Rally gathers in downtown Fort Worth, raising awareness for 1,000 unsolved cold cases

Several 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, was a victim of a cold case in Fort Worth. At just 22 months of age, she was kidnapped in 1971. She did not know she was kidnapped until the day before Thanksgiving of 2022, when her biological family got in touch with her. 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, according to the police department.

“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.”

James Smith, an attendee of the event, began the walk and prayed for the families.

“This is a small sampling of the force that is moving in the city of Fort Worth,” said Smith. “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,” said Smith.

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.