AUSTIN, Texas โ A motherโs desperate search for her missing daughter has stretched into a years-long nightmare, with police pointing to two men they believe hold the answers to a teenโs mysterious disappearance. Roxan Palto, then 18, vanished from a rundown Austin motel corridor in the sweltering heat of a July weekend after a reported fight with her boyfriend, a man whose web of lies and criminal past has cast a long shadow over the investigation.
Elizabeth Harris last heard from her eldest daughter on a Friday night in 2006. Roxan, celebrating a two-year anniversary with boyfriend Lewis Walls, promised to be home the next morning for a family shopping trip. She never arrived. The call that followed came not from Roxan, but from Walls, who claimed the teen had stormed out of their motel room after an argument, leaving behind her purse, cell phone, and all her belongings.
โI said, โWhat do you mean, have I seen her? Sheโs with you,โโ Harris recalled. According to Walls, Roxan was so upset she fled empty-handed into the notorious Rundberg area, a neighborhood known for street crime and hourly-rate motels. Her family, sensing immediate danger, rushed to the scene but found no trace of her. Walls waited a full 24 hours before officially reporting her missing, a delay detectives found deeply suspicious.
The investigation quickly uncovered troubling red flags. Lewis Walls was not the teenage boy he had pretended to be; he was a 29-year-old convicted felon with a rap sheet, who had met Roxan when she was just 16. Police also discovered that in the hours after Roxan vanished, Walls made over 300 calls from her cell phone to ๐๐๐ lines and an ex-girlfriend. That same night, he became intimately involved with the motel clerk.
โAny reasonable person would say, โWould it behoove me to bring another girl into this room right now knowing that sheโs going to return?โโ said lead Detective James Scott. The family also learned of a prior violent incident where Roxan suffered a broken nose, which friends later alleged was caused by Walls, not a street fight as she had claimed.
The case took a dramatic turn a week later when police questioned another man, Jeffrey Moore, after a separate disturbance at a nearby motel. When Moore produced his ID, Roxanโs identification card fell out of his wallet. Moore gave conflicting stories, first claiming she was a friend, then saying he gave her a ride and she must have dropped it. He became a second person of interest.
Detectives theorize the two menโs worlds fatally collided. โLewis wanted Roxanne to prostitute herself out for his benefitโฆ Jeffrey Moore being a ๐๐๐๐๐๐ predator, he hired prostitutes and then he was rough with them,โ Detective Scott said. โI think what happened is those two worlds collided and Roxanne was ๐๐๐๐ฐ๐๐ in the middle.โ They believe her refusal may have led to her death.
The familyโs quest for answers turned even more tragic when a woman from the streets, who had vowed to help Harris find her daughter, was found murdered under a bridge with paper towels shoved down her throat. โTo me, that only means one thing, that theyโre trying to get her to shut up,โ Harris said.
Despite a major FBI excavation in a field near the motel in 2014, prompted by a tip, no remains were found. The case remains cold, with no body and no charges ever filed against Walls or Moore. Walls has never given a formal statement to police. In a recent attempt to confront him, a news team staked out his alleged apartment but he did not appear.
Roxanโs family continues to mark each passing anniversary with flyers and prayers. Her sister, now a mother herself, holds onto fading hope. โI just keep marching forwardโฆ Itโs time for someone to step up and tell the truth and help this family finally heal,โ she said. For Elizabeth Harris, the agony of not knowing is a life sentence. โI really donโt want to have to leave this world not knowing what happened to my daughter,โ she said.
Austin Police and Crime Stoppers continue to seek any information regarding Roxan Paltoโs disappearance, a haunting Texas motel mystery that has left a family in perpetual anguish and a community searching for justice that remains, for now, painfully out of reach.