The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts. All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages. Listener discretion is advised. I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski. And I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski. And this is Cold and Missing, where we cover cold cases and missing person cases. Hello everyone and welcome back to Cold and Missing.
I'm your host, Ali. And I'm your co-host, Eli. Do you just want to go ahead and get into this week's case? Uh, yeah, I'd love to. I was out last week, so I'm very happy to be back and to jump back into what we do here. Let's get into it. So today I have a cold case. We are going to be going over the cold case of D’Lisa Kelly. And this takes place in March of 2014 in Dallas, Texas. But first, a little bit about D’Lisa. D’Lisa is 24 years old in 2014.
She was a devoted mother to a young son and was also two months pregnant at this time. When D’Lisa’s family thinks of her, they think of her laugh. Her mother, Losandra Kelley, says, quote, that laugh, she had a laugh that would grab you from across the street, end quote. And now a timeline of events. On Friday, March 7th, 2014, D’Lisa is last seen at her grandmother's house. She was getting ready to go to her best friend's wake. Her best friend had recently passed away from a car accident.
D’Lisa planned on taking the bus there. She was wearing a black long sleeve dress, leopard tights or leggings, and a denim vest. She had her long black hair pulled into a bun. She leaves her grandmother's house between 430 and 530, both times have been reported. At around 613 PM, D’Lisa will be caught on surveillance footage at a convenience store. She'll be seen exiting the store and getting into a 1986 Mercury Grand Marquis.
At 645, just around a half hour after she was last seen on that surveillance footage, D’Lisa’s sister, Jasmine, gets a phone call from D’Lisa’s phone. Jasmine described it like a pocket dial. And Jasmine hears a fight in the background. Jasmine heard D’Lisa screaming, stop, stop, get off of me. Jasmine also heard a man say, shut up, stop screaming. You want to be hardheaded? The call lasts for one minute and 11 seconds. Jasmine is horrified by what she's hearing.
When the phone call disconnects, Jasmine tries to call her sister back, but she can't get through. At 7 PM, 15 minutes after that phone call, Jasmine gets a text from D’Lisa’s phone that says, quote, call you in a minute, end quote. But D’Lisa never calls. When Jasmine texts D’Lisa back asking what was wrong and if someone was hitting her, D’Lisa responds back that he, quote unquote, thought she was with someone else.
Jasmine contacts her grandmother, who makes the decision to call 911 at 838 PM to report D’Lisa missing. D’Lisa grandmother, Marjorita, can be heard on the 911 call saying, quote, she was screaming for her life, someone was beating her and we don't know who was with her, end quote. The 911 dispatcher takes the call and contacts the police sergeant asking if a missing person report should be filed. Sergeant Mansell is a bit hesitant and can be heard laughing on the police channel about D’Lisa.
He'll later face disciplinary action for the way he responded. The 911 dispatcher calls D’Lisa’s grandmother and asks for D’Lisa’s phone number and says that they'll try to use that to contact her and find her location by pinging it. By 8 51 PM, the police sergeant is on the phone with the cell phone company. He requests a phone location. In a few minutes, however, the cell phone provider alerts him that there is no location data available.
So this means either the phone is turned off or it has run out of battery. Police request that the cell phone company continue to try to locate the phone. However, at this time, there's no official missing person report filed for D’Lisa. The next day, Jasmine calls 911 herself and the responding officer completes a want to locate report. So still not a missing person report. Her family spends all day trying to contact her, but her phone is turned off.
D’Lisa’s boyfriend contacts the police and passes along his information that evening. It takes until Sunday, March 9. D’Lisa has been missing for two days at this point. And finally, a detective is assigned to the case and the case is assigned to the missing person unit. D’Lisa’s family come down to the police station to answer questions and express concern that they haven't been able to reach her and that her phone is turned off.
They tell police that D’Lisa has a two year old child and it is very uncharacteristic of her to leave him for an extended period of time, especially without telling the family where she's going. Police create a bulletin to send out to other patrol officers to be on the lookout. Police get the phone log from D’Lisa’s phone from the day that she went missing, but they're still unable to determine her location.
Police also connect with D’Lisa’s boyfriend that day, but police say that no new information was generated from that conversation. Police call hospitals and morgues to see if there's anyone matching her description, but nobody had a match. On Monday, March 10, with no new leads, a detective visits D’Lisa’s grandmother and patrol officers canvas the area looking for any possible leads, but police don't find anything related to D’Lisa. Investigators have no leads in this case.
Police reach out to Transit Police to see if D’Lisa could have boarded a bus, but there's no records of her getting on a bus. Police ask for the public's help in searching for D’Lisa and if anyone has any information to come forward. Detectives also request a copy of her best friend's sign-in book from The Wake to see if D’Lisa ever made it to the funeral home, but according to witnesses at The Wake, she never made it there. The next day, Tuesday, March 11, D’Lisa’s been missing for four days.
Police hold another press conference asking for the public's help for any information about D’Lisa. Police interview D’Lisa’s family again, but this doesn't generate any new leads in the case. Police talk to friends of D’Lisa’s, but they also have no idea where D’Lisa could be. Police also reach out to local fire departments to see if any of them had had a run-in with D’Lisa in the past few days, but nobody has had any encounters like that.
After the press conference, the next day, Wednesday, March 12, there's a windfall of tips from the community. Several people call in saying that they saw D’Lisa in the Market Center Drive in Oak Lawn Avenue area in Dallas. Investigators swarm the area to canvas businesses, restaurants, hotels, and a nearby Greyhound Terminal to see if they can find D’Lisa. One business owner says that she saw D’Lisa in her store yesterday morning.
That evening, an anonymous call comes into the tip line saying that D’Lisa was at the Stop and Save store on the corner of Sunnyvale and Overtown Road between 530 and 6pm the day that she disappeared. The next day, D’Lisa has been missing for six days now. On Thursday, March 13, another anonymous call comes into the police tip line. Again, the caller says that D’Lisa was at the Stop and Save the day she disappeared. This time, the caller says it was around 630.
Police try to get security footage from the store, but they say they're unable to retrieve it. However, local media outlets do confirm that there is surveillance footage of her at the Stop and Save, which I mentioned earlier. So there is footage of her at the Stop and Save, entering the store and then exiting the store on the day that she disappears. On Friday, March 14, 2014, D’Lisa has been missing for one week.
At around 1030am, a South Central Patrol officer notified the missing person unit that a body had been located on Presidio Avenue. When detectives arrive to the scene, they find an abandoned house and on the front porch is the body of D’Lisa Kelley. She is located only six minutes away from where she was last seen on surveillance footage. Police are able to positively ID her and homicide detectives take the case over.
D’Lisa had been severely beaten, strangled, her jaw was crushed, and she had wounds all over her face and head. Immediately, D’Lisa’s family and friends are critical of the police. They believe that more should have been done the night they called 911 since they had reason to believe that D’Lisa was in distress.
Police defend their work and release a detailed minute-by-minute account of the work that they've done on the case starting at the 911 call, which is where a lot of the timeline has come from. The family will stay in the news as they continue to criticize the police and they do bring a lawsuit against the police as well for the way that they responded.
But really, the family begins to lobby for something called the Kelley Alert, which would be an adult alert in the state of Texas if there's reason to believe that there is distress for an adult. So it kind of bridges the gap between Amber Alert and Silver Alerts. It would be the Kelley Alert. So that is really when the family is in the news a lot over the next few years.
But as far as updates to D’Lisa’s case, in March of 2017, so it's been three years since D’Lisa was murdered, and police have exhausted every lead. Police do confirm that they have talked to the driver of the Grand Marquis, the car that D’Lisa is seen getting into minutes before her sister will get the phone call of D’Lisa, but the driver is never named as a suspect. D’Lisa’s mother, Lissandra, says, quote, we're going to get justice. We're going to find you.
You can't hide forever, and we will get justice. My grandson will get justice, end quote. In 2019, after lots of work by D’Lisa’s family between lobbying and talking with legislators, the Kelley Alert is created and is currently active in the state of Texas. It was signed into law. D’Lisa’s family felt that the police's response was weak and hopes that by creating the Kelley Alert, police will respond quicker in the future. But as far as D’Lisa’s case goes, there's been no updates.
So with that, if you know anything about the murder of D’Lisa Kelley in March of 2014, please call the Dallas Police Homicide Unit at 214-671-3632. And the sources for the timeline today come from the Dallas Morning News, WFAA 8, NBC 5, DFW, KDAF, and the Kelley Alert Foundation. So that is the case of D’Lisa Kelley. This is one of those cases where I was pretty furious throughout after hearing the initial reception from law enforcement and how her case was handled.
All I kept thinking is, we really can't get that moment back. That was that man's response at the time, which was to laugh. It was frightening, honestly. And I don't understand how someone who would have that kind of response makes it that high up. Like, that's how I was feeling. Like, this woman was failed. So deeply failed. And it's heartbreaking. Yeah, I think this case really demonstrates how important those first 24 hours are surrounding somebody going missing.
Even though the sergeant had a really gross reaction to D’Lisa being missing, a really inappropriate reaction, there was still movement on her case. It just wasn't the right movement. You know, like they attempt to ping her cell phone, but they don't really start on the case until she's been missing for around 72 hours. And by that time, it was just too late.
I think anyone who is interested in true crime and solving true crimes knows, like how you said, how important the first 24 hours are, especially in the case of an adult. I think it doesn't move as quick when it isn't a child, first and foremost. And I am very glad that her family continued to speak out about how they felt the investigation was going, how it went, how it continued to go, and that they did what I would name a positive with this terrible loss. And that's the Kelley Alert.
I'm glad that that was something that was signed into law. I was very happy to hear that when you said that. Yeah, I thought that was a really incredible way to like honor D’Lisa and to help others like in her name in the future. Yeah, if there's reason to believe that an adult is under distress, you shouldn't have to wait 42, 72 hours, whatever that jurisdiction's time length is for a missing adult.
Like if there's good reason to believe that something bad is happening to them, like there was in D’Lisa’s case, then yeah, we should be looking for them right away. I don't understand how when they had a phone call of her clearly in trouble with her sister to corroborate the phone call, how it moved in the wrong direction. I'm curious what some of your thoughts are on maybe who that person was with her, the car, why it was rolled out, if there's any more information about who that person was.
Yeah, that's one of the areas that I have just questions around because I can't fill in the blanks of the story until I kind of know everything. And knowing who she got in the car with and what that car ride entailed, because that was only about a half hour before the phone call comes through to her sister. That was like a pocket dial according to her sister Jasmine. So what happened in that half hour?
Police did find the driver of that car, but they're kind of, it's kind of interesting how they worded it. It was never like he was ruled out or they were ruled out, but they weren't included as a suspect either. So I don't know if there's just not enough information there. So I would be curious if that person driving the car doesn't know more than it's like, well, where did he or they or she I don't know the driver of the car. Where did they get dropped off then?
Where did D’Lisa get dropped off? What happened during that car ride? Did somebody call? Did somebody else pick her up? So lots of questions around that. I'm not sure if you would have the answer to this, but do you know if just, you know, say for example, if we filed a FOIA request for this case, would we be able to have access to a bit more information? Or if it's a cold case, that means it's open or active. Do we do you not get access to that? Or is information usually redacted?
Or I guess that's more of a detailed question. Lots of questions within that question. But I figured you would be the person to know, my love. Likely if we did a FOIA or Freedom of Information Act request, because this case is not solved, it is technically open, even if it's not active. So more than likely, we would not get any files in this case. The police would just deny it, citing that it's an open investigation.
And if we were to get anything, it would be heavily redacted to the point where names would have been removed, details, like it would just be like a lot of Sharpie on a piece of paper, essentially. So there have been instances of people getting access to case files, like Michelle McNamara in I'll Be Gone in the Dark when she was writing and researching that book. In that case, she got access to case files. But it's pretty rare and few and far between when that happens.
I guess another question I would have that would kind of tie into my future hopes for the case is just what evidence were they able to collect? You know, it happened in 2014. So were they able to gather any DNA evidence? Is there anything that could be tested now that maybe they weren't able to test then through advances in technology? So that's one thing that has never really been spoken about is what evidence the police do have.
So my hope would be that there is some kind of DNA evidence that at some point, they would be able to match against somebody that you know, that would be my hope, but truly don't know if that is the case with D’Lisa. Yeah, of the more intense and disturbing and very sad details of the case, it seemed like her body was in quite a state. So if that person wasn't wearing, you know, gloves, I imagine there was a lot of evidence. I echo what you said.
I'm curious to know the details of that because it seems like there could be a lot of answers there. Absolutely, and you know, we really don't know a whole bunch about the crime scene itself. We know it was an abandoned house and she was found on the porch. But, you know, we don't know if that is the site where police think that the murder took place. We don't know if she was just dumped there. We don't even really know what day police believe that she died.
If she died the day she disappeared, or if it was a few days after that information is never really given. Reading between the lines of like what the family is saying and their reactions over the years, it does seem like she was probably killed the day she disappeared. But yeah, there's just still so much unknown to us that I hope is known to investigators because it feels like, you know, just some DNA that they're able to test against people will be huge. You know, fibers could be huge.
So yeah, I just really hope they have it. I hope that the Lisa's case is continually worked until it is solved. I hope today and with our listeners now that you all as as active as you are able to be even just, you know, looking up to Lisa, like, of course, you know, we'd love for you to listen and share and tell people to listen to this episode to amplify her name, but movement can continue outside of this podcast too.
And you know, ultimately, like we say pretty much every episode, that's what our end goal is here to amplify these names and voices of people who are lost, lost in so much red tape a lot of the time, or just forgotten about. So really, you know, today, if you after listening to this, if you are, you know, continue to think about her, I encourage you to, you know, plug her name into Google and see what you can find out even if it's more than what we can do here.
I say we but it's Ali who does this investigative research, and she does an incredible job. But she loves learning more to continue to do what our goal is for the podcast. So other people looking is is great. More eyes on on the person in these cases is is what we want. And again, if you know anything about the murder of D’Lisa Kelley in March of 2014, please call the Dallas police homicide unit at 214-671-3632.
And you know, just as Eli was saying, another way that you can lift up these voices, lift up these stories is by rating and reviewing this podcast by leaving a written review and Apple podcasts, it really helps others find our podcast, find these stories, find these cases so please if you have a minute, we would appreciate it so much. Also following us on Instagram, sharing our graphics that are made over there, of course, we'll be sharing photos of D’Lisa this week.
So if you're not following us, you can find us at cold and missing will pop right up. And of course, our website as well. We have transcripts of all the episodes www.coldandmissing.com so you can find those over there. And we're also on YouTube. If you want to subscribe and listen to us over there, you can find us there and we have wonderful conversations in the comment section. So lots of ways to interact lots of ways to get the algorithm talking about D’Lisa.
Thank you again so much for listening to cold and missing. I'm your host, Ali. And I'm your co host, Eli. Have a good week and stay safe, y'all. Stay safe, y'all.