Terry Diane Walden was 23, a nursing student and mother of two, when she disappeared from Beaumont, Texas on March 23, 1984. Two days earlier a man posing as a photographer had approached her with a modeling offer that she refused. Her orange Mercury Cougar was gone from its usual parking spot and her family searched for her over the weekend.

On March 26 her body was found fully clothed, floating face-down in a canal near a dam. She had been bound with multiple types of rope, gagged with duct tape, and stabbed numerous times. Investigators recovered duct tape in the water and noted footprints and tire tracks nearby; there was no clear evidence of sexual assault. Her car was later seen driven by a man who had likely switched license plates.

Authorities linked Christopher Bernard Wilder to Walden’s abduction and murder; he was placed in Beaumont at the time, had registered at a nearby motel under a false name, and was seen in a vehicle matching her car. The FBI joined the probe during a wider investigation into a series of similar crimes. Did anyone in Beaumont or the surrounding area know Terry or notice her car in late March 1984?