Handwritten letter rekindles interest in 1974 Fort Worth cold case

A Fort Worth family hopes for answers 45 years after their loved one's murder.

Carla Walker's body was found in a parking lot in 1974, but police had few clues about her killer.

A handwritten letter is what police are now focused on. Someone wrote it and mailed it to the police department in 1974 just days after Carla Walker was taken from a parking lot. 

The letter was initially discovered in 1974, but police are revisiting it now in hopes that social media will help spark new leads.

Siblings Cindy Stone and Jim Walker have renewed hope about their murdered sister, Carla Walker’s cold case.

“I don’t think the family we ever got over it,” Stone said. “You move on. You get married and have kids. You survive, but we never got over it.”

It was 1974 when police say someone opened the door of the parked car Walker was in and snatched her. She was 17 years old and was on a date with her boyfriend, who alerted the family about what happened.

“Jim and I both answered the door, and he was bleeding from the head,” Stone recalled. “And he said, ‘They’ve got her! They’ve got her! And they are going to hurt her bad.’”

“She was missing for a few days and her body was discovered near Benbrook Lake,” explained Fort Worth Officer Ivan Gomez.

Over the years, Fort Worth PD periodically revisited the case, but answers have never developed.

Now, a resurgence in the effort includes an anonymously written letter mailed to police shortly after the murder. The writer claims to know who the killer is and mentions the person by name.

“The person’s name is blacked out. It says killed Carla Walker in Benbrook,” Gomez said. “Also on the bottom, it says ‘P.S.  It’s hard to believe, but it’s true.’”

For the two siblings, the weight of it all has never become any less.

“We are hoping that this will bring out someone who knows this handwriting or this person is willing to come forward and at least talk to them,” Stone said.

Investigators urge anyone with information about the letter or Carla Walker‘s murder to contact them right away.