Marla Kay Mullins, 25, disappeared from Mineola, Texas, on the evening of December 12, 1981, after attending a Christmas party at Arnold’s Rest restaurant. The restaurant sat across the street from the garage apartment where she lived. Accounts conflict about her movements that night: a female friend said Mullins left at about 8:00 p.m. with a man they both knew, while that man later told police he returned Mullins to the restaurant and saw her get into an unfamiliar vehicle with three people — a Black male and two white females. She was never seen again.

Rumors that Mullins went to work at a Houston nightclub were investigated and could not be verified; the family doubted she would have left without contacting them. Her sister said Mullins had recently been involved with a rough crowd. In later years Kevin Leon Kirbo was identified as the primary suspect; he was serving a life sentence for an unrelated 1995 murder when, in May 2010, information he provided prompted a search along the Sabine River that found nothing. Foul play is suspected.