3 of 8: The Search

By the time the sun came up on August seventh, nineteen eighty nine, Elisa Roberson had been missing for nearly twelve hours. Twelve hours of unanswered questions, of phone calls that led nowhere, of a family waiting for a door that never opened. Outside, the neighborhood was beginning to wake up, cars starting, people stepping out into their porches, the quiet rhythm of a small town mourning slowly coming back to life. But inside the Roberson home there had been no sleep, no rest, no answers, only the same question, repeating over and over again. Where is Elisa? Because at some point during the night something shifted. What started as confusion turned into concern, and by mourning that concern was turning into fear because Alisa hadn't come home, and as daylight broke across Ransa's pass, the fear was about to turn into something much bigger. A search. The night e Lisa didn't come home, it didn't end when the sun went down. It stretched hour by hour, every minute feeling longer than the last. At first, there was still logic, still explanations. Maybe she stayed with a friend, maybe she just lost track of time. Maybe she would walk in the door any second, the kind of thoughts you hold on to because the alternative is too heavy to say out loud. But as midnight passed, and then one and then two, those explanations started to fall apart. The silence and the house changed. It got heavier, louder because there was no movement, no voice, no Lisa. Alisa's sister Ruby remembers what those first hours felt like inside the home. As the night stretched on and the realization started to set in that something wasn't right. There wasn't much we can do, and so I just know I didn't sleep, my mom didn't sleep, and I just I constantly looking waiting for Lisa to come home. And she never came home. And it just was really really really sad, scary, just horrible, and I knew, I even knew at that young age, like I just remember being so sad and being so afraid for my mom, so scared. I never want to relive that. That was just really hard times. The calls didn't stop, different numbers, different people, same question, have you seen her? And every answer came back the same no. And that's when the shift happened from waiting to searching. By the time the sun started coming up. There was no more waiting, no more assuming, no more convincing yourself that this was something simple, because Alisa had never done this before. She wasn't the kind of kid who stayed out all night. She wasn't the kind of kid who disappeared without telling someone where she was going. And everyone in that house knew that The morning didn't bring answers. It brought clarity. Something was wrong. When Alisa's mother went to the police department, it wasn't just to report that Alisa hadn't come home. It was to ask for help because something didn't make sense and time mattered. Well, my gosh, the officer was my hope. I thought that he he won't going to go on and they weren't going to start patrolling the city. I said that I thought they're looking for her, and I didn't even want to call back and said, did you all find her? Because in my mind I thought, I do not want to interfere. They're looking for Elisa, and I thought the night they were looking for her, and now they're waiting, thinking, well, they're looking for her, and my goda find out forty five years later and nobody was looking for. Her Mike and London Thompson were key law enforcement officers with the Ranis Pass Police Department involved in the investigation. They talk about what happened in those early hours and the time that was lost before the search truly began. And by nineteen eighty nine I had made the rank lieutenant with the RNs Past Police Department. One of my primary jobs, or my primary concern was juvenile crime or juveniles as victims. So there was a department policy that any offenses, any reports involving children below the age of seventeen I was to be contacted by the duty officer right away. I think at that time as a department, we put everything into initiating the investigation that could be done twelve hours behind time. We lost a very critical twelve hours and because of that loss, it has put us where we are now thirty five years later with no answers. There was a lapse there of about twelve sixteen hours. Basically, nothing was done. To sixteen hours in a missing person's case. That's not just time, that's opportunity. That's the window where witnesses are still outside, where details are still fresh, where a trail still exists, and in Elisa's case, that window was already beginning to close. Not everyone saw this as a runaway. Not everyone believed Alisa had just left. Some people knew almost immediately that something wasn't right. Linda Thompson describes the moment she realized this wasn't a typical missing person's case and that something was seriously wrong. It wasn't unusual to have young girls Melissa's age come up quote runaway unquote. They often were just something that had happened in a family and a child was acting out a little bit. We were able to resolve the situation. But Alyssa was different from the beginning. I knew your family because I had a lot of interaction because Tony. Tony had issues in being able to sometimes control his behavior, very curious child, and that sometimes got him in trouble. And because he was under ten, there was nothing I could really do other than talk to Tony, but I did, and your mom would often bring you kids send Tony to me so I could talk to Tony about something that was going on. So the morning your mother walked into the police department after Let's come up missing, the minute I saw her in the hallway in the entryway, and at that same moment, the dispatcher is handing me the missing report with Lisay, and I knew that something was really wrong. I just didn't realize how wrong. That instinct mattered, because Alisa wasn't just missing. She had a destination, she had a plan. She was seen along the way and then nothing. Once the search officially began, everything started moving quickly. Officers moved through the neighborhood, knocking on doors, walking the same streets of Lisa had walked just hours earlier, looking at everything differently, not just as a place, but as a timeline, a path, a series of moments that needed to be understood. That's when everything just started move in and move in real fast. And they notified my dad. They had to. He was out in the Gulf of Mexico shrimping, so they had to radio him in. He was as soon as soon as he could get in. He was back in Aransa's Pass, as soon as he heard the news that Alisa was missing. Everything was happening really fast. After that. In a small town like Aransa's Pass, something like this doesn't stay contained. It spreads. People talk, people show up, and before long the search wasn't just law enforcement, it was everyone. Neighbors stepped out side. People walked the streets, calling out her name, checking areas she might have passed, looking in places that had always felt normal but now felt uncertain. By late morning, the search had spread beyond just a few streets. What started as neighbors checking nearby homes had turned into something much larger. People were no longer just looking casually. They were searching, walking in lines, covering ground, and as the hours passed, the heat started to settle, in the kind of heat that slows you down, that makes every step heavier. But no one stopped, because the longer Lisa was missing, the more urgent it became. As the morning turned into afternoon, the search intensified. Helicopters began circling overhead, low enough that you could hear the blades cutting through the air echoes across the neighborhood, a constant reminder this was serious. On the ground, search teams spread out in every direction. Volunteer years continued to arrive as the search intensified. Mike Thompson explains just how large the operation became. From helicopters overhead to specialize search teams on the ground. From that day it kicked off. There was a countless number of hours dog teams, bloodhound from Rockport, dog search team from Dallas. I don't know what else we could have done at that time. We did what we knew to do at that time. The bloodhound we got from a gentleman out of Rockport. He was there like the next day. The dog team from Dallas, that took a couple of days to get them there. They came in on their own, worked with us for several days. They had dogs that could have her dogs, they had bloodhounds, they had dogs that could sniff out dead bodies in water. I was on about with one of the dogs, but they went out checking canals, harbor places like that. The outstart, we're just trying to get background of Lisa and friends, quentnces, names, laces, she might go, people that knew her. Most of that was handled by Linda. We were in and around the hall numerous times, especially in that first week week and a half. At that point, no one really knew what they were looking for, and that's what made it harder because there was no clear direction, no confirmed location, no evidence pointing one way or another, just questions was she hurt, was she lost, was she hiding somewhere, or had something happened? And as those questions started to shift, so did the feeling in the search, because what started as hope was slowly being replaced by something else, ertain and tea and for many fear. For Ruby, this wasn't just something happening outside. This was happening to her family, to her sister. And as the search grew, so did the realization that something was very wrong. Ruby talks about the moment things shifted, when the uncertainty started turning into fear and the situation became something much more serious. I just know I didn't sleep, my mom didn't sleep, and I just constantly looking waiting for Elsa to come home. And she never came home. It just was really really really sad, scary, just horrible, and I knew, I even knew at that young age, Like I just remember being so sad and being so afraid for my mom, so scared. I never want to relive that. That was just really hard times. That shift from uncertainty to fear is something families never forget. Well, the search was unfolding outside. Inside the Roberson home, everything was traveling because for them. This wasn't about procedure, this wasn't about timelines. This was about Alisa, her absence, the waiting, but not knowing. Elisa's mom Marina shares what that time felt like from inside the home, as the search was happening outside and the weight of everything began to set in. And back of my mind, I knew that I never never seen such a dark day, such a dark night, even day the day somebody's natural. You know. That horror over. Search. Dogs are one of the most powerful tools in missing persons investigations. They don't guess, they don't assume. They follow what's there, and in Alisa's case, they picked up percent They followed it carefully, step by step throughout the neighborhood, along the same path she had taken to hours earlier. Handlers watched closely, paying attention to every movement, every shift, and every signal. Because dogs don't just follow trails, they react to them. And for a moment, it felt like they were getting somewhere, like the path was clear, like the answers were just ahead. But then something changed. The dog slowed, hesitated, moved in tighter patterns, as if trying to pick something back up. Handlers, adjusting, watching, waiting, and then they stopped, not gradually, not fading, stopped, as if Alisa had been there one moment and then wasn't at that moment. The exact point would become one of the most important details in the entire case, because when a cent trail ends like that, it doesn't just raise questions, it suggests something something investigators couldn't ignore, because if Elisa didn't leave that spot on her own, then someone else may have taken her from it. An entire community came together looking for answers, and still no one could explain what happened in those missing moments, because somewhere between her home and the place where the trail ended, Alisa disappeared. Next time, on The Unseen Truth, we dive into the rumors, the names that started coming up, the theories that spread through the community, and how those rumors may have shaped the direction of this case. The Unseen Truth is a Reignited Media production, hosted, edited, and produced by me John Rivera. A special thank you to Reignited Media's own Sam Cole and Rose George for their support in scheduling and conducting the interviews that made this season possible.