Scared Monkeys Discussion Forum

Search team finds no sign of missing teen

05:40 PM CDT on Thursday, July 20, 2006
By RUDY KOSKI / KVUE News


A desperate search for a missing teenager continued Thursday in North Austin.

 
APD

Roxanne Paltauf
Roxanne Paltauf, 18, disappeared nearly two weeks ago. She was last seen at the Budget Inn, near east Rundberg and Interstate 35.

On Thursday, Paltauf's mother, along with a team of volunteer firefighters from Bastrop County, set out to find her.

Russell Voigt recruited about a dozen co-workers from the Five Points Volunteer Fire Department to help with the search. Voigt is a family friend and has known Paltauf since she was a small child. For him the search is deeply personal.

"Yeah, I know the girl, and I don’t think she just walked off, I think there is foul play here," he said.

According to a recent statement from the Austin Police Department, Paltauf got into an argument with her boyfriend, and walked out of the hotel where the two were staying. Paltauf’s mother, Elizabeth Harries, says she refuses to give up hope.

KVUE Online Video
 
KVUE's Rudy Koski reports
"She is alive and we are going to keep looking for her," she said.

The search team plans to return, but a date for another search has not yet been set.

Anyone with information about Roxanne Paltauf’s whereabouts is urged to contact the Austin Police Department or CrimeStoppers at 472-TIPS.

http://www.txcn.com/sharedcontent/dws/txcn/austin/stories/072006kvuemissingsearch2-cb.77c8dc9.html

(http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/klaasen3/Sub2/avatars/RoxannePaultauf.jpg)

Finding Roxanne - myspace site:

http://www.myspace.com/rubibubi

(http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/klaasen3/Sub2/avatars/RoxannePbillboard.jpg)

From the TES website:

(http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/klaasen3/Sub2/avatars/RoxanneTES.jpg)

http://www.crimelibrary.com/news/original/1206/0403_missing_paltauf.html

Hunt Goes On For Roxanne Paltauf, Austin Teen Missing Since July


By  Seamus McGraw

December 4, 2006

 

AUSTIN, Texas (Crime Library)  —  It's been nearly five months since 18-year-old Roxanne Paltauf vanished after an argument with her on-again, off-again boyfriend of two years, but despite a continuing probe into her disappearance, authorities are reportedly  still at a loss to explain her fate.

Now authorities and the missing girl's family are turning to the national media in the hope that that it can shed enough light on the case to help solve the mystery of Roxanne's disappearance. "America's Most Wanted," among others, has agreed to detail Roxanne's case, and state and local authorities are maintaining their focus on the case.

A pretty young woman with piercing green eyes who was working to earn her GED and who dreamed of becoming a fashion designer, Roxanne was last seen on July 7, according to published reports. Her mother, Elizabeth Harris, told local television station KVUE that Roxanne and her boyfriend had checked into a Budget Inn near Interstate 35 to spend some time alone together, and that they had an argument. Sometime around 8:30 p.m. on July 7, Roxanne stormed out, authorities have said. She was wearing a pink tank top, white shorts and a pair of flip-flops, carrying only her identification. The girl, who family members have described as responsible and devoted to her family, including her four younger siblings, left behind the rest of her possessions, including her cell phone.

Her boyfriend later told family members and police that he looked for her, according to police reports, and the next day, he telephoned Harris. A few hours later, when Roxanne had not called her, as was her custom, Harris notified police.

That triggered a desperate search that lasted for weeks. By late July, volunteers and authorities had combed a vast swath of North Austin, plastering the area with fliers and checking Dumpsters and back streets for any sign of her, but came up with nothing.

Still, Harris told local reporters that she had faith that Roxanne would be found safe. "She is alive and we are going to keep looking for her," Harris told KVUE in a July 20 report.

A week later, Roxanne's family's faith was tested when authorities found the remains of what appeared to be a young woman in southeast Austin, miles away from the spot where Roxanne was last seen. Dental records indicated that the body was not Roxanne, and the search continued.

 

On America's Most Wanted:

http://www.amw.com/missing_persons/brief.cfm?id=42400

(http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/klaasen3/Sub2/avatars/RoxanneAMW.jpg)

From SM Missing and Exploited blog:

http://missingexploited.com/2007/02/03/17-year-old-roxanne-paltauf-missing-since-july-7-2006-in-austin-tx/

I remember seeing this on the web. There hasn't been much in the Austin American-Statesman concerning her disappearance, and I haven't seen hardly anything about her disappearance since.  The same with Jessica Birge, who disappeared about 20 miles from where I live.  She and her vehicle just seems to have dropped off the face of the earth :sad:  Car not found, cell phone not used, credit cards not used.  It was discussed that she may have driven off into a body of water.

the on- again, off-again boyfriend sounds suspicious to me.... has he been questioned?  Doesn't this young woman look kind of like Jessica?  Is there enough of a distance that is close that they may be related if it's not the bf??

This article has some interesting details:
Roxanne Elizabeth Paltauf
Last updated February 25, 2007; details of disappearance updated.
(snipped)
Paltauf left behind all her personal belongings including her clothing, shoes, purse and cellular phone, which is uncharacteristic of her. Her boyfriend returned the cellular phone to her family on July 12. Over three hundred calls were placed on it between July 8 and July 12; many of them were to Paltauf's boyfriend's ex-girlfriend in New Mexico. She stated she never answered any of the calls, but phone records indicate that she did and had several conversations ranging from one to forty-nine minutes in length.
Edit to change red color to navy.  MB
(snipped)
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/p/paltauf_roxanne.html

Roxanne Paltauf's Mother Seeks the Truth behind Daughter's Disappearance

By David Lohr
February 5, 2007
http://www.crimelibrary.com/news/original/0207/0503_roxanne_paltauf.html
(snipped)
Yesterday evening, I had the opportunity to speak with Roxanne's mother, Elizabeth Harris, about the circumstances surrounding her daughter's disappearance and this is how she described the situation:
"I had talked to her the night before she disappeared. She was staying with her boyfriend at the Budget Inn Hotel on I-35 in Austin.  They were celebrating their second anniversary.  They were going to spend a couple of days at the hotel, cause she still lived here at home, and I didn't approve of him, so he didn't come around here."
(snipped)
---------------------------------
This boyfriend sounds very suspect to me...

If she dissappeared on July 7th, how in the hell can she have over 300 calls to her boyfriends ex?  It states that the exgirlfriend answered some of them.  So, its obvious she spoke to the boyfriend.....Why?  Maybe to help him figure out what to do with the body of Roxanne?  Its probable he killed her.

 :cry: :cry:

http://video.aol.com/category/paltauf-missing

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/issue/story?oid=oid%3A803290

HOME: JULY 3, 2009: NEWS

All That Remains


Roxanne Paltauf vanished three years ago, leaving her family with only memories and investigators with few clues

BY JORDAN SMITH


The dreams are all strikingly similar.




Roxanne Paltauf
Photo courtesy of Paltauf familyIn the shadows of the hallway outside the bedroom door, the air feels thick and gloomy; it's hard to see what lies ahead or behind, or any details of the surroundings. At the far end of the hall, the front door suddenly opens, and there is Roxanne, wearing her yellow shirt, her hair brushed smooth and falling over her shoulders. She walks into the house – bright and light and so very real. Your eyes widen, and you walk toward her. You can smell the powdery scent of her Love's Baby Soft perfume. You are full of questions: "Where have you been? What happened to you?" She smiles nonchalantly and quickly brushes aside your inquiries. "I'm fine," she says, "don't worry about me. The real question is," she says, "how are you?"

And then you wake up.

If you are Elizabeth Harris, or one of her four children, this is the kind of dream that consumes your sleep. When you wake, you know at least one thing is real: Roxanne Paltauf – your first born, your big sister – is gone. She's been gone for nearly three years now, vanished in the dusk of a July evening outside the Budget Inn near Rundberg Lane and I-35. There are leads to finding her – some very good ones, in fact – but as yet there are no answers. There is little hope that she will be found alive. Indeed, for Roxanne's siblings and her mother, the reality that haunts waking life is that Roxanne is likely dead. Murdered. And what now remains are only questions: What happened, where is she, and will her family ever be able to bring her home?


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'Have You Seen Roxanne?'



Elizabeth Harris with two of her children, Rosalynn and Rudy
Photo by Jana BirchumThe last time Elizabeth Harris saw her daughter was just before July 4, 2006, when Roxanne dropped by her mother's Cherrywood neighborhood home to pick up a few personal items. She had been staying for the previous few days with her boyfriend, then-30-year-old Louis Walls, at different motels off the interstate near Rundberg Lane. She and Walls, with whom Roxanne had been romantically involved for nearly two years, had made a habit of spending time together at one of the motels along that stretch of southbound I-35. Mostly it was out of necessity: Roxanne's mother did not like Walls, and for whatever reason, Walls' mother, with whom he lives with his two young children, didn't particularly care for Roxanne. If the two wanted to spend any time together, they had to find somewhere away from home to do so.

Truthfully, Harris didn't like the idea that her daughter would spend any time with this man – and at 18, Roxanne was still just a girl, Harris says – let alone in a motel near Rundberg Lane, an area known as a crime hot spot. But what could she do? Roxanne was legally an adult, and she was going to do what she wanted. Walls is "a hustler. He's a player. I think he's a burden to society, to tell you the truth. ... Before Roxanne went missing, I told her that," Harris recalled recently. "I said, 'This guy is no good.' [But] the more you pull her away, the closer she gets to him. It was just one of those things. She was a young girl – she is young."

Indeed, Walls isn't exactly a saint. According to court records, he's been in and out of trouble since 1995 – for robbery, selling fake crack, and more recently, for threatening his current girlfriend (who, like Roxanne, is also significantly younger) and for violating a protective order she has against him. Harris said Walls boasted of being a member of the Bloods street gang, but she thinks his involvement is likely marginal, that he only fancies himself a player. Nonetheless, Walls' behavior toward her daughter made her nervous, and she made it clear to Roxanne that she didn't want him around the house. (Walls did not respond to phone messages requesting an interview for this story.)

Despite how Harris felt about Walls, Rox­anne and her mother were close. "She [told me], 'We talk two or three times a day,'" said Tim Young, a private investigator who has worked pro bono on Roxanne's case. "Mothers say that all the time, so I didn't necessarily believe it" – not at first. "But [Roxanne's] phone records showed that was true." Everyone connected to Roxanne's disappearance – friends, family, and Austin Police investigators – agrees Roxanne and her mother had a special relationship. In fact, their close bond made Roxanne's disappearance – and Walls' account of what happened – all the more disturbing. "Wild horses couldn't have kept that girl away from this house," says Harris' longtime boyfriend Patrick Doyle.

According to phone records, Harris last spoke with Roxanne on the afternoon of July 7, 2006. "The day she came up missing ... I asked her to come home," Harris recalls. The family planned a shopping trip to San Marcos the next day, and Harris wanted Roxanne to join them. Harris wasn't "jealous of her time with Louis," but Roxanne had been with him for nearly a week, and her mother thought that was enough. "She said: 'I'll be home mom. I'll be there; we'll go shopping.'" Rox­anne never showed up, "so we went ahead and went without her." By the time the family got home, Roxanne still had not returned to the house – Harris was puzzled by her absence but not yet worried. That changed several hours later when Harris received a call from Walls. "He goes: 'Have you seen Roxanne? Have you heard from Roxanne?' I said: 'Well, what do you mean? She was with you.'"

Walls said he hadn't seen Roxanne since roughly 8:30pm the previous evening, when the couple got into an argument "about the past," Harris said Walls told her, and Roxanne stormed out of their motel room. Walls told Harris that he went out after her but that she told him to leave her alone and continued walking, along the service road toward Rund­berg, making a left onto Middle Lane. Walls told Harris that he went back to their room to "cool off" and that 20 minutes later he went back out to look for Roxanne. He couldn't find her. She had simply disappeared, he told Harris. "Four hours after I talked to my daughter she came up missing," Harris says.




Roxanne Paltauf was last seen at the Budget Inn near Rundberg Lane.
Photo by Jana BirchumHarris called police to report the disappearance and, at her urging, so did Walls – although he'd already checked out of the Budget Inn and returned to his sister's apartment at the Walnut Creek complex. But because he'd cleared out, taking Roxanne's belongings with him, neither Harris nor the police were able to search her belongings, as they were when she left the room, for clues to her whereabouts.

More disturbing was Walls' behavior in the hours and days after Roxanne disappeared: According to Harris, he was not at all interested in helping her search for Roxanne. He kept her cell phone for nearly a week after she went missing and used it to make some 300 phone calls, beginning with a breakneck pace of dialing all over town: to the main number for a series of motels strung along the Rundberg/I-35 corridor, to local singles "chat" lines, to a strip club, to various friends and ex-girlfriends – one call after another, literally, for hours and hours on end – before finally returning it to Harris. He also kept her purse and other personal effects – including clothing that has never been returned. Indeed, when Harris finally got Walls to meet her to return Roxanne's property, she said he provided her with a bag of clothing belonging to some other female – clothes that were way too large for Roxanne, whom some friends lovingly referred to as "the pencil," and that were not at all her style. Although Walls maintained – and continues to maintain to police – his initial account of the circumstances surrounding Roxanne's disappearance, his behavior was quickly making Harris very wary. Even the initial conversation she had with Walls the night after Roxanne supposedly took off started to take on a different tone as she replayed it in her mind. "It was the way he asked about Roxanne, he didn't ask, 'Can I speak to Rox­anne?' He said, 'Have you seen Roxanne?'" she recalled recently. Walls was perfectly aware of his girlfriend's close relationship to her mother, and it would seem logical, Harris thinks, that he would assume she'd left him and gone home. "To me, he was saying he already knows that something happened to her."


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An Insane Situation
Harris' suspicions were not without basis. The two-year relationship between Roxanne and Walls had been volatile. "I never approved of Louis from the beginning," says Rachel Gonzales, who had been friends with Roxanne since the two met as students at Kealing Junior High. The relationship didn't exactly start on a positive note: According to friends and family, Walls lied about his age to Roxanne, telling the 16-year-old that he was just 19, when in truth, in the summer of 2004 when they met, he was already 28. It wasn't until well over a year into their on-again-off-again affair that she finally learned he was actually closer to 30. The deception felt purposeful and manipulative, say Roxanne's friends and family. The relationship was also abusive – starting "at the beginning," says Gonzales. "He would cheat on her every once in a while and push her around." Gonzales said she tried to tell Roxanne that she should end it, but Roxanne defended Walls. "It got to a point that we were being separated, that she was telling me less and less [about] things that were going on."

According to another friend, Elizabeth Ellis, Roxanne was simply too trusting and too generous. Roxanne stayed with Walls in part, she believes, to help take care of his two young children to whom she had grown attached. She would buy them presents at the dollar store – dinosaur toys for his son, for example, and pretty accessories for his daughter's hair. She'd go to the apartment Walls shared with his mother and babysit for the kids by herself when Walls wanted to go out, sometimes overnight. "She had a big heart and was a nurturer," Ellis says. Ellis says that she and Harris tried to convince Roxanne that she was being used. "She really didn't know how to pick 'em," Ellis recalled recently. "Roxanne was always trying to [get Walls to] get himself a job, to be a man. And that's something that her mom and I would always tell her: 'You can't tell a man to be a man; he needs to just be one.'" But Roxanne would always stick up for him – and, perhaps, lie for him.

That's what seems to have happened in 2005, when Harris found Roxanne sitting alone at a bus stop, her face bruised and puffy. Her nose was not just broken but internally detached, requiring serious surgery. Roxanne told Harris that the injury had been an accident: She and Walls had been down on Sixth Street when a group of guys began to catcall her, saying she should leave Walls and go off with them. Before she knew it, Walls was fighting the whole group – Roxanne tried to break up the fight and instead got popped in the face. Walls had gone off to have a doctor at Brackenridge Hospital look at his hand.

That was the story Roxanne initially told Gonzales too, and Gonzales didn't believe a word of it. "She stuck to it, but I knew it wasn't the truth. He was pushing her, slapping her," she says. "I honestly believe he did that to her." Ellis says that Roxanne ultimately admitted to her that Walls was responsible for the damage to her face but shrugged it off. "It was just an insane situation," Ellis says.


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Time to Go
In the months leading up to Roxanne's disappearance, it seemed to her friends and family that she was finally pulling away from Walls. Although she'd dropped out of McCal­lum High School as a junior, she had found her way to the Goodwill job training and GED program and was thriving there, said her case worker, Sandra McDowell, and her teacher Jane Comer. "She wanted to grow, to become more, to get a good education and ... a good job," says McDowell. "She had friends who did not have those credentials and wants in life, [but] that was her ambition." Roxanne was "very artistic," Comer says, and she was excited to land an unpaid mentorship spot with Charlotte's Fiesta Flowers on Lamar Boulevard, near the cluster of hospitals and medical facilities off 38th Street. "Everyone loved working with her," says flower-shop owner Charlotte Wainscott. "She was just such a sweet and nice person." She did so well in her mentorship that after it ended Wainscott hired her on. "She learned and caught on quickly. She was one of those people that really loved flowers." Indeed, says McDowell, Roxanne thought that one day she might be able to have her own flower shop.

Roxanne was also making progress in her school work, says Comer, and by early 2006 had passed all but one of the tests needed to receive her GED – only math was standing in her way. But like many young adults who fail to secure a GED on the first try, Roxanne began to drift from the program; she didn't come around as often and put off further study. But she kept working and eventually took a second job, working for the Census Bureau.

Not long after that Walls began to reappear, says Ellis. According to phone records, in the month before Roxanne disappeared, Walls was calling her constantly. Roxanne would tell Walls what neighborhood she was working in that day doing Census business, and then "she'd run into him at a park on that side of town," Ellis recalls. "He'd just randomly show up places where she would say she was going to be. He was way weird." Less than two weeks before she disappeared, however, it seemed to Comer that Roxanne had made up her mind: She wanted to get back to school and get on with her life. "I think the job made her think, 'I need to get my GED and do something else,' so that's when she decided ... that 'I'm going to go back and do this.'"

Yet Roxanne had also apparently reconciled with Walls – at least enough to go with him at the end of June to spend a week together, ending up at the Budget Inn just south of Rund­berg. Harris, Ellis, and Gonzales now insist they believe Roxanne was truly and finally done with the relationship. Ellis called her the last weekend in June and caught Rox­anne crying. Was there trouble with Walls, she asked? "And she was like, 'I can't talk about it now.'" Ellis told Roxanne to get dressed, and she would pick her up; Roxanne agreed.

Ready to go, Ellis called back, but Roxanne never answered. Gonzales says she had a similarly cryptic conversation on July 4, 2006. "She told me that they were arguing," she recalls. "She was trying to leave him alone, but he wasn't letting her. I said, 'Just leave; don't talk to him anymore.' But you can only tell a person so much."

Harris and Patrick Doyle now wonder if Roxanne had decided to break things off with Walls for good – and if, perhaps, that's what kicked off the argument they had on the evening of July 7, 2006. "I think that argument he said they had, I think it finally clicked for her ...," says Harris.

"That it was time to go," finishes Doyle.

"Time to go," agrees Harris. "I've got nothing else to go on."


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The Boyfriend



Louis WallsWalls has never wavered from his version of events – that he and Roxanne argued and she walked out, alone, and disappeared completely within 20 minutes. But in the years since, police investigators have developed a more complete picture of Louis Walls, and it's not impressive. "Louis, among his peers, is an idiot," says 15-year APD veteran Detective James Scott, one of two investigators assigned to the department's missing persons detail. "I mean ... you can look at his criminal record and tell he's not the smartest criminal out there." Indeed. In March 2005, for example, he was popped for agreeing to sell three rocks of crack for $50 to an undercover APD officer. The cop had spotted him walking along Rundberg, and gave him a ride to the Ramada Limited just off the highway. Walls fetched the rocks and was promptly arrested. After testing, it turned out that the crack was fake. (Walls was handed a 120-day jail sentence.)

Walls has also exposed a far darker side, and particularly a history of trouble with young women – trouble that started before he met Roxanne, says Harris, who made contact with an ex-girlfriend Walls called numerous times in the hours after Roxanne disappeared. The girl told Harris that she had taken out a protective order to keep Walls away. More cryptically, Harris says the young woman told her that when Walls called her he told her that he was "in trouble" but did not elaborate. (The ex-girlfriend, who lives out of state, did not return a call from the Chronicle.)

Since Roxanne disappeared, Walls has apparently not changed his ways. In March 2008, he was charged with making a terroristic threat against his current girlfriend, Cassan­dra Tolbert. According to court records, she told police she'd met Walls to make arrangements for him to see the son he'd conceived with her but that he wanted instead to talk about her getting "back with him." When she said no, Tolbert recalled, he whispered in her ear, "I don't want to kill you like I did that girl Roxanne," and, "I really did kill her; I know how to do something with bodies." (He pleaded no contest to the charge, was found guilty, and sentenced to 140 days in jail.)

More disturbing, says Harris, is that Tolbert told her that Walls had tried to pimp her out. Could it be, Harris wonders, that Walls tried the same thing with Roxanne? That is a possibility, says Scott. "I don't think she was straight-out tricking for him," he says, but he could have been trying to groom her for that role. Ultimately, Scott says, he thinks Roxanne did not see the writing on the wall: "She was naive; she was in over her head and didn't know it. Of course, in missing persons there are a lot of young ladies who feel like they're part of the 'in' clique – they're with a gang leader, or whoever, and they don't realize who they're with."


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The Missing



Photo courtesy of Rudy PaultaufWorking missing persons is a daunt-ing task. APD's two-man missing persons investigation team works roughly 4,000 cases each year – including runaways (the bulk of the cases), disappearances, and abductions. In the first five months of 2009, the unit already had 1,681 cases in its queue. And working these cases is a distinctly different proposition than working, say, a robbery or homicide. There, says Scott's partner, Detective David Gann, you've got a distinct crime scene, and the question becomes: Where did the perp go from there? In missing persons, the first order of business is to determine whether a crime even happened (see "Missing in Austin").

In the case of Roxanne Paltauf, there wasn't necessarily anything at first to suggest she'd done anything else than just walk off. "The case came [to us] as, they got into an argument, and she walked off – with just that information," Gann says. "Well, you can imagine, working missing cases in a city with a population the size we have, that's a pretty common occurrence. Boyfriends and girlfriends get into arguments, and one of them walks off. They don't come home that night, [and the] very next morning their significant other reports them missing." Often the question of how to proceed in such cases turns on a consistency of behavior – for example, has the person walked off before? According to Walls, Roxanne had done just that.

At first, police had no reason to suspect that Walls – the one who initially reported the disappearance – wasn't being honest. "It's really hard in this profession to pick and choose which cases have nuances that make you say, 'There's something to this; we need to immediately grasp what happened,'" says Scott. "And in that sense, I guess everything that could go wrong [with Roxanne's case] did go wrong." Not that police didn't, as Scott puts it, "use due diligence." Roxanne's name was immediately put into a be-on-the-lookout alert for all patrol officers, and vital information was fed into the state and national crime computers. But it wasn't until later that police had enough information to suggest that there might be far more involved in Roxanne's disappearance than just an unremarkable lovers' spat.

For example, there was the purse: Roxanne's pink purse that she supposedly left, with her cell phone, her wallet, and her jewelry, inside the hotel room. Roxanne never went anywhere without her purse. Never. On that point friends and family completely agree. Ellis says she would actually get into arguments with Roxanne about her always needing to carry her purse everywhere they went. Gonzales agrees: "Anywhere she goes, she's got that purse on her shoulder." When Harris told Gonzales it had been left behind, "I knew immediately that something was wrong." The fact that her jewelry was also left behind, inside her wallet, let Ellis know something was not right. Roxanne never went without her rings: "No. ... Even when we went swimming, that girl wore accessories." If Roxanne was going to storm out of the room – even to cool off – she would have taken her purse and certainly would have taken her cell phone. Harris is adamant about that – and she would have called home, say those who knew Roxanne well. "That made me very nervous, the fact that her mother never heard from her," says Comer, Roxanne's teacher. "I couldn't see her being strung out, or whatever, so bad that she wasn't going to call her mother."

Everyone insists that Roxanne talked to her mother two, three times, or more, each day. On the evening of July 7, 2006, those calls ceased. "The one thing that struck me, the day she disappeared, the calls stopped," said private investigator Tim Young. To him, that clearly means that whatever happened, Roxanne did not simply disappear of her own volition. "At that point in the investigation, it seemed clear that she was not with us anymore. There was absolutely no trace of Roxanne."

There was, however, one additional clue that appeared just six days after she went missing. A security guard named Bryan Parker noticed Roxanne's Texas identification card tucked into the wallet of another man who was accused of assaulting a woman at the Motel 6 just up the street from the Budget Inn. According to the police report of that July 13, 2006, incident, a man named Geoffrey Moore, now 33, picked up a Perfect 10 Men's Club dancer and her husband, outside the Chevron station at Rundberg and I-35. Moore asked, "How much for her?" She replied that she was not a prostitute but would do a private dance for him at the motel. The three went to the motel, and Moore and the woman entered the room. He locked the door, however, before the husband could get inside.

The woman alleged that Moore attacked her and tried to rape her. The husband heard his girlfriend shouting, got Parker and a passkey, and the two men tried to get into the room. When they finally got the door open, the husband attacked Moore, who fled, leaving behind his wallet and his hearing aid. When Parker picked up the wallet, he found Roxanne's ID. Moore later came back to the scene, to retrieve his things, and was arrested by police. He was never charged – in part, it seems, because the chain of events that led to his alleged attack of the woman aren't entirely clear. Moore, for example, told police that he tried to get intimate with the woman but she refused. He then went into the bathroom and came back out to find her rifling through his pockets, trying to steal from him. Could it have been that the woman and man lured Moore and then tried to roll him? Or was it an unprovoked sexual assault? Ultimately, the Travis Co. District Attorney's Office declined to pursue sexual assault charges against Moore, and the case was closed. (Moore could not be reached for comment.)

But the incident did provide Harris and police with yet another lead. How had Moore gotten Roxanne's license? To date, that is not entirely clear – even though detectives have spoken with Moore about Roxanne's disappearance. But police say they're certain that neither Walls nor Moore have told everything they know about Roxanne. Walls' attitude is especially frustrating. "People don't realize that although I feel that he could be more forthcoming," says Scott, "I don't have any legal rights to force him to do anything. And until I get the kind of forensic evidence that would allow me to go to a grand jury, to force him to answer questions, I can't. I mean, it's not like in the movies, where you can just go to somebody and say, 'Well, we're taking you downtown.' Because if they don't want to ... all we can say is, 'Well, that's a real bummer.' We can't just throw you in a car."

More importantly, says Scott, Walls "just doesn't care that he's a suspect. [H]e's no stranger to bad-acting, so it's not a huge burden for him."

Ultimately, though, Scott says he will find the truth, from Moore or Walls (or whoever else), to solve the mystery of Roxanne's disappearance. "Basically, I've got two violent offenders. Both of them are lying to me," says Scott. "[T]hey're both hiding criminal activity. But I think one of them is hiding a murder."


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Waiting for Answers
The questions continue to haunt Harris. Where is Roxanne? What happened to her? As the years have passed, the questions have become more detailed and more disturbing: Did Walls try to roll Moore? Could he have used Roxanne as bait to do just that? Did Moore, who had been popped before for carrying a butcher knife in his car while trolling for hookers along Middle Lane, happen upon Roxanne and try to solicit her? Or maybe, did he recognize her as Walls' girlfriend, from a previous encounter?

The questions, the possibilities, feel endless. Harris and Doyle have staked out motels near Rundberg, they've walked the streets handing out fliers asking people to "Please Help" Harris find her daughter, they've posted alerts and questions on the Web, gotten Rox­anne's story featured on America's Most Wanted, and in turn they've been approached by psychics. So far they've made little progress. Harris still holds great hope that the right person, with the right tip, will finally have the courage to tell the truth. "My biggest thing is, is Roxanne out there? Is she alone? Is she scared? Is she crying out for help and I just can't hear my daughter?" she asks. "I need my closure. I need to find my daughter one way or another."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyone with information about the disappearance of Roxanne Paltauf can call an anonymous tip line at 800/670-6760 or APD's missing persons unit at 974-5250

http://www.kvue.com/home/New-information-in-a-5-year-old-missing-persons-case-could-make-it-a-homicide-120521684.html
New information in a 5-year old missing persons case could make it a homicide
by SHELTON GREEN / KVUE News
April 22, 2011

https://www.facebook.com/MissingRoxanneElizabethPaltauf

Missing Roxanne Elizabeth Paltauf

This information is a year old, but I'm updating with what I can find.

http://investigation.discovery.com/tv/disappeared/the-missing/roxanne-paltauf.html

 ::snipping2::
The investigators zero in on Roxanne's boyfriend, the last person to see Roxanne before she disappeared. They're surprised to discover he has a criminal past and a propensity for violence but he also has a witness, someone who states they were with him for most of the night in question. Before the police have a chance to polygraph this witness, the case takes an unexpected turn. Another man is arrested in a motel a block away from where Roxanne went missing, in an unrelated incident. He has Roxanne's ID in his wallet.

Despite many leads in the case, after four years police are still looking for clues to solve the mystery behind Roxanne's disappearance.

http://investigation.discovery.com/tv-schedules/series.html?paid=141.15378.132227.40769.x
Disappeared
2/25/11
Gone on the 4th of July
After an argument with her boyfriend, 18 year-old Roxanne Paltauf leaves an Austin Texas motel on a balmy July evening and doesn't return. With her belongings left behind, family and friends speculate about what could have caused her disappearance.

https://www.findthemissing.org/cases/980/0/
NamUs Missing Persons Data Base
NamUs MP # 980

Roxanne Paltauf

http://www.kvue.com/news/Family-remembers-missing-teen-on-6-year-anniversary-161682285.html
Family remembers missing teen on 6 year anniversary
Posted July 7, 2012, Updated July 8, 2012

 ::snipping2::
Six years ago Saturday, Paltauf went missing after reportedly arguing with her then boyfriend and walking out of their Budget Inn motel room, on Rundberg and I-35.

"I knew something was wrong immediately and I started searching for her the minute she went missing," mother Liz Harris said.

Saturday friends and family gathered at Paltauf's childhood home. They called the gathering a "celebration of Roxanne," and wrote letters, attached them to balloons, and sent them off. They called the act a sign of their hope that no matter where she is, she will know they still love her and they're still searching for her.

Last year her case was moved from a missing persons case to a cold case homicide.

 

"I told her I would continue searching for her, in this life, or when I get to heaven." 
 ::snipping2::
Video at Link

http://www.bustedmugshots.com/texas/austin/louis-walls/57649691
(http://www.bustedmugshots.com/image/get/listing/mug-shot-57649691.jpg)

I'm wondering if this is bf (imo, suspect) Louis Walls.

I really think the only way he'll ever give any relevant info is if he's facing a long prison sentence and it might work to his favor.  Not that I think he'll tell the truth.  Just enough to be self-serving.

http://www.kvue.com/news/Family-continues-search-for-missing-girl-7-years-later-214546831.html
Austin woman still missing seven years later
Posted July 7, 2013, Updated July 8, 2013



USTIN -- It's been seven years since Roxanne Paltauf disappeared, but her family isn't giving up hope of finding some answers.
Roxanne Paltauf was last seen at the Budget Inn Motel on I-35 and Rundberg Lane in 2006. Her mom, Elizabeth Harris, was joined by family and friends near the hotel on Sunday to give out fliers and bumper stickers, urging people to come forward with information.
"She was 18 years old, just starting her life. She wanted to go to beauty school," Harris said.
Family members say Paltauf was celebrating her two-year anniversary with her boyfriend at the motel when they got into an argument.
 
He has told family and police that Paltauf walked off, never to be seen again. Roxanne was the oldest of five children. Her siblings, as well as her mom, were all out on Rundberg on Sunday.
"It was her and her boyfriend's two year anniversary so they were spending time together at the hotel. What he says is they got into argument, and she walked out, with the shoes on her feet," said Harris.
She left her purse and cell phone behind.

Her mom says there is still hope someone will come forward with any sort of information.
Roxanne was born and raised in Austin. She would be 25 this year.
"I'm just really pleading with the public. If somebody is out there, please come forward. It's been a long time," said Harris.

Harris has been in touch with the detectives working on the case, which is now considered a cold case homicide instead of a missing person.
 ::snipping3::

Video at Link

I have spent countless hours trying to find a match---with no luck  :(

Roxanne disappeared a week after I returned to the U.S. from overseas, and I remember reading about her case, and hearing it on tv.  And seven years later, she's still missing.   ::MonkeyNoNo::  I hope she can be found soon and it's good of you to put forth work and effort to try to find a match. Roxanne's family and friends need answers.  Hoping it's soon.   ::MonkeyAngel::

The Rundberg area in Austin where Roxanne disappeared is a pretty bad place.   ::MonkeyNoNo::

The hotels/motels are being pressured to stop renting rooms by the hour.  Cameras have been installed there is a lot going on to try to clean the area up.  It's about time.

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/crime-law/with-1-million-grant-police-will-try-to-revitalize/nTbRJ/
With $1 million grant, police will try to revitalize Rundberg Lane area
December 19, 2012
 ::snipping3::
Dubbed Restore Rundberg, the plan will focus on a 6-square-mile area where less than 5 percent of Austin’s population sees 11 percent of the city’s violent crime and 7 percent of its property crime, according to police. Unemployment is as high as 14 percent in some spots, and 95 percent of the area’s students are considered economically disadvantaged, police said.
Most of the money will be spent on greater police presence — by paying officers overtime — and extra attention from city code enforcement officers, and on research by University of Texas sociologists, who plan to spend the next year surveying residents and holding neighborhood meetings to get a better understanding of the people and the problems.
“The Rundberg area has a huge opportunity for revitalization,” said police Cmdr. Mark Spangler, who will be the project manager for the grant.  “We need new, outside-of-the-box thinking for significant (crime) reductions.”
 ::snipping3::


http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/police-start-crime-crackdown-in-the-rundberg-lane-/nWDKL/
Police start crime crackdown in the Rundberg Lane area
February 1, 2013
 ::snipping3::
Nine officers will patrol an area from Middle Fiskville Road to Lamar Boulevard and between Braker Lane and Powell Lane from 9 p.m. through 3 a.m. Friday and Saturday, police said.
They will focus on problems including narcotics, prostitution and gang-related offenses as part of the Restore Rundberg Project.
The increased patrols will be held seven more times this year and will run with other initiatives to clean up the area, police said.
Statistics from 2011 showed that 11 percent of the violent crimes and 7 percent of the property crimes in Austin occurred in in the Rundberg Lane area, Lt. Allen McClure said.
Police are working with a University of Texas researcher to determine why crime spikes occur during certain times of the year in the area, including in February, McClure said.

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/crime-law/north-austin-area-hopes-new-police-operation-will-/nW25b/
Rundberg area hopes new police operation will succeed where past efforts failed to root out chronic crime
March 23, 2013

 ::snipping3::
For years, the area’s residents have seen the police flood their neighborhoods under the flag of some special operation – with names like Good Neighbor or Take Back Rundberg – and then watched crime return when the pressure ended.
They’ve marched down Rundberg, waving anti-crime signs. They’ve held rallies in front of drug houses and motels where prostitutes and dealers do business.
But the area has stubbornly refused to be taken back. The day after a neighborhood anti-crime march in 2007, a man was stabbed to death a few blocks away. Today, 9 percent of the city’s crime happens in the Rundberg area, which covers just 2 percent of the city’s footprint. One of every three prostitution arrests in Austin over the past five years has been in that area.
The meeting with Acevedo at Lanier High School in December launched an ambitious plan to reduce crime and generally clean up the collection of neighborhoods north of U.S. 183 that straddle North Lamar Boulevard and Interstate 35. Last year, Austin police secured a three-year, $1 million federal grant to revitalize the area.
They’ve dubbed the new effort Restore Rundberg, and police say what will separate this from past operations is the presence of University of Texas sociologists tasked with coming up with new ways of attacking decades-old problems.
Reducing crime is a big enough challenge, but they also hope to do it without making the working-class area a target for gentrification or simply pushing crime into other neighborhoods, said David Kirk, the UT associate sociology professor who’s leading the research, building on similar work he’s done in Chicago and New Orleans.
Cmdr. Mark Spangler, who’s leading the effort for the Austin Police Department, worked in the area as a young patrol officer 26 years ago. He’d like to see it return to what it was in the 1970s: a working-class neighborhood where people watched out for each other and crime wasn’t nearly the problem it is now.
“We look back 20 years and say, ‘What the hell happened?’” he said.
 ::snipping3::

On a February afternoon at Rundberg and I-35, a scruffy-looking guy was juggling rubber balls at the stoplight, hoping for spare change from motorists. A few people gathered around the taco trucks parked next to the Budget Lodge motel, which the city and neighbors tried to shut down five years ago, saying it was infested with drugs and prostitution. The motel stayed open after its owner agreed to a list of conditions set by the city.
The intersection is the area’s biggest crime hot spot, said Charles Rohre, a police corporal who works in the area. It’s a place where, after nightfall, what Rohre calls “a hard-core population of thugs and criminals” takes over, despite the cameras police have mounted on utility poles around the intersection.
In the first hours of his shift, Rohre visits an apartment complex where a manager found two sisters, ages 6 and 8, sleeping with their backpacks in front of their apartment because their mother didn’t get home in time. Then he goes to a house where a drunken man in his 20s passed out on a neighbor’s front lawn.
As dusk approaches, he rolls slowly through the parking lots of motels along the I-35 service road and spots a familiar face. “You see the guy in the light blue jacket? I’ve arrested him twice for possession,” Rohre said. “Crack pipes, stuff like that.”
 ::snipping3::

(http://i.imgur.com/NISwjVX.jpg)

http://www.kvue.com/news/local/Police-searching-for-evidence-in-womans-2006-disappearance-248755091.html
New leads in woman's 2006 disappearance
March 6, 2014

(http://i.imgur.com/PHYiydD.jpg)

AUSTIN -- Detectives say they'll be searching for evidence Thursday in the case of a woman missing since 2006.
Roxanne Paltauf was last seen at a motel near Rundberg Lane and Interstate 35 eight years ago. She was 18 at the time. Her family says she and her boyfriend got into an argument and Paltauf walked away from the motel, never to be seen again.
On Thursday federal agents and the Austin Police Department's Homicide Cold Case and Missing Persons Unit will be searching for evidence on Rundberg Lane after receiving some leads in the case.
APD says schools in the area have been notified, and the public will not be in danger.
 ::snipping3::

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/crime-law/police-new-leads-in-2006-disappearance-of-roxanne-/nd6xJ/
Police: New leads in 2006 disappearance of Roxanne Paltauf in North Austin
March 6, 2014


Investigators have developed new leads in the disappearance of Roxanne Paltauf, who went missing when she was 18 in 2006, Austin police said Thursday.
The department’s homicide cold case and missing-person’s unit and federal authorities will be searching for evidence Thursday at 300 E. Rundberg Lane in North Austin, according to police, several blocks from Barrington Elementary School on Cooper Drive.
School authorities have been notified, officials said.
Paltauf was last seen by her on-and-off boyfriend Louis Walls around 8:30 p.m. on July 7, 2006, police officials have said. The couple had been staying together at the Budget Inn near East Rundberg Lane and Interstate-35, not far from where police are now looking for evidence.
A cold case detective told the American-Statesman in 2011 that Walls said the two had an argument and that she left the hotel without any of her personal property.
 ::snipping3::

http://www.khou.com/news/texas-news?fId=248755091&fPath=/news/local/&fDomain=10232
APD investigating new leads in woman's 2006 disappearance
March 6, 2014

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/crime-law/police-new-leads-in-2006-disappearance-of-roxanne-/nd6xJ/
Officials call off search of North Austin field for remains of Roxanne Paltauf
March 6, 2014

3:30 p.m. update: Nothing has been found after police searched and dug in a North Austin field Thursday for remains of Roxanne Paltauf, who disappeared in 2006.
The case remains open, police said.
Anyone with information regarding Paltauf’s whereabouts can call the cold case/missing-persons unit at 512-974-5250
11:30 a.m. update: Officials are searching a field in North Austin for the remains of Roxanne Paltauf, who disappeared in 2006 when she was 18, police said Thursday.
A tip that police received six months ago led them to the empty lot, where a cadaver dog had twice alerted them to the possible presence of human remains, said Cmdr. Mark Spangler. More cadaver dogs were sent to the field Thursday, and Spangler said that officials are prepared to search past nightfall, if necessary.
There are two particular areas authorities plan to excavate, he said.
The field is off Rundberg Lane between North Creek and Georgian drives.
Earlier:
Investigators have developed new leads in the disappearance of Roxanne Paltauf, who went missing when she was 18 in 2006, Austin police said Thursday.
 ::snipping3::

http://www.kvue.com/news/local/Police-searching-for-evidence-in-womans-2006-disappearance-248755091.html
Police: No evidence located in case of missing woman
March 6, 2014

AUSTIN -- Detectives say no new evidence has turned up in the case of a woman missing since 2006.
A tip received by officers led them to Rundberg Lane Thursday morning, but after searching and digging in the area, they found nothing. Federal agents were also on hand to help with the search.
Commander of Austin Police Investigations Mark Spangler spoke during the search. "Specifically we are looking for a body, and that’s what the cadaver dogs have hit on, and even though those scent dogs are very highly trained, they don’t always produce results,” said Spangler.
Roxanne Paltauf was last seen at a motel near Rundberg Lane and Interstate 35 eight years ago. She was 18 at the time. Her family says she and her boyfriend got into an argument and Paltauf walked away from the motel, never to be seen again.
“There are more than 160 cold cases that are currently in our unit. We took this case just as seriously as we took all of those 167 cases,” said Spangler.
Spangler says since this tip didn’t reveal any evidence, they'll move on to the next tip. Police have received around 1,000 tips.
 ::snipping3::

Dayummmmmm...I have spent countless hours over the years on this case  :(

Thank you for all you do Nut.  I hope for her family's sake there can be answers to what happened to Roxanne, and to be able to recover her remains for a decent burial. I believe she's gone from this earth.   She was just a young girl, only 18 when she went missing.  The Rundberg area is such a cesspit.   ::MonkeyNoNo::  I don't know if her boyfriend is responsible for her disappearance or not.  Despite Austin's extra patrols and etc., there  is still a lot of crime.  So many of the street people (homeless) have been pushed up toward the north area and away from the Sixth St. entertainment district.  Hotel and motel rooms can be rented hourly (or less).  Despite the task force and money thrown at the area, it's still seedy and crime ridden.   ::MonkeyNoNo::

 ::MonkeyNoNo::

http://www.kvue.com/story/news/local/2014/07/06/paltauf-search-continues/12269081/
Family marks eight years since daughter went missing
July 6, 2014

AUSTIN -- Eight years after an Austin teenager went missing the search for answers continues.

Roxanne Paltauf was just 18-years-old when she vanished in North Austin in July of 2006.

Family and friends have tried to keep Roxanne's name at the tops of everyone's minds every July since the Austin teen disappeared.

They hand out flyers and bumper stickers bearing Roxanne's picture.

Roxanne's sister Rubi was only 14 when she vanished. She explained one reason why the effort continue. "She'd have been out here for us if one of us went missing, so we didn't want to stop, you know?" said Rubi.

The searches for Roxanne near Rundberg Lane and Interstate 35 began immediately after she disappeared.

Most recently, police thought they had a lead when cadaver dogs picked up a scent in a nearby field in March.

It turned up nothing, but Roxanne's mother Elizabeth Harris says many people saw the headline and mistakenly thought Roxanne was found.

Harris hopes to clear that up by talking to neighbors.

"You think after eight years it would gt a little bit easier," she said."But it seems to be harder because we still have no answers and we've been searching for so long its been hard on the family."

Roxannes then boyfriend told police the pair had an argument while staying at A Budget Inn hotel off East Rundberg Lane and she walked out.

Harris believes there is more to the story.

Harris recently sent a flyer to that man Louis Walls, currently in prison on burglary charges.

Austin police tell KVUE he doesn't have a viable alibi and remains the "biggest question mark" in the case.

Harris said "While he's spending time where he's at, I want him to be thinking about Roxanne. Hopefully he can come forward with the information we need to find her...she was only 18 and bad things happen out there in the world. We just want to find her and bring her home. She deserves it and we love her a lot."

In 2011, the case was handed over to APD's cold case unit.
 ::snipping3::

http://www.myfoxaustin.com/story/29478893/search-for-roxanne-paltauf-continues-after-9-years
Search for Roxanne Paltauf continues after 9 years
July 5, 2015

(http://i.imgur.com/2tng9o5.jpg) (http://imgur.com/2tng9o5)

It's been nearly nine years since Roxanne Paltauf went missing off I35 and East Rundberg Lane.
To this day, her family has never given up hope in finding her.

What happened the night of July 7, 2006 is still a mystery.
"None of it makes sense and that's why we're still out here. You know, it wasn't like she ran away, it wasn't like she took a plane out to Hawaii. Something happened to her that night and we're trying to figure out where she's at," says Rosalynn Paltauf, Roxanne's sister.
18-year-old Roxanne Paltauf was last seen at the Budget Inn off I35 and Rundberg Lane.
It's been almost nine years but the family remembers it as if it were yesterday.
"We were supposed to go shopping at the San Marcos outlet mall. She was supposed to come with us. It was the Fourth of July weekend in 2006. It was really strange that she didn't show up because we were expecting her to be there that morning. That's when we got a phone call a few hours later from her boyfriend saying that he hasn't seen Roxanne," says Rosalynn Paltauf, Roxanne's sister.
At the time, Roxanne's boyfriend told police they had gotten into an argument.
She reportedly stormed out of the hotel room and was never seen or heard from again.
 ::snipping3::
It was March of 2014 when a tip led them to a field in North Austin.
Unfortunately, nothing turned up.
 ::snipping3::

If you have any information about the disappearance of Roxanne Paltauf, you are asked to call Crime Stoppers at 512-472-tips.

http://kxan.com/2015/07/05/nine-year-anniversary-for-missing-woman/
Nine year anniversary for missing Austin woman
July 5, 2015

Video at above link

http://kxan.com/2017/04/25/woman-says-last-person-to-see-her-sister-alive-still-not-cooperating/
Woman says last person to see her sister alive still not cooperating
April 25, 2017

AUSTIN (KXAN) — On Wednesday it will have been 11 years since an Austin teenager went missing. She and other missing Texans will be honored at the Texas Capitol as part of the first annual Texas Missing Person’s day.

The family of the missing 18-year-old, Roxanne Paltauf, say it’s been a long journey, but are grateful their loved one and others across the state will be honored by legislators.

Paltauf was last seen with her boyfriend on July 7, 2006. They were at the Budget Inn on Rundberg Lane, just west of Interstate 35. Paltauf left the room and hasn’t been seen since, investigators say.

“I was 15, we were supposed be going shopping that Saturday,” Rosa Paltauf, Roxanne’s sister says. She’s now 27 and has spent the past 11 years waiting for answers. “All we have to go on is what her boyfriend said — is that she walked out of the hotel room and was never seen or heard from again.”

Investigators say the couple had an argument and she left her room. “Roxanne didn’t just disappear off the street that night, something happened to Roxanne and someone knows what happened to her,” her sister continued. She says police initially classified her sister as a runaway, which may have hurt the case.

“There’s no evidence, they never looked in the hotel room that they were staying,” Paltauf says. “By [the time they realized she wasn’t a runaway] it was a week or two later, there were so many people in and out of the hotel rooms that all the evidence was lost.”

She says there are many obstacles, but she’s hanging onto hope.

“Her boyfriend was never really cooperative and we don’t have any witnesses, we don’t have any evidence, so we’re kind of going on how we know Roxanne. She wouldn’t just disappear,” Rosa says.

“I love you and will never stop searching for you,” she said, addressing her missing sister. “I’ll bring you home one day and I hope that you’re safe and you’re happy and just know that we’re looking for you.”

Detectives with the missing person’s unit say because this is still an open, active case they can not give more details.

They do say they believe criminal activity was involved.

In 2014, the FBI along with Austin police got a tip about a possible body near the area where Roxanne was last seen. That search turned up nothing.

http://www.fox7austin.com/news/local-news/missing-austin-womans-family-sets-up-go-fund-me-to-cover-search-efforts
Missing Austin woman's family sets up Go-fund me to cover search efforts
May 23, 2018


https://www.gofundme.com/finding-roxanne-paltauf

 ::snipping3::
The Paltauf family hopes to raise $1,500 to cover fliers, stickers a banner and an appreciation BBQ when they continue their search efforts July 7th.

Video, photos, poster at news link

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/search-continues-12-years-later-for-missing-austin-teen/269-571241072
Search continues 12 years later for missing Austin teen
Roxanne Paltauf was last seen July 7, 2006. Since then, tips regarding her disappearance have all fallen short.
July 6, 2018


AUSTIN -- An Austin family's fight to get answers and closure after their daughter's disappearance has remained steadfast for more than a decade.

Roxanne Paltauf was last seen July 7, 2006. Since then, tips and leads regarding her disappearance have all fallen short.

This weekend, loved ones will spend the anniversary of her disappearance as they have done every year: Searching for answers in the area she went missing. On July 7 beginning at 9 a.m., her mother, Elizabeth Harris, will be in the area of Rundberg Lane and North Lamar Boulevard passing out flyers to community members to bring awareness to her daughter's case.

Paltauf vanished under what has been described as "suspicious circumstances" near Rundberg Lane and Interstate 35.

She was just 18 at the time of her disappearance. Paltauf had been with then boyfriend, Louis Walls. The two were staying at a Budget Inn in the area. When questioned, Walls told Austin police that the two had gotten into a argument, that afterward she left and that was the last time he saw her.

"She was a very loving and caring person. She was too trustworthy, I think, and she believed the best in a lot of people and she shouldn't have. And I think maybe that's why she got in that situation with Louis. Why she disappeared," Harris said in an interview with KVUE in July 2017.
According to KVUE media partner, the Austin American Statesman, Austin police have spoken with Walls "many times," but said they have been unable to either eliminate Walls as a suspect or implicate him in Paltauf’s disappearance. No arrests have been made.

In March of 2014 family members had a fleeting moment of hope when officers thought they had a lead after cadaver dogs picked up a scent pertaining to the case. They came up short.

"There is someone out there in Austin that knows what happened to Roxanne that night," said Paltauf's sister, Rosalynn, in the same 2017 interview.

The investigation has been moved to the Austin Police Department Cold Case unit, and remains ongoing.

Video

http://www.fox7austin.com/news/local-news/detectives-file-warrant-for-possible-new-evidence-in-roxanne-paltauf-cold-case
Detectives file warrant for possible new evidence in Roxanne Paltauf cold case
May 22, 2019

AUSTIN, Texas (FOX 7 Austin) - Austin police are looking at potential new evidence in a nearly 13-year-old cold case. Roxanne Paltauf was reported missing on July 8, 2006. 

Last week, detectives filed a warrant to obtain her cellphone records after realizing there were possible roaming charges from the night before she disappeared.

“I know her case is solvable and I know people in Austin know what happened to her, so that's what keeps me going,” said Rosalynn Schultz, who has been searching for her sister for almost 13 years.
 ::snipping3::

Since 2006, Paltauf's then-boyfriend, Louis Walls, has said he and Roxanne got in an argument at the Budget Inn off I-35 and Rundberg Lane and she walked out, leaving everything behind.

“She wouldn't have left her phone, her money, her ID, her belongings,” said Schultz.

Detectives said for five days Paltauf’s cellphone was in Walls' possession and during that time he made several calls. At one point, he even reached out to his ex-girlfriend in New Mexico.
He called her and said, ‘I am in trouble, I [expletive] up,’” Schultz said.

Two years later, Paltauf's family requested all her phone records from T-Mobile. Recently, they noticed something else strange from the night before Paltauf was reported missing: several calls resulting in additional charges.

“I've always known that Louis wasn't telling the truth about what happened that night and now, seeing these charges, that I believe are roaming charges, just confirms that he's lying,” said Schultz.

Last week, Austin police detectives reviewed Paltauf's case and realized historical data was never requested from her cell phone provider. So they filed a search warrant for all data and records for Paltauf's phone before, during and after she was reported missing. In that paperwork, they write digital data "could yield evidence to the location of the phone during the night Paltauf disappeared, and possibly assist investigators in locating Paltauf's remains."

“We're after finding Roxanne and bringing her home, and having her home with us, and laying her to rest, and have a place to go and mourn and grieve, and actually go through that grieving process,” Schultz said.

Police said Walls is still considered a suspect and foul play is suspected.

Shultz said she believes detectives will solve the case one day, but she no longer expects to see her sister alive.

“Roxanne’s case is a murder without a body, and we don't have any proof or evidence of a murder and we don't have a body,” said Schultz.

Paltauf's family said it will likely take a few months for the historical cellphone data to get back to detectives.

Anyone with information about Paltauf's case is asked to call the Austin Police Department Homicide Tipline at (512) 477-3588 or Crimestoppers at (512) 472-TIPS.