Judy Marie Foster

Foster, circa 1990

  • Missing Since 09/08/1990
  • Missing From Grand Saline, Texas
  • Classification Endangered Missing
  • Sex Female
  • Race White
  • Date of Birth 10/15/1952 (71)
  • Age 37 years old
  • Height and Weight 5'2, 120 - 130 pounds
  • Associated Vehicle(s) Maroon Ford Thunderbird (accounted for)
  • Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, blue eyes. Foster's left ear is missing. She may use the following last names: Moerbe, Plunk and/or Riddle, or her maiden name, Oliver. She smokes cigarettes.

Details of Disappearance

Foster was last seen in Grand Saline, Texas at 6:00 a.m. on September 8, 1990. She had been at a shopping center on East Highway 80, known as the beargrounds, with three young men, sitting on the tailgate of their truck. Witnesses stated she was drunk and fell from the truck at one point, striking her head on the ground. Some accounts says she removed her shirt to wipe the blood from her head, and others that she wiped the injury with a red shop rag.

A short time later, Foster got into the truck with two of the men. The third was passed out in the truck bed. They left in the truck; the driver says he dropped one of the men off at a friend's home and he, Foster and the third man, still passed out in the bed of the truck, went to City Lake. He said he returned her to the beargrounds at 6:00 a.m. and dropped her off by her car, but no other witnesses saw this.

She has never been heard from again. On September 12, twelve-year-old daughter told the nurse at her school that she had been unable to locate her mother for days, and the nurse phoned police.

That same day, an employee at the beargrounds called police because Foster's car, a maroon Ford Thunderbird, was found in the parking lot unattended for several days. The car was locked, the windows were rolled up and there was no indication of foul play. Foster's wallet, identification, keys and empty cigarette case were inside it.

Two of the men Foster was seen with that night have been eliminated as suspects in her case, but the man who says he dropped her off is the prime suspect in her disappearance. The suspect was married, and when police asked if something had happened to Foster, perhaps an accident, he asked for a lawyer refused to answer any more questions. He has never been publicly named.

At 5:00 a.m. on the day she disappeared, this man was seen at the Triple B Truck Stop down the road from his home. His clothes appeared to be bloodstained, his shirt was torn and his jeans were cut. He stayed about an hour, and when he left, the clerk could see someone else in his truck, leaning against the passenger door.

Foster was an unemployed truck driver at the time of her disappearance. She was distraught over a pending divorce and had recently returned to her hometown to get away from her estranged husband. Although she had stayed out all night before, she had never left her daughter without providing some kind of care for her.

Foul play is suspected in Foster's case; she is presumed to be the victim of a homicide. Her case remains unsolved.

Investigating Agency

  • Van Zandt County Sheriff's Department 903-567-4133

Updated 3 times since October 12, 2004. Last updated September 10, 2019; picture added.