On September 6, 1958, 11-month-old A. J. Campbell Jr. and his three-year-old sister, Myrisha Faye Campbell, were last seen in Goliad, Texas. The children resided with their mother, Jewel Bernay Campbell, who had recently separated from their father, A.J. Campbell Sr., after an eight-year abusive marriage. Jewel had moved to Goliad and was working as a teacher to support her children. The children's father had court-ordered visitations on Saturdays from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
It was during one of these scheduled visits that he picked up A. J. and Myrisha and never returned them.
The last person to see the children alive, besides their father, was an acquaintance named William Randle Jr. Randle stated that he and A.J. Sr. picked up the children in Goliad in Randle's 1955 Chevrolet. They drove through Cuero and Gonzales, Texas, at one point stopping to purchase two large cans of lard. Approximately three miles outside of Goliad, A.J. Sr. asked Randle to stop the car so he could visit a friend. Randle exited the vehicle, and A.J. Sr. drove off with both children. He returned 30 to 40 minutes later without the children. A.J. Sr. appeared nervous and agitated, claiming he had been in a fight with his brother-in-law and had left the children with another relative. He asked Randle if he had any blood on him and warned him not to mention the fight. The two men then drove to San Antonio and parted ways.
The following day, the tragic conclusion to the events began to unfold. A.J. Sr. failed to meet Randle to return the car as promised, leading Randle to report it stolen. A.J. Sr. telephoned a minister in Fort Worth, Texas, implying he had killed his children by stating they were "at rest with the world" and that he intended to take his own life. On September 7, A.J. Sr.'s body was discovered in Randle's car on a rural road near Austin, Texas. He had died by suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot wound from a 16-gauge shotgun. A suicide note addressed to his estranged wife, Jewel, was found. In the note, he claimed to have "buried both children" and expressed his love for them and for her, hoping she would be happy. The note provided no information about the children's location, and their bodies have never been found.
In the years following the tragedy, Jewel Campbell remarried, taking the name Robertson, and had two more children. She passed away in 2013. Her children from her second marriage have remained active in the search for their half-siblings, A.J. Jr. and Myrisha. They hold onto the hope that the children may not have been killed, but instead were given away or sold by their father. Despite ongoing efforts, the case remains an unresolved endangered missing persons case. At the time of his disappearance, A.J. Jr. was last seen wearing a light blue and white checkered shirt with a dark blue collar and a yellow diaper. He has a birthmark on his eyelid and another below his lower lip, and his fingers were clubbed at the ends.Last Seen: Sep 6, 1958
