Overview

Last Seen: September 6, 1958 — Goliad, Texas. A.J. Campbell Jr., 11 months old, disappeared with his 3-year-old sister, Myrisha Faye Campbell, during a court-ordered visit with their father.

Circumstances: Their father drove away alone with the children for roughly 30–40 minutes and returned without them. He later told a minister he had killed and buried them and left a note making a similar claim before dying by suicide near Austin. Despite extensive searches, neither child’s remains were found. Family members have also considered the possibility that the children were secretly placed with someone else.

Detailed Case Breakdown

A.J. Campbell Jr. Missing Person Case: The 1958 Disappearance of Two Children in Goliad, Texas

Eleven-month-old A.J. Campbell Jr. and his 3-year-old sister, Myrisha Faye Campbell, disappeared from Goliad, Texas, on September 6, 1958. More than six decades later, neither child has been located.

Their disappearance began as a court-ordered visit with their estranged father and developed into one of Texas’s oldest unresolved missing-child cases. Their father’s death, his statements that he had killed the children, and a note claiming that he had buried them led investigators to fear the worst. Yet the absence of their remains has left a critical question unresolved: were A.J. and Myrisha killed, or could their father have secretly placed them with someone else?

A Saturday Visit That Became a Disappearance

A.J. Campbell Jr. was only 11 months old when he disappeared. His sister, Myrisha, was 3.

The children lived with their mother, Jewel Bernay Campbell, in Goliad. Jewel and the children’s father, A.J. Campbell Sr., were separated, and he had court-ordered visitation with the children on Saturdays.

On the morning of September 6, 1958, their father arrived to take the children for a visit. He was accompanied by an acquaintance, William Randle Jr.

A.J. Sr. picked up the children at approximately 9:00 a.m. and was expected to return them by 3:00 p.m.

He never brought them home.

The Last Known Journey

The group left Goliad in Randle’s two-door 1955 Chevrolet Tudor, described as pink and charcoal gray and bearing Texas license plate MA-9996.

According to later case accounts, they traveled through the Cuero and Gonzales areas. During the journey, stops were reportedly made to obtain large cans of lard.

Approximately three miles outside Goliad, A.J. Sr. asked Randle to get out of the vehicle, saying he wanted to see someone.

A.J. Sr. then drove away with both children.

When he returned approximately 30 to 40 minutes later, A.J. Jr. and Myrisha were no longer in the car.

That short period is one of the most important unresolved windows in the entire case.

The Children Were Gone

Randle later said A.J. Sr. claimed that he had gone to see his brother-in-law, gotten into an argument and left the children with another relative.

But his behavior reportedly raised questions.

According to case summaries, A.J. Sr. appeared nervous or agitated and reportedly asked Randle whether there was any blood visible on him. The two men eventually traveled toward San Antonio before separating.

There has never been a confirmed account establishing where the children were taken during the period when Randle was outside the vehicle.

A Disturbing Telephone Call

The investigation took an ominous turn when A.J. Sr. contacted a Fort Worth minister, the Rev. James G. Harris.

Contemporary newspaper coverage reported that Campbell indicated he had killed and buried his children and intended to kill himself.

The statement dramatically changed the nature of the search. Authorities were no longer simply looking for two children who had not been returned from visitation; investigators now had reason to believe they could be searching for two homicide victims.

A.J. Campbell Sr. Found Dead Near Austin

A.J. Campbell Sr. was subsequently found dead inside Randle’s vehicle on a rural road in the Austin area.

He had suffered a fatal shotgun wound, and authorities determined that he had died by suicide.

Inside the vehicle investigators discovered another devastating piece of evidence: a note addressed to Jewel.

In the note, Campbell claimed that he had taken the children’s lives and had buried both children.

But he left investigators with no burial location.

The children’s bodies were not with him.

The Search for A.J. and Myrisha

Authorities launched extensive searches after the children’s disappearance.

Contemporary reporting shows investigators concentrated on areas connected to Goliad as well as the Austin area where Campbell Sr. died. Searchers followed possible leads and looked for evidence of freshly disturbed ground or hidden graves.

Within days, however, investigators were confronting an enormous problem.

Campbell had traveled across a significant portion of Texas, and his note did not identify where he claimed to have buried the children.

A September 1958 Associated Press report described a statewide search involving multiple Texas locations. Historical reporting from the following year said investigators continued receiving and checking tips but remained unable to determine where the children were.

No confirmed trace of A.J. Jr. or Myrisha was found.

Could the Children Have Survived?

Although their father’s statements strongly suggested that the children were dead, members of the family have not completely abandoned another possibility.

Jewel eventually remarried and became Jewel Bernay Robertson. She had two additional children, and those children continued searching for their missing half-siblings.

One theory considered by family members was that A.J. Sr. may have given the children to someone else or arranged for someone else to raise them, then falsely claimed that he had killed them.

That theory has never been established as fact.

But it remains difficult to eliminate completely because the children’s bodies have never been recovered.

The Arlington Lead

Decades after the disappearance, an intriguing potential lead emerged.

Family members reportedly learned that a man named A.J. Campbell had lived in Arlington, Texas, during the 1990s. According to reporting later summarized by D Magazine, the man’s Texas driver’s license reportedly carried the same birth date as the missing A.J. Campbell Jr.

A.J.’s half-brother, Phil Robertson, attempted to determine whether the man could actually be his missing brother.

No publicly documented identification resulted from the lead.

The information remains significant because it illustrates why members of the Campbell family continued considering the possibility that the children survived their 1958 disappearance.

Jewel Campbell Robertson Never Received an Answer

The children’s mother spent decades without knowing conclusively what happened to them.

Jewel Bernay Robertson died on February 11, 2013.

Her obituary described the disappearance of Myrisha and A.J. Jr. as the greatest tragedy of her life and noted that more than five decades of searching had failed to locate them.

Her surviving children continued to keep the case alive.

What A.J. Campbell Jr. Looked Like

A.J. was approximately 11 months old, about 2 feet 2 inches tall and approximately 25 pounds when he disappeared.

He had blond hair and blue eyes.

Two characteristics could potentially have helped identify him later in life: his thumbs were described as clubbed at the ends, and he had birthmarks on his upper eyelid and below his lower lip.

He was reportedly wearing a blue-and-white checked shirt with a dark-blue collar and a yellow diaper when he disappeared.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children continues to identify him as an associated missing child on its active poster for the Campbell siblings.

Where the Case Stands Today

The disappearance remains unresolved.

Current missing-person resources continue to list A.J. Campbell Jr. and Myrisha Faye Campbell as missing from Goliad, Texas, since September 6, 1958. The Charley Project describes both cases as open, while the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children continues to publish the Campbell siblings’ missing-child information.

Recent coverage has also continued to include the Campbells among Texas children who remain missing after several decades.

No publicly documented discovery of A.J. or Myrisha has been announced, and no remains have been publicly identified as either child.

The most important historical evidence remains A.J. Campbell Sr.’s conduct and statements: the unexplained period when he drove away alone with the children; his return without them; his reported question about whether he had blood on him; his later telephone statement indicating that he had killed and buried the children; and his written claim that he had buried them.

Those circumstances strongly influenced investigators’ belief that the children may have been killed.

But there is still a major evidentiary gap.

Their bodies have never been found.

Without their remains, a confirmed burial site, or other definitive evidence establishing what happened during that missing period outside Goliad, the ultimate fate of A.J. Campbell Jr. and Myrisha Faye Campbell remains unknown.

Nearly seven decades after two small children left their mother’s home for what should have been a routine Saturday visit, the central question remains unanswered:

Where are A.J. Campbell Jr. and Myrisha Faye Campbell?