I found this article about one of Charley’s more bizarre cases: the disappearances of seventeen-year-old Mary “Rachel” Trlica, fifteen-year-old Lisa “Renee” Wilson and nine-year-old Julie Ann Moseley, who vanished from a Christmas shopping trip at a mall in Fort Worth, Texas two days before Christmas in 1974.
Three people vanishing off the face of the earth all at one time is weird enough. Nobody seems to have seen or heard anything. They left their car in the mall parking lot with Christmas presents inside it. The two older girls didn’t even know Julie all that well. Rachel had recently married (girls married young back then) and Renee had a serious boyfriend. There was no indication of trouble in their lives or families, but that hasn’t stopped sordid rumors of family involvement.
The day after the disappearances, Rachel’s husband got a letter supposedly from her, saying she, Renee and Julie “had to get away” to Houston and would be back in a week. There’s considerable doubt as to whether Rachel actually wrote the letter, however. For one thing it was addressed to “Thomas,” and Rachel always called her husband “Tommy.”
God only knows what happened to those girls. Their disappearances could have a book made of them.
The Charley Project Blog 
No way they just took off. I mean Rachel might of, and Lisa might of went with her for company or just for fun, but if they wanted to run off why would they take Julie with them? You said yourself they didn’t know her that well and even if they did a little girl like that would just slow them down and be a burden.
One theory is that Rachel and Renee killed Julie.
Everything about this one is weird. Kidnapping three healthy girls from a Christmas week shopping mall would be very, very difficult, but it seems to make more sense than a willing disappearance. There’s no reason to think they were planning to run away — the shopping trip seems to have come together very spontaneously. And even if Rachel wanted to step out of her life, why would she take along a 9-year-old?
You mentioned above that some people think Rachel and Renee killed Julie, but I can’t see any motive. It could have been accidental, I suppose — but it’s hard to imagine an accident in a mall that wouldn’t attract attention, and they’ve been gone an awful long time.
And then there’s the fact the family seems to think Rachel is alive and in some kind of prostitution. Not impossible, but, again, it’s been an awfully long time. I’d chalk the sightings up to wishful thinking.
None of it makes any sense.
I wouldn’t think that they had killed Julie, Rachel didn’t even know her. If it was accidental death, why not just be honest? Especially since their car being at the mall indicates they hadn’t left. What kind of accident could it have been…
That they went with someone they knew seems most plausible to me. Maybe even a barely known someone … pity they didn’t have video cameras all over malls back then.
And they already did their shopping, if Xmas presents were in the car. I figure whoever took them approached them as they were loading the car and getting ready to leave, and either they knew or thought they knew the person or else they were ambushed so fast they didn’t have time to yell or struggle, which would probably mean more than one attacker.
Very, very weird. I have a running mental list of “if I ever had a chance to ask God the answer to such-and-such mystery, what would I ask about?” and this is definitely one of them!
I’m weird, I know.
This case bothers me so much!
I think something very bad happened to them….its just so strange that they’d all vanish together so suddenly..you’d think there’d be safety in numbers.
I know the girls’ families are still looking for them, they even made a song.
I hope this one will be solved!!! Because its way bizarre.
This is a very mysterious case, I think there is a lot more to it if the family thinks Rachell is alive it’s because they have seen or heard from her. I think the case should be opened and certainly pictures of these missing people should be posted in the malls and shopping centers in theDallas Ft. worth area…..
This is the case that got me interested in missing people. I was 10 years old when this happened and it still sends a shiver down my spine when I think about it. Somebody somewhere knows what happened but so much time has passed that I don’t think we will ever find out unless there is some sort of deathbed confession.
I remember when I was about fourteen I was just outside of my grandparents house whom I lived with, I was with my best friend who lived just across the street from us. When suddenly this guy pulls up in a van, another guy opens the side door and they ask us if we can help them do some work for cash.. and asked us just to hop on. It all seemed so strange, the guy in the back of the van was just waving at us to get in. After a couple of seconds we just stated we didn’t want to go and my friend and I just kept walking down the street to meet some other friends at their house. After they left my heart started racing and I had a gut feeling that something was wrong with what had just happened. We saw the van drive down the block only to stop to talk to our friends who we could see were walking up the street to meet us. Sudently my friend and I just started yelling for them to stop and ran towards our friends to make sure they didn’t get in the van. Thankfully nothing happened that day. Except the big scare that left me a bit stigmatised about strangers and cars.
Who knows what could have happened if we would have gotten in that van.
What I’m trying to say I guess is that something very terrible could have happened just outside of our homes and no one would have noticed it and in just a couple of minutes. I hope these girls are well now.