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

[Balthazar]

Can someone please tell us where the movie theater was in the mall and where the sub post office was? For example - southeast side or southwest corner or whatever. I vaguely remember these places were there but my memory is cloudy about where these places were.

 

[deige]

How Do I enable PMs

 

[deige]

The movie theaters were located on the outside of the building on the opposite side of where their car was found, if I am remembering correctly. Years later the movie theater was turned in a bingo hall. I think the sub post office was located in the parking lot. I'm not very good with directions like n,s,e,and w. but I think it was behind dillards somewhere. People could buy stamps and stuff and mail packages and letters. I don't recall if a live person actually worked inside it or not. I have been told through the years that there was extra security hired during that time. I have also learn there is a massive amount of tunnels under the mall. I do not know where there start or where they lead. We learned this from L.E. because knowing about the tunnels wasn't public knowlege.

 

[deige]

I've searched the internet to see if I can find out more information on the tunnels but I can't find anything. I tried to maybe find the blueprints for the mall in 1974. I keep coming up empty. Maybe someone could point me in the right direction.

 

[Balthazar]

Deige, I'm looking for the same thing. I've found a blog about the mall - didn't realize there was a radio station in the basement - something like that could easily be used to get the girls to go down there IMO:

http://www.topix.net/forum/city/fort-worth-tx/TP5P8OBRMOHGM0AJT

and an overview of the mall as La Gran Plaza - very different from when it was Seminary South:

http://www.boxerproperty.com/brochures/LGP.pdf

The North side of the mall is the side against E Seminary Drive or the direction you would drive to get to downtown Ft. Worth

South side of the mall faces I20/820

The west side of the mall is the direction you would take from the mall to get to Hulen St.

The East side of the mall is the South Freeway.

It helps to look at Google maps to figure this stuff out - just look up E Seminary Drive Ft. Worth, TX and zoom in.

I believe you could get a copy of the blueprints of the mall from the Ft. Worth Planning Commission office.

http://www.fortworthgov.org/PlanningandDevelopment/

This link contains an aerial view of La Gran Plaza, which may help to put it into perspective for you.

http://mallsofamerica.blogspot.com/2006/05/seminary-south-shopping-center.html

 

[deige]

Thank you Princess for the link. That really opened a lot of old memories.

 

[Balthazar]

How Do I enable PMs

1. Scroll to top of this screen, select User CP in the blue bar at the top
2. Scroll down to Settings and Options on the left side of the screen
3. Click on Edit Options
4. Now looking at the middle part of the screen under Receive Email, uncheck Receive email from other members and then scroll down to Private Messaging and check Enable Private Messaging
5. Finally scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and click on the button that says Save Changes.

Maybe you need to make more posts, if this stuff doesn't show up yet - you have to make a minimum number of posts to get to use this function, apparently.

Hope that helps!

 

[deige]

TY Princess. It says my private messaging is enabled. so I wonder why Kaiser can't PM me.

 

[Balthazar]

TY Princess. It says my private messaging is enabled. so I wonder why Kaiser can't PM me.

I just sent you a test PM to make sure it is working right. Check for it.

 

[deige]

got it Princess! Thank you. You are a wealth of information and so very helpful. I have figured out that if the internet were available when I was younger I probably would have never got my children raised. It is very easy to get lost. I don't spend a lot of time online, but I do check and read WBs everyday now. I don't always post but I do read. Kaisers security idea really made a lot of sense. Geeze I wish there were someway to figure everything out. BTW I have an absolutely beautiful grandaughter named Rachael. She was named in Rachels memory. She will be 4 tomorrow. It is amazing how much she looks like my sister.

 

[Balthazar]

Deige, - so sweet about your granddaughter, that is just beautiful. I know you sister would be so proud to have someone named after her!

I still hold out hope that somehow your sisters' case will be solved. It's just a question of finding the right person who knows something that can help - it may be something really innocuous that they don't even realize that they know or recognize as important. Or the people here on Websleuths might somehow make a connection between your sisters' case and other ones. We know so much more about criminals and how they work than we did in the 1970's. I want to believe there is an answer.

I wonder did the police even search the mall? I know family members staked out the car - did they stay overnight? I'm trying to understand...if the girls were taken by a security person downstairs, could they have been in there overnight and no one knew it? Or was there opportunity for them to be taken out during the night?

I am still mulling over the mention of Houston in the letter. I feel that is somehow important. If Rachel wrote it, she may have been trying to tell you all something. Did you all know anyone from Houston or with the first or last name Houston?

 

[deige]

I can't remember exactly, but there are a few connections to Houston that I can think of. I don't know how they can be related. As soon I post this I expect people will wonder. But trust me when I tell you that LE has turned it inside out. I would have to look at my Moms records. My father underwent Chemo Therapy for Malignant Melenoma cancer at MD Anderson Cancer hospital in Houston. My memory fails me as to exactly which year. It was 72, 73, or 74. I just know it was before Rachel got married. My mom and dad stayed in a Winnabago on the parking lot of the hospital. I think it was for about 6 wks. While visiting my parents there I met a guy named Sam at a disco. He was a DJ. We kept in touch after I came home. Remember the legal drinking age was 18 back then.
Everyone knows that the guy I was seeing in Dallas and I went our separate ways. Thats how I came to be staying with Rachel and Tommy. Anyway Sam called and wanted to come to spend Christmas with me. He worked at the Disco the night of the 23rd until 2 am and then drove straight here after. He arrived around 5:30 am the morning of the 24th. There was way to much going on for me to spend anytime with him so he turned around and went straight back to Houston. I had forgot he was coming till he got there. We didn't have pagers or cell phones then. I wish I could make a connection to it all. But have never been able to.

 

[justthinkin]

Isn't she? That Princess is a real Rose of a gal. I aspire to be as helpful and informative, but methinks it ain't gonna happen. I get too distracted.
Like today there was the Zodiac thread, and that led to the 1946 murders in Texarkana, that led to the fake Texas Chainsaw massacres that led to Ed Gein. Sheesh. All these creeps and I wind up giving myself a good scare.


Ah, Deige, how sweet and bittersweet about your granddaughter being named after her aunt, Rachel. :blowkiss:

 

[Balthazar]

I was thinking about the Security Guards' story of seeing the girls in another Security Guards' truck at 11:30pm. He said they were happy and laughing, but I wonder if they might have been drugged. What if he had held the girls all day in a room in the basement of the mall and somehow drugged them - maybe put something in drinks he gave them, all the while saying he was waiting until the police or their parents came and he was getting ready to take them away from the Mall when the other security guard saw him with the girls in the truck? The girls might have shown him their car at that time.

Debra, any idea at all what time the mail pickup was from the substation at the mall? I'm wondering how late he could have mailed that letter there for it to reach Tommy's house by the next day.

 

[justthinkin]

The only thing I was able to turn up online on the Seminary South Shopping Center was the name of the designer, Lawrence Halprin with Homart Development. Found that on a forum. Also found his name listed with a number of his projects, but Seminary South wasn't listed. rats!

 

[Kaiser Sousa]

Most all the larger stores had a lower floor or basement that was open to the public , so it makes sense that there was a whole lower floor underneath the entire mall whether the store had access to it or not. The security office was somewhere close to the bowling alley for sure , a security guard was taking a guy I knew in there to call the police on him. I cant remember what he did but they dissapeared thru the double doors that were west of Murphys. I heard a loud bump and there came Andy running 90 miles an hour right thru one of those flower displays he was out of the mall before the security guard even got to the door. Anytime I witnessed a disturbance only one security guard would show. Some of the stores like murphys for sure, had their own security.

 

[justthinkin]

Anyone remember who the DJ's were at that time or remember what the call letters of the radio station were or what type music they played?

 

[Kaiser Sousa]

The theater sat in the farthest Northwest corner, it was pretty far from the main buildings.

I cant remember the postal place , was it a small building in the parking lot if so what store was it closest too?

If there was no one in the postal center the letter would have gone to the felix street station or the berry street station for a postmark , what did their postmark number look like I wonder?

I want to know if the gift from Renee to Shawn was the only gift found in the car. I think deige said the Army-Navy laway purchase was not there but was probablly carried into the mall to find a matching top, is this correct

 

[Kaiser Sousa]

I believe FM had taken over by then, I know all the stations and lots of DJ's why do you ask? I think Kzew had started their reign by then.

 

[justthinkin]

Just curious because when I was a teen radio stations were places we thought were cool, and called when we were bored or visited. I just thought a radio station at a mall might have even more teens visiting, and maybe an older guy hanging around trying to pick up girls.