“Days of unsolved crimes becoming few, criminals we will find you!” – PM Holness – IRIE FM

Officials across Tarrant, Dallas and area counties have joined forces with police and community organizations for Missing in North Texas Day, a one-day event where people can file missing persons reports, check on progress in investigations and provide DNA samples, all with the goal of resolving questions regarding the missing.

The April 26 event, hosted inside the University of Texas at Arlington’s Center for Mexican American Studies building, seeks to help families determine the fate of their missing loved ones no matter the age of the case.

It’s the second year for the event, designed to help people connect with agencies and find answers they may have sought for years, if not decades.

Here’s the process:

• Dallas and Fort Worth police will be on campus to accept missing persons reports, if one doesn’t already exist.
• People can then update or enter information on a missing person into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), a federal database.
• Attendees can also give a voluntary DNA sample to check for family matches among unidentified people.
• Receive information from two panel discussions focusing on the special issues relating to missing persons.

Families and friends of missing persons and members of the community are encouraged to attend the event to learn how to navigate the missing persons system, said Mark Ingraham, associate director at the forensic anthropology unit at the Center for Human Identification at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. The Center for Human Identification is one of the sponsors of the event.

“Agencies at the event can assist families and friends of missing persons, including social service agencies and various missing persons networks, such as NamUs,” he said.

Event organizers encourage families or friends to bring information to the event that can be used to enter or update information in the national missing persons database, including:

• Photos of the missing person with identifying features, such as tattoos or birthmarks, or personal items, such as favorite earrings or shirt, X-rays, dental or medical records.
• Police reports or other identifying documents that can be scanned and placed on file.
• Two of the missing person’s closely related family members (from the mother’s side preferably) who can voluntarily submit DNA samples.

Ingraham said there will be trained DNA collection specialists taking voluntary family reference DNA swabs from inside the cheek for upload into a missing persons database, along with bilingual guides to assist attendees in the completion of a missing persons report or directing attendees to resources.

If You Go

When: Saturday, April 26, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Where: Center for Mexican American Studies, 1022 UTA Blvd., Arlington

Cost: Free participation and parking

For more information: missinginnorthtexas@gmail.com

To preregister, click here.

Partners in the Missing in North Texas Day event include the Tarrant and Dallas counties medical examiner’s offices, the Center for Human Identification, NamUs, the Center for Mexican American Studies at UTA, Proyecto Inmigrante and the consulates from Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador. Other collaborators and in-kind event sponsors include State Farm – Erick Martinez and Tacos el Arquito.

Law enforcement connected to the event will not be checking for citizenship documentation or arrest warrants, Ingraham said.

“We want people to feel comfortable at the event. We’re focused on helping these families who have lost loved ones,” he said.

In 2024, there were 44,783 missing persons reports in Texas and 31,864 of those were children, according to the Texas Center for the Missing, a Houston-based nonprofit organization that puts on a similar event in that area.

There are several missing persons cases that remain unsolved in the area. Among those are the so-called Missing Trio, who disappeared more than 50 years ago in Fort Worth.

Just two days before Christmas 1974, 17-year-old Rachel Trlica, 14-year-old Renee Wilson and 9-year-old Julie Ann Moseley drove a few miles from their neighborhood to the then-Seminary South shopping center, now La Gran Plaza, in south Fort Worth and were never seen again.

Adding to the mystery, the morning after the disappearance, a much-disputed letter, allegedly from Rachel Trlica, said the trio had gone to Houston and would return in a week.

The case has been featured on a number of podcasts and true crime television programs but, outside of the letter, has had few solid leads.

The case continues to resonate with Fort Worth, said Larry O’Neal, who runs Fort Worth Memories, a website and Facebook group devoted to the city and its history.

Around the time of the 50th anniversary of the abduction, O’Neal featured Rusty Arnold, brother of Rachel Trlica, on his Facebook Live series for several weeks.

“I had some of the highest viewership since I’ve been doing this,” said O’Neal. “People are still interested in that case 50 years later.”

Bob Francis is business editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at bob.francis@fortworthreport.org. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.

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