Carrollton PD still searching for teen girls missing since 1988

CARROLLTON, Texas - Memorial Day is a time where we remember those who've lost their lives serving the country.

But the FBI wants the public to also remember children and teenagers who have gone missing and have never been seen or heard from again.

May 25 was National Missing Children’s Day. Among the missing are two girls from Carrollton.

Stacie Madison and Susan Smalley were Newman Smith High School students when they disappeared on March 19, 1988, near Webb Chapel and Forest Lane in Dallas.

Jolene DeVito with the Carrollton Police Department says it’s a case that she never stops thinking about and a case they vowed to never forget.

“On Spring Break, these two girls went missing in Dallas,” DeVito said. “Very few clues, but they were Carrollton girls, local high school girls, and so we picked up the case from there.”

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, there were 20,500 cases of missing children in 2016. About 90 percent of those are endangered runaways, 6 percent are family abductions and the remaining 4 percent are children, teens and young adults who went missing without a trace.

“And those obviously are the ones that really do haunt you and that you don’t want happening in your city,” DeVito said. “And you certainly don’t want someone who's out there who is responsible for doing something to these young innocent girls to be getting away with it.”

Several books have been written about the Madison-Smalley case. On the 25th anniversary of their disappearance on March 2013, Madison's mother, Ida, spoke with FOX 4.

“If the person that committed the crimes is never found, I would at least like to know where my daughter’s body is,” she said. “I would like to be able to give her a burial and have a place to go where I can go and put flowers on her grave.”

Ida and Carrollton police are hoping the missing are always remembered.

“The more eyes on it that we can get, hopefully, a day like this official Day for Missing Children, you just never know when the breaks are gonna come that you need,” DeVito said.