Despite Saturday’s steady rain, families of missing and murdered loved ones gathered in downtown Fort Worth for the annual Thaw the Cold Cases – Cold Case Awareness Walk, an event to honor victims of unsolved crimes, and offer support and encouragement for fellow families. The walk brought t ogether friends, neighbors, and relatives carrying posters, photos, and decades of unanswered questions. Their message: these victims still matter, and their stories must continue to be told. A Community United by Grief—and Determination Sabrina Jackson was there for her son, Joshua Davis. Davis was last seen at his New Braunfels, TX, home on the afternoon of Feb. 4, 2011. He was just one year old. Janet Moseley Hensley is still searching for her sister, Julie Moseley, one of the three girls who vanished from a Fort Worth shopping center in 1974. Julie was 9 years old at the time. “December 23rd, 1974. So, all the Christmases have just been hard. I mean, you can’t imagine her not being here,” Hensley said. Others came with questions about unsolved murders. Paula Meyers Hamilton lost both her brother and sister to violent crimes, 13 years apart. “My brother, Robert Myers Jr., was murdered on November 13, 1987. And my sister, Denise Myers Hunt, was murdered on December 3, 2000,” Hamilton said. She said no one has been brought to justice in either case, yet. “My brother was stabbed. My sister was strangled and bludgeoned,” she said. “It just weighs on us,” said Hamilton’s other sister, Regina Lewis. “It’s hard to talk about it. Still.” Family and friends wore orange to Saturday’s event, one of Denise’s favorite colors. Her nephew was there, too, holding up a poster. He knows about one memory with his aunt, told many times by family members. “[His grandmother] dropped him and he was only a month old. And my sister caught him. So, we always say she saved his life,” Hamilton recalled, chuckling. “A lot of people missed out on all that love because somebody decided to take them away,” said Crystal Kilgore, niece of Robert Denise. Kilgore also had a message for a suspect in her aunt’s death. “There’s no way that a person can take someone’s life and then move forward being positive and living a happy life, because you’ve done something to destroy a family. So, the best way to make peace with it is just come forward,” she said. Organizers opened the event by acknowledging the emotional weight carried by every family present. “We all carry something heavy,” one speaker said. “No family should walk this road alone, and no name should ever fade into silence.” For many, that road has stretched across generations. Hope, Even After Decades Many families said Saturday’s event helped them keep hope alive. Speakers including Jim Walker, brother of Carla Walker, who’s cold case was solved decades after her kidnapping and death. Families also heard from Victoria and Melissa Highsmith. The family found Melissa in 2022, over 50 years after she was kidnapped as a baby. They also heard about Tarrant County’s new Cold Case Task Force, dedicated to helping more families find closure. The Highsmith Family: A Cold Case Miracle After 50+ Years One of the most powerful reminders of hope came from the Highsmith family, who spent more than five decades searching for Melissa Highsmith, kidnapped as a baby in Fort Worth. “We grew up knowing we had a missing sister,” said Victoria Highsmith. “I never thought we would find her.” In 2022, thanks to DNA testing, the family finally found Melissa and reunited with her—now an adult. “I had to pinch myself,” Melissa said. “I felt like Cinderella.” Melissa said she never knew she was kidnapped and grew up in an abusive family. “I wasn’t allowed to go outside and play, they kept me in special ed,” she said. “And now I know they were trying to control me, they didn’t want me to know.” At 15, she decided to run away from them. When she got a Facebook message from her biological sister, she couldn’t believe it. “This was life-changing,” Melissa said. “It was like all my dreams came true. I always wanted a family that loved me, and then finally, I finally get it.” The Highsmith family now urges others to take proactive steps that could help solve cold cases: Get children fingerprinted to aid future identification efforts Submit DNA to CODIS, the national database used by law enforcement Her story stands as a reminder that even the coldest cases can thaw and that families searching for answers should never give up hope. ...read more read less