Glenpool Mother's Disappearance Still A Mystery 18 Years Later

Lori Fullbright, News On 6

GLENPOOL, Oklahoma -- How can someone just disappear and vanish into thin air?

The story of a Glenpool woman is an example of how devastating these cases can be and how difficult they are to solve.

Thursday is the 18th anniversary of Tracey Samuels' disappearance. She was 24 years old and the mother of two young children. Her family will never stop looking for her.

Tracey Samuels might've gotten pregnant when she was just 16, but by all accounts, was a loving, attentive mother to her daughter and three years later, her son.

"She was crazy. Her laugh was contagious. She was that mom that got down on the floor and played with us, let us fix her hair and dress her up," her daughter Kristina said.

Tracey vanished on February 17th, 1993, just two days before her daughter's eighth birthday. Kristina remembers it like it was yesterday.

"I got on the school bus that morning. She was in a pink bathrobe and had her hair in a towel," she said.

Tracey dropped off her five-year-old son at her grandmother's in Jenks, saying she had a job interview.

Her truck was found at the Cherry Hills apartments in West Tulsa where a witness saw her get into a Chevy flat bed truck with a brown headed man with a mustache. She was gone.

Police say there were plenty of rumors at the time, but, it's time to put those to rest find the facts.

"Some people had information but were afraid, didn't know who to trust so they kept quiet," said Sergeant Tracy Powell, Glenpool Police Department. "It's my job to make them understand they can call in anonymously and there won't be retribution from anybody."

Kristina is now older than the age her mother was when she disappeared. She has a son of her own and it hurts her that he'll never know his grandmother.

She's begging for information that gives her answers.

"My hope for her obviously is that she's alive and will see this and know she can always come home but if not, for people to realize she's somebody's sister, somebody's best friend, somebody's mom and any information they have can be exactly what they're looking for," she said.

Kristina told News On 6 crime reporter Lori Fullbright she worries she'll be in her 90's, in a nursing home some day, still trying to find out what happened to her mother.

If her mother is dead, Kristina still can't rest until her mother is home and given a final resting place.

Anyone with information can call Glenpool police at 322-8110 or Crime Stoppers at 596-COPS.