Reward offered in 36 year old cold case

DETROIT - She'd be about 50 years old now, but in December of 1978, Carla Tucker of Detroit was a smiling, 14-year-old girl. Her family, had no idea it would be the last Christmas they'd spend with her.

"You not only killed my daughter but you killed my family," said Laverne Wilson, Carla’s mother.

Although it's been 36 years, Carla's family says they still need answers.

"You never stop searching. You never move past this," said Stephanie Tucker-Lwanga, Carla’s sister.

The teen was reported missing in June of 1979. She was last seen on Elmwood near Gratiot on Detroit's east side. Carla's body was found 13 years later. She’d been sexually assaulted and strangled. Her body had been placed inside a 55-gallon drum encased in concrete in a landfill near Monroe.

"How dare you. How could you do something so scandalous and so evil to a human being?" said Wilson.

Carla's brother says he watched her leave from their apartment window. When she turned left, out of sight he never saw her alive again.

"After so long you sort of in the back of your mind go ‘Well what if?’ not wanting to believe but, what if?” said Horrace Tucker, Carla’s brother.

Carla's body was found in 1992, but her remains - that of a 14 to 16 year old – were unidentified until 2012. Her family says it was DNA evidence allowed them to at least give her a gravesite.

"She was loved. She was discarded as though she had no one,” said Tucker-Lwanga. “But she does, and her life means everything to someone, to so many people."

Now a $2,500 reward is being offered. The family hopes they don't have to spend another Christmas wondering what happened to their little girl.

Wilson made a passionate plea, "Turn yourself in and ask God to forgive you for what you’ve done to me and my family."