Rally gathers in downtown Fort Worth, raising awareness for 1,000 unsolved cold cases
Dozens of people gathered in front of the Tarrant County Courthouse on Saturday, raising awareness for the 1,000 unsolved cold cases at the Fort Worth Police Department.
“Solve the cold cases,” the crowd chanted as they walked from the courthouse to the Cold Case Unit in Fort Worth.
According to the event organizers Kelli Arnold and DiAnne Kuykendall, there are over 1,000 unsolved cold cases in Fort Worth alone.
“We need manpower,” said Arnold. “We need to have open conversations about how we can have resolutions.”
Melissa Highsmith, who attended the event, said she was a victim of a cold case in Fort Worth. At just 21 months of age, she was kidnapped in 1971. She did not know she was kidnapped until just before Thanksgiving of 2022, when her biological family got in touch with her, she said. They had been looking for her for 51 years.
“I felt strong to be here,” said Highsmith. “It’s given so many people hope with my case and I hope that it’ll bring awareness to all the closed cases that are still under investigation and let them know that there’s a lot of people out there that are still missing, but just don’t give up hope.”
There is only one detective assigned to the Fort Worth Cold Case Unit on a full-time basis, according to the police department. While the cold case unit has a current staffing of one authorized detective, active Fort Worth homicide detectives do involve themselves in cold cases “as time permits or as assistance is needed,” police said.
“There’s so many that are just unsolved and sitting on the shelf. They need to be able to reopen these cases, but they don’t have enough people to investigate these cases and not enough funding,” said Highsmith.
Rusty Arnold, the brother of Rachel Trlica — who disappeared when she was 17 — said the unsolved cases are not fair to the police or the family members of the missing victims.
“You got one cop trying to deal with a thousand cases. That’s just not right,” said Arnold.
Trlica went missing with two other girls, Julie Moseley, 9, and Renee Wilson, 14, on Dec. 23, 1974, after shopping at what was then Seminary South Shopping Center, at 4200 South Freeway. Their case has been dubbed the “Missing Fort Worth Trio”.
“I was 11 years old,” said Arnold about when Trlica went missing. “She was my best friend.”
Jim Walker, whose sister Carla Walker was murdered in 1974, began the walk and prayed for the families. Cold case detectives arrested Carla’s killer decades later and he pleaded guilty during his trial in 2021.
“This is a small sampling of the force that is moving in the city of Fort Worth,” said Walker. “We just want everybody to know that we’re not going away.”
Many of the attendees believe that funding is an issue that plays a role in the 1,000 unsolved cold cases in Fort Worth.
“We’re working in conjunction with our fabulous law enforcement, the heroes in the city of Fort Worth to raise funds, raise awareness, but primarily to raise funds to help cold case officers to do the forensic testing that is now at hand that will allow us to solve unsolvable murders in the past. We have new technology that’s a game changer,” Walker said.
“We have been in the process of undergoing a staffing review to determine the resources needed for all units within the Fort Worth Police Department,” the department told the Star-Telegram in response to the rally.
Information on solved and unsolved Fort Worth cold cases can be accessed at the Fort Worth Police Department website.
Anyone with any information regarding an unsolved homicide case or anyone in need of assistance in this area can contact Detective Leah Wagner at 817-392-4307, Detective John Galloway at 817-392-4336, or Detective Jeff Bennett at 817-392-4308.
This story was originally published April 29, 2023 at 8:19 PM.
