Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Disappearance of Elisa Roberson Part 1: Halfway

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The Disappearance of Elisa Roberson Part 1: Halfway · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

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The Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter. Listener discretion
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is advised. On August sixth, nineteen eighty nine, Elisa Roberson left her
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a Ramsa's pass home and headed to a friend's house several blocks away, just
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under a mile. Her friend was supposed to meet her halfway, but Elisa,
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as the story goes, never showed up. For thirty four years now,
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Elisa has been thirteen years old in the memories of her family and friends.
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That's how old she was the day she vanished. To this day,
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Elisa's disappearance haunts her mother Marina, sister Ruby, brother Alex, and even
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the original detectives on the case, Mike Thompson, captain of detectives at the
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time, and Linda Thompson, a lieutenant. The case took detectives to a
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prison, had them conferring with authorities in several states, and had them chasing
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down anonymous tips at home that ultimately led nowhere. Elisa's disappearance also haunted those
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who loved her but are no longer with us, her father Eugene and little
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brother Tony. There was no shortage of theories in the case. Some developed
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soon after Elisa went missing, and some through the decades that have passed,
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none are absurd or implausible, something that only further shrouds the case and mystery,
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but at least one when considering the timeline and available evidence, is extremely
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unlikely. In fact, considering the available evidence, or more accurately, the
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lack thereof what happened to Elisa is as mysterious and elusive a question as questions
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come. Despite law enforcement's insistence over the years that no suspects were ever identified,
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that isn't necessarily the case, and despite her efforts to get her sister's
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story told comprehensively, Ruby Roberson Hall has only been able to get the new
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stations local to the greater Corpus Christi area to air simple segments on or near
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the anniversary of Elisa's disappearance. There are plenty of twists, turns, rumors,
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and annuendo in Elisa Roberson's case, but it isn't about all that.
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Instead, it's about finding her, maybe sparking someone's memory of that minor detail
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they either thought wasn't important at the time or were afraid to come forward with.
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Perhaps the idiom has become a cliche one at this point, particularly in
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the true crime podcast space. But someone out there knows something. Thirteen year
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old girls, after all, don't simply vanish end at the air. There's
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nothing to indicate she ran away. There's nothing to indicate she was kidnapped.
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Elisa's father, Eugene Roberson once said, frustrated at the lack of clues anyone,
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including himself, was able to find. It's like she was picked up
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by a flying saucer. We laughed so much. Like Elisa had this big
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smile, and she had dimples, and she was always smiling. And we
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gave her a nickname. It's a Spanish nickname. It's called Dante spelados.
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And in Spanish that means your teeth are always peeled, which means you're always
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smiling and laughing. And so that was Elisa's nickname because she was always laughing
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and smiling. Blanca Alisa Roberson was born on January twelfth, nineteen seventy six,
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in Bluefield's, Nicaragua, to Marina Elsa Quintana. During this time,
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the revolution in Nicaragua was nearing a fever pitch. Although President and dictator Anastasio
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Samosa had been attempting to subdue the revolutionaries called the Sandinista National Liberation Front.
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His efforts were failing miserably. The Sandinistas, who been slowly chipping away at
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the Samosa regime since the early nineteen seventies, had only grown in power and
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numbers, and it was almost time to bring their efforts to a final culmination.
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Revolution life hard. We didn't her. I didn't have money the way
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women are treat it over there, like an object. And I said,
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I don't want Madara. I don't want my children to grow over here.
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I don't want to risk them over here, because little girls women are like
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a piece of meat for the man's over there. I don't want Madara to
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grow over here. Ana. One day, if I school, I won't
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get away from here. The Central American country was in turmoil, almost lawless
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in many ways, particularly considering the lack of consequences for things like sexual violence.
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Rape. Even the rape of little girls was common. Nicaragua was certainly
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a dangerous place for a young mother and her infant daughter. But fate intervened
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and things changed for Marina and Elisa. When I was twenty one, Eugene
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rubbers and skins to Nicaraua to Bluefield, where I am from. It went
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over there and we met like that. I saw him and he was a
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stranger, and I, you know, I make friends and I sure him
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where everything was restaurants and stores, and then you know, we hang around
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a little and they stayed Therefore, two weeks Eugene Roberson was in Blue Fields,
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Nicaragua to locate a broken down shrimping boat, get it working, and
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bring it back to Texas. Are you? United States Army veteran Eugene ran
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away and joined the service at fifteen years old or eighteen years old. As
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far as they knew, he was no stranger to instability like what was happening
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in Nicaragua. Long before becoming a Texas Gulf Coast shrimper, Eugene fought alongside
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anti Castro Cubans and spent years in a Cuban prison. As the result,
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he was a little rough around the edges even before being subjected to those tortuous
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conditions, but was proud to serve his country and aboard the disrespect and abuse
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of women. Marina and Eugene fell in love, but she had to make
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one thing clear before taking the next step in their whirlwind romance. At the
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end of two weeks, if I find out that for some reason, I
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don't know what the reason, he did not have to bring that sheep anymore.
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One day he asked me, do you want to marry me? He
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won't nice, and he thought that I won nice And I said, well,
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I have a little daughter. I said, and if she don't come
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with me, I cannot accept your proposals. I won't married. And he
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told me, well, what kind of man would I be if I would
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allow you to leave behind your baby? And then I thought, oh,
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my going. Then I he want to take me to America and then Elisa
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will be set. Eugene didn't have the money to take Marina and Alisa back
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with him, and anyway, the young mother had to apply and wait for
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a visa. Now that he didn't have to bring the shrimping boat back,
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Eugene flew to Texas and gathered the money he needed to get his fiance and
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her baby out of Nicaragua. When the time finally came just weeks later,
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Marina was both elated and relieved to get out of the country with her eight
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month old girl and enjoy a life of freedom in America as opposed to the
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oppressive rule of the dictatorship under Samosa, which was soon to be toppled by
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the Sandinistas, further decimating a country that was already in shambles. Considering the
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United States Central Intelligence Agency was soon to sponsor their own Congress and president backed
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opposition to the Junta government under the Sandinistas the Contra Marina and Elisa got out
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just in time. Eugene Robson legally adopted baby Elisa all but immediately upon exchanging
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vows with Marina, and the new family settled in to Aransas Pass, Texas.
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Elisa might as well have been Eugene's biological daughter. He loved the little
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girl and certainly treated her as if she was. It wasn't long before Marina
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and Eugene welcomed another little girl into their lives. The expecting parents didn't even
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make it to the hospital, and Ruby Robson was brought into the world right
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outside the Aransas Pass Police Department. Had she been born five days earlier,
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Ruby would have been exactly a year and a half younger than her big sister.
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Less than a year and a half after that, Marina gave birth to
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Elisa's first brother, Tony, Marina and Eugene's marriage unfortunately didn't last, and
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she soon found herself a single mother of three. Marina was giving her children
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a far better life than they would have had in Nicaragua, but life for
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the mother was proving to be incredibly tough. Nonetheless, the family struggled to
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get by. Marina began a relationship with a man named Ralph Gonzales, who
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it turned out, not only ran large quantities of narcotics across the Mexican border
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into Texas, but was also physically abusive to the young mother. Alisa's little
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sister, Ruby remembers all too well the terror that Gonzales rocked. It was
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just very violent and so as kids witnessed a lot of things that little children
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should never see. And so of course the police were involved a few times.
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And you know, I was no stranger to having a police at her
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home. Although these were hard times, Ruby told us Marina took care of
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the children and they took care of each other. In fact, their bonds
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grew stronger as a result. Marina tried leaving Gonzales several times, but he
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did not like losing control, and, like abusers, either bullshitted or forced
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his way back in Eugene Roberson, who undoubtedly still cared for Marina and of
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course the children, would likely have put a quick end to it, but
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he had gotten into a little trouble more than once, which had landed him
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a lengthy stint in the penitentiary. Marina gave birth to Ralph Gonzalez's child in
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May of nineteen eighty four, who was known by his middle name Alex.
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Of course, that gave the other children Joy and Elisa, being the oldest,
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another kid to watch over. So Alisa she was the oldest, and
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so being the oldest sister, of course, she was like the one who
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would always trying to watch over us and would tell us what to do and
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to behave. Finally, in the summer of nineteen eighty nine, Marina got
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rid of Gonzales for good. Finally speaking, she would have to struggle raising
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her children that much more, but it was nothing compared to the damage the
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abuser had done. The family had scars, but with Gonzales gone, things
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were looking up. Very soon after, the Marina Roberson family began to live
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unafflicted by terror. However, something unimaginably tragic happened. It's the holidays,
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gon Cold fifty to get fifty percent off. Located just north of Corpus Christi,
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Aransas Pass, Texas was a relatively quiet town of about seventy four hundred
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residents in nineteen eighty nine, but for several decades beginning in the eighteen fifties,
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it looked like Aransas Pass would never come to be the many attempts to
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develop the area that is now Aransas Pass, Texas all fail stifled at times
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by physical impracticalities, unforeseen by brilliant minds ahead of their time, perhaps,
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and once by a mid nineteenth century conflict that nearly upended the Great American experiment.
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From the failure of former United States congressmen turned railroad scoutsmen prior Lee to
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connect to the Gulf Coast to San Antonio via both a turnpike and a railway,
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to the United States Army Corps of Engineer's twenty five year study of the
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prospects of a deep water port in the harbor, there nothing quite worked out.
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After more than fifty years of failure, in nineteen oh seven, a
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deep water channel was a reality that, along with tracks connecting the area to
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Southern Pacific Railroad's main line, fully operational by nineteen twelve, secured a place
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for Aransas Pass as a major contributor to both the fishing industry and the agricultural
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industry. After its official incorporation in nineteen ten, and the resilient citizen's ability
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to repair the city's infrastructure proficiently and efficiently after major hurricanes, Aransas Pass was
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hard at work to become the deep water port of the Lower Gulf Coast,
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but those dreams were dashed when the Army Corps of Engineers instead chose Corpus Christie
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for that honor. Still, Aransas Pass did all right as a port for
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fishermen, especially shrimpers, and became known as something of a quaint and uneventful
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fishing village. Over time, all the big oilmen and fishing magnates lived in
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Corpus, and Aransis Pass remained the home of the working class oil rig roughnecks,
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fishermen, and shrimpers whose job is exactly what it sounds like it would
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be. The poverty line was, unfortunately one many citizens of Aransas Pass walked.
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There aren't many more residents now than there were as the last decade of
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the twentieth century approached, but there was one major difference. At the tail
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end of the nineteen seventies, throughout the nineteen eighties and into the nineteen nineties.
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Much like the trends practically everywhere else in Texas, crime was high in
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Aransas Pass, unlike cities such as San Antonio, Fort Worth, and Lubbock.
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However, the crime was usually relegated to bar fights or dwi's when the
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shrimpers came to shore with their weekly pay after several days at sea. The
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few homicides that took place in the small city of approximately seventy two hundred residents
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seemed to be always as the result of drunken disputes or personal vendettas drugs were,
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and not simply in terms of users and small time dealers, but also
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folks who were running large amounts of dangerous narcotics from Mexico with that inevitably comes
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violence. By the end of nineteen eighty eight, in fact, drugs had
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become such a problem that the Tri County Narcotics Task Force joined forces with Oransis
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Pass Crime Stoppers and opened an anonymous tip line in an attempt to gather information
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from the public. Ralph Gonzales, the man who physically abused Marina Roberson,
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was certainly a factor in this equation, and in fact was well known to
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the local cops not only for his profession as a highly connected drug mule,
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but also as a man capable of terrible acts of physical violence. Of course,
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even indirectly, the drug problem brought with it a multitude of criminal activity.
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Burglary, robbery, assault, and homicide, among other crimes. But
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not even the small Gulf Coast city could escape the terror that the darkest and
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most depraved souls sought to inflict. There were both rumors and reports of otherwise
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respected and perhaps protected church officials or longtime residents sexually assaulting children, and when
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a tragedy involving a child occurred, accusations against these individuals became the talk of
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the town. In nineteen eighty nine, at thirteen years old, Elisa Roberson
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was a fairly typical girl navigating adolescens and certainly a product of the time.
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She was the cool one. It was like the eighties, and so there
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was all these cool bands, and I remember she would buy her tapes like
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Poison, bon Jovi, Motley Crue, all those fun bands, and so
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she used to play all that cool music, and I just remembered that I
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wanted she was just so cool, and I wanted to be like her and
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kind of fun to always have someone to be with and hang out with and
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do all the cool stuff with. And granted she was just thirteen, but
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I just thought she was just so cool and you know, fun and had
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the cool friends and boyfriends and all that fun stuff. Before handheld phones and
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tablets were a thing, kids, especially the kids of working folks, generally
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spent from sun up to sundown outside. Elisa certainly did, and as a
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true gen Xer, she could usually be found riding bikes with friends around Ransis
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Pass, perhaps getting into a little trouble along the way, but overall she
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was a good kid. Her friend Holly told us about a typical day hanging
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out. We would ride by go play. We called them the dunes,
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and now that we're older, it was just a drainage ditch and we would
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go play in this sand. My mom would pack us like little picnic stuff
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and we would go find a place and eat our snacks and you know,
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stuff like that. Holly also remembered Elisa as much more than simply a fun
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friend. She was funny, She was a good friend. She would have
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your back, like if someone was picking on you, you know she she's
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a friend, She's going to have your back and she's going to stand up
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for you. You know. She didn't accept like bullying or anything like that.
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If she had something to say, she didn't hold back either. Because
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Spanish was the language she learned as a toddler. She'd been held back one
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year and was in the same grade at Key Burger Elementary School as her sister
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Ruby. It was really cool to be in the same grade and almost have
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the same friend. And I was always kind of, you know, she
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did have her older, cool friends, and I just remember that, you
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know, there were times that we were just we were always together, and
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I'm sure she at times got a little annoyed or irritated with the little ones
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kind of me following her around, But I just remember I wanted to be
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with her, and it seemed like we all had the same friends and even
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had some of the same boyfriends, like in some weird twists. Both were
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enjoying their summer before heading to Junior High. On Sunday, August sixth,
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nineteen eighty nine, a typically hot Texas summer day, Alisa Roberson headed home
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after spending the afternoon with her friend who will call Sharon. Sharon and her
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family were going to evening services at church, and Alisa didn't want to go,
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so sometime around four PM she headed home. Not long after she got
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there, Alisa got a call from her friend Debbie. Debbie was three years
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younger than Elisa, but the two became friends when Marina rented a property from
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Debbie's father, Bob. That evening, Debbie wanted Elisa to come over to
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play with her Barbie dolls. Because her family couldn't afford many toys, and
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perhaps because there was still a little girl inside of her somewhere, Elisa wasn't
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above messing around with Barbie's. There was, however, a problem. Alisa
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had spent the night out and was gone all day at Sharon's, so her
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mother, Marina, wasn't too keen on her going back out. She said,
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Debbie wants me to come to her house to play Barbie. And then
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I said, well, tell Debbie that and't getting a little late. But
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you know I cannot have Alisa walk out there. And then at the time
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out there fish visiting, I could not allow Elisa to walk back home when
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he was going to be dark. Then, so I told Alisa tell David
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that that he's getting a little too late. But as a thirteen year old,
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Alisa wouldn't relent. Marina didn't own a car, so she couldn't drive
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Alisa to her friend's house. It was almost a mile walk to Debbie's,
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but since she and Alisa agreed to meet half wayish at Key Burger Elementary School,
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and Debbie insisted her father would drive Alisa back home later. Marina relaxed
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and agreed. It wasn't unusual anyway for Debbie's dad to drive the kids to
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and from each other's houses. He just couldn't pick up Alisa because he hadn't
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gotten home from work yet. Alisa left her house at four thirty one South
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Whitney Street between four thirty and five pm and began the three block trek to
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the school on West Goodnight Avenue. It was the last time anyone is known
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to have seen her. It should have taken Alisa Roberson approximately six minutes to
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get to Key Burger Elementary from her house, perhaps a couple more if she
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stopped and talked to anyone along the way, and she did. Next door
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to the Roberson home, their neighbor, Missus Barker, was washing dishes and
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out the window above her kitchen sink, saw Elisa walking down the driveway toward
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the street. When she made it to the corner of South Whitney Street and
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West Goodnight Avenue, a girl named Jennifer spoke briefly with Elisa Jennifer's brother,
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who wasn't on again off again boyfriend of Elisa's was sweeping out the family RV,
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and when he poked out his head as he pushed out the dirt,
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he saw her and waved. When her friend Debbie arrived at Key Burger Elementary,
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however, Elisa wasn't there. It's not clear if she stuck around and
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waited for any period of time, but Debbie's walk was slightly longer than Elisa's
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at about ten minutes, and she had fooled around for a few minutes at
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home before she left, adding a few more according to the detective assigned the
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case in the initial investigation, so it probably wasn't unreasonable for her to assume
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Alisa should have already made it. Whatever the case, ten year old Debbie
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headed back to her house and called the Roberson home. Marina spoke very little
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English. Alisa, in fact, usually accompanied her mother places to act as
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an interpreter with Alisa at home. Twelve year old Ruby took the call.
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Debbie asked where Elisa was. Me and her must have been fighting. Alisa
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and I must have been fighting, because I remember kind of being annoyed at
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her and annoyed at Debbie calling, or maybe it was Debbie I was irritated
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at. I don't know for sure what had happened, but I know I
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was annoyed, and I remember saying I don't know, and I don't care,
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and so I've always felt just always carry a lot of killed over Seeing
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that, Marina asked Ruby what the call was about. At first, no
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one was really worried. After all, Elisa was a teenager with a lot
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of friends and plenty in the neighborhood who could have sidetracked her along the way.
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Another girl had stopped by Debbie's house at some point, and the two
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walked around some looking for Elisa. Debbie called back and said they couldn't find
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her, but when her dad got home from work, they'd go back out
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and look. Marina began to panic. Eventually, Debbie's father, Bob,
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got home and called Marina, don't leave the house. He told her he
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and Debbie were going out to search again, this time on wheels. Meanwhile,
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Ruby began calling her sister's friends. None had seen her. After a
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while, Bob pulled up outside the Roberson home with Debbie and her friend in
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tow. Her dad must have gone, came home and drove them around,
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and some time later they came to our house. It was Debbie, her
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dad and her little friend. And I guess he took them to go get
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ice cream, which is just so odd, like so odd, you know,
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at a time where you're trying to find someone and he stops and gets
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them an ice brings him to our house. They're having ice cream cones.
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It was just so strange. And they said, we can't find Alisa.
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You know, she's nowhere to be found. Debbie says they had bought Elisa
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and ice cream too. Regardless, they could not find the missing girl,
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and it was about an hour past sundown. Bob told Marina to call the
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Aransas Pass Police at nine nine pm. According to the police report, an
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officer wrote the following, my sister hasn't come home yet, and my mom
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wants a policeman to come over. Many cops in nineteen eighty nine were still
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holding on to the old ways. Unless your child is missing for twenty four
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hours, the attitude was that there was really nothing they could do. The
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officer on duty the night Elisa disappeared, unfortunately, seemed to also perform his
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duties. By this standard. He was nonchalant and reassured Marina that Elisa had
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just gone off with friends or had run away. She'd be back. The
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policeman told the frantic mother it wasn't only the family who thought the officer wasn't
30:15
taking this seriously enough. Then, Ransas Pass Police Lieutenant Linda Thompson and Captain
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of Detectives Mike Thompson somberly told us the same. Lieutenant Thompson said it was
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just a bad call by an otherwise capable, if not overly cocky officer,
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and Captain Thompson told us he didn't notify anyone other than the patrol officers on
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duty, who were told to perform only a cursory search for a thirteen year
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old girl who stood five feet four inches tall, weighed about one hundred pounds,
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and was wearing a light blue Mickey Mouse T shirt, dark blue Coulotte
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shorts and sneakers. The Captain of Detectives, Mike himself, probably should have
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been given a heads up immediately. Had the Thompson's been on duty that night,
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things might have turned out quite different. Ruby remembers the feeling of helplessness
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that she and their mother felt all too. Well, it was like,
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okay, well, you know, let us know. She doesn't show up
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within the next you know, however many hours. And I know that I've
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heard this a lot. A lot of people didn't feel in those times that
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they were really taken seriously when they were reporting a child missing. So I
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do remember that kind of, you know, feeling. And then I remember
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that night that was like the worst night. I do remember. We my
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mom had me call all of Elsa's friends and so I called them all and
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I asked, you know, is Lisa there? Is Alisa there? And
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all of them said the same thing, No, we haven't seen her today.
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She's not here. And then that night just kind of going to sleep
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and that really awful feeling of some impending doom, like you could fill it
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in your stomach, like something kind of bad has just happened. And you're
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me as a child, my little twelve year old brain, you know,
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being so sad, like where's my sister? And you're kind of like in
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a detached dissociative state. I don't know how to explain it. It's just
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and you feel something's not right, but you don't know quite how to,
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you know, because the reality of it is just too too hard to accept,
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and even that then I knew that at twelve years old, it's something
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that had happened. The next morning, Marina gathered the kids and went to
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the Aransas Pass Police station. Lieutenant Linda Thompson knew the Roperson's and for many
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reasons. The first, most obvious, perhaps is that Aransas Pass was and
32:51
still is a small city, but the lieutenant also remembered quite vividly the day
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Marina gave birth to Ruby outside the station. The police officer also knew the
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family for a far darker reason. For the times Ralph Gonzalez had been arrested
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for physically assaulting Marina, Lieutenant Thompson were called the morning following Alisa's disappearance.
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In detail, I had just walked into the office and had sat down in
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the CID room to go through the weekend reports. My office was further down
33:30
the hall, but that's just sort of what I did. I grabbed my
33:32
coffee, i'd stopped the CID looked at any reports that were taken over the
33:37
weekend if I hadn't been working, and the dispatcher called me and just barely
33:45
started looking and told me that Marina was in the lobby asking for me,
33:51
and I walked. It was just out the door and around the corner,
33:57
no more than Chensy before I've been sitting. And when I looked at her,
34:01
and I immediately realized that Alyssa was a wizard. I felt like I
34:09
had been kicked in the summit by a mule. I knew something tragic had
34:14
happened. It was just that strong, that's happitable. I don't know how
34:22
she managed to make it until eight o'clock in the morning on Monday morning to
34:25
come back and see me. It would not have surprised me for her to
34:30
have been sitting there, you know, and with everybody just waiting for me
34:34
to get there and get this going again. And she said, your mom,
34:38
just you know, the pain. You could see it on her face,
34:40
and it just said it sounds just something that she'll never be able to
34:45
forget. And so that's that's just when the nightmare, the nightmare started.
34:50
It just yeah, coming up on Gone Cold, the searches, the suspects,
34:58
and the endless grief, the uncertainty of Alisa's disappearance as left behind.
35:06
If you have any information about the disappearance of Blanca Alisa Roberson. Please contact
35:13
Tri County Crime Stoppers at eight hundred two four five eight four seven seven,
35:20
or submit a tip online at Tri County Crimestoppers Online tip form, which we'll
35:25
link to in the episode's show notes. We'd like to give a warm and
35:31
sincere thanks to Holly Blanchard Hall, Linda and Mike Thompson, Ruby Roberson,
35:37
Hall, and Marina Kintana Tomchak for their contributions to this episode. The Biggest,
35:45
most special thanks to Marina and Ruby for their patients. An episode on
35:51
Elisa's case was set to come out on the thirty fourth anniversary, which seemed
35:55
extra special since it like her disappearance heard on a Sunday. However, information
36:02
kept coming our way and I became absorbed with finding out specific details, some
36:08
of which I have others not so much. We'd like to ask a favor.
36:15
If you like Gone Cold's mission to raise awareness for unsolved homicides, missing
36:22
persons cases, and other mysteries many long forgotten, we'd greatly appreciate your five
36:29
star rating and written review on Apple Podcasts, particularly, or if you can't
36:35
do that, wherever else you listen. It nudges the algorithm and helps the
36:39
show's visibility, which gets the podcast in the ears of more folks and gives
36:45
us a better chance at reaching someone who might be able to provide law enforcement
36:51
with information on the cases we cover. You can also support Gone Cold at
36:57
patreon dot com slash Gone Cold podcast, where for two and a half bucks
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a month, you'll have access to add free listening and exclusive episodes available only
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and x. Thanks for listening, y'all.