ARANSAS PASS, Texas — In the summer of 1989, Ruby Hall was getting ready to enter a new school year -- seventh grade of all years -- one of the most exciting but also nerve-wracking for a young pre-teen. Despite the bundle of nerves, she knew she would be okay, because she had her older sister, Elisa, by her side.
They were two of four siblings with younger brothers Tony and Alex. Elisa was the oldest. The two sisters were separated by only a year and a half, so they did almost everything together.
“She was the older sister that got to do the fun things and hang out with her cooler friends, so I was pretty much the tag-along and she was nice enough to bring me along,” recalled Ruby Hall with a smile talking about her big sis. “Why wouldn’t I want to be like her?”
Aug. 6, 1989 -- the date holds a permanent spot in Ruby’s mind. It’s the day she lost her safety net, her other half, and her big sister: the day Elisa Roberson went missing.
Elisa's mother, Marina Tomchak, recalls the last time she spoke with her, saying that it was late in the afternoon, around 4:30 p.m.:
“It was already getting late. Elisa’s friend called her over the phone. She wanted Elisa to come over to her house to play. I told her, ‘Elisa, it’s a little late and I’m worried about you walking alone,’ and so, she told me that her friend said that they could meet along the way, so that she wouldn’t have to walk alone.”
The meet-up point for Elisa and her friend was Kieberger Elementary School. The family says her scent was traced to the location, meaning she made it to her destination, but from there the trace vanished. However, she was reportedly last seen by witnesses near Greenwood Avenue and South Whitney Street in Aransas Pass.
“As kids you see what’s going on, but your mind can’t wrap around it – as adults we can’t – so imagine us as little kids,” Hall said, thinking back to when the first week of school came and the sinking feeling of hearing her teachers who appeared to have not been aware of what happened, still call out her sister’s name while taking attendance.
“That was awful. That was awful.”
When asked if her mother felt as if there was anything odd or off about the last time she saw Elisa, she shared that her daughter had told her she had been feeling as though she was being watched.
“She said, 'Mom, when I’m walking,' she said, 'I feel like there is someone watching me, and when I stop by and look back, there’s nothing there,”' Tomchak said.
“So, looking back we were wondering if someone had been kind of planning it,” Hall said.
Right outside of the elementary, you can find the memorial for Elisa with dolphins etched into it, which her sister says were her favorite. A purple bench sits right in front of it. Fresh flowers are ordered by family to the spot each anniversary, her sister said.
Just a few minutes drive from the memorial is the Aransas Pass Police Department. Captain Kyle Rhodes oversees the Criminal Investigations Division, which oversees this cold case.
“It’s an interesting case,” Rhodes said. Over the years, he’s also gotten to learn more about just who Elisa was.
“That she was a strong girl. That she would -- that if she were to have been abducted, she wouldn’t have gone quietly. She wouldn’t have been coerced into a car. That she would have put up a struggle.”
In 2016, however, there was a big update to the case -- the first in quite some time: Elisa’s childhood home became the site of an investigation.
“There used to be an open carport there and it had since been walled in and taken into part of the house,” Rhodes said. “We thought that maybe the slab that had been poured in there may be covering something up.”
Rhodes said that in 2016, a team came down from Texas Equusearch to help perform ground-penetrating radar.
“Technology had advanced, so we all got together and went over and got with the homeowners there, and we kind of explored the slab and the inside of the house.”
A round of investigations were done at the site. Tests were run on the slab. Two other locations in the area were also checked which included a grassy area on another street that was cleared with a backhoe and patrolled by canines. The other location was the house of the friend she was going to meet.
According to Rhodes, none of the sites developed anything. Then when Hurricane Harvey struck in August of 2017, he said that pushed things back even further.
Rhodes said there had been a particular person of interest in the case that he had wanted to speak with.
“There was a person of interest that I really wanted to speak with. That was a brother of Elisa, but he was in prison in Alaska, and he committed suicide. So, that is an area I can’t explore right now. I missed that opportunity.”
According to Hall, her brother, Tony, lived with mental illness and developmental disabilities. She shared that her brother was 10 when Elisa went missing. He was 39 when he died.
The family now lives in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Hall said her mother was living in fear, terrified that whoever did this to Elisa would come back for her other children, and that is why they moved.
Hall shared that the 2016 investigation was very difficult and painful for her and the family.
A reality that the family has accepted is that Elisa is no longer alive.
“She’s not with us anymore, she’s not on this Earth,” Hall said.
Both family and law enforcement have the same hope: they’re confident that this investigation is not over, that answers will be revealed, closure will come, and justice will be served.
“My hope is that somehow someone will confess the truth about what happened,” Tomchak said.
“We’re going to get there,” Rhodes said. “We want to discover what happened to this girl and conclusively be able to answer for it and maybe get some closure to not only the family, but her friends; people that knew her and the community. They all have questions about what happened to this little girl...I think it’s important that they get closure on this.”
As of Friday, Elisa Roberson would have been 45 years old.
This is still an open investigation. If you have any information that could help in this case, you’re asked to call the Aransas Pass Police Department at 361-758-5224.