He ended all possibilities of a happy life—or any life-- for Debbie and Maria, and probably many more young girls.
Why has there not been coordination between the jurisdictions in which he committed his crimes? Why have Harris and Galveston and Liberty Counties not combined all their information about him to try to solve the many cold cases he was probably responsible for in the 70s and 80s?
Debbie’s mom died without ever knowing what happened to her daughter. I will continue to ask on her behalf: What happened to Debbie Ackerman and Maria Johnson? "

http://www.topix.com/forum/houston/TE13NVCQME9TU1JUK/p12

On the other hand...

Since we now know that Tommy got the letter out of his mailbox, it makes me wonder, why he would go to his mailbox at all in the morning if the mail was normally delivered in the afternoon. That doesn't make sense, does it? Unless, perhaps he suddenly remembered he forgot to get the mail the day before or he heard someone by the mailbox...Texas Sandman, did the houses on that street have mailboxes on their front porches or out by the curb?
 
Tt (19) married sf(16) on 10/23/1971 in tarrant county

tt (21) divorced sf (18) on 4/26/1974 in tarrant county

tt (21) married ra (16) on 6/8/1974 in tarrant county

ra disappears 12/74

tt (24) married jb (17) on 12/15/1976 in parker county (weatherford is in parker county)

tt (25) divorces jb (19) 6/13/1978 in throckmorton county

tt (26) marries rf (23) 8/31/1978 in parker county

4 marriages in the span of 6 years. Wow. Did TT stay married to RF or have there been more divorces and marriages in the following years?

What puzzles me is that his parents apparently died before he married Rachel, so theoretically, he would have inherited at least a portion of their estate (if they had anything or any life insurance.) Texas is a community property state, so each wife would get 50% of his worth. You would think after the first wife, he would not have wanted to get married for a long time due to his financial situation. But perhaps his parents left little to nothing so he didn't care.
 
What street did Tommy live on then ?

Our house in Wedgewood had the mailbox by the front door on the wall, every neighborhood I was familiar with in those days did too. An old postman I know says in 1974 the letter if mailed from Throckmorton would have spent the night in Abeline, if mailed in Weatherford there was a chance of next day delivery, depending on when and where it was picked up, but remember we are talking Xmas time and volume was heavy back then.

Did the letter for sure arrive the next morning after the dissapearance? I have asked that and not recieved an answer, I guess i can find out for sure when I go to the library.
 
What street did Tommy live on then ?

Our house in Wedgewood had the mailbox by the front door on the wall, every neighborhood I was familiar with in those days did too. An old postman I know says in 1974 the letter if mailed from Throckmorton would have spent the night in Abeline, if mailed in Weatherford there was a chance of next day delivery, depending on when and where it was picked up, but remember we are talking Xmas time and volume was heavy back then.

Did the letter for sure arrive the next morning after the dissapearance? I have asked that and not recieved an answer, I guess i can find out for sure when I go to the library.

Yes, the letter definitely turned up on the morning of December 24th. Texas Sandman, who lived on the same street as Rachel said he does not recall ever having morning mail delivery on that street - however he was a child in 1974 so he might not have known. The last digit of the postmark is incomplete so they are not sure where the letter came from. I almost wonder if someone who had been a postal employee or knew postal employees or somehow bought a postmark stamp - maybe in a junk shop actually hand delivered the letter to Rachel's house.

As to what street - it was over off of 6th Street - not sure the exact address. Texas Sandman could tell you.
 
6th Avenue ? North of Elizabeth Blvd ? I lived in that neighborhood in 1974. Lots of longhairs, musicians and artists lived around there along with the older folk who had lived there forever.
 
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