Truesdale left her home on Pitt Street in Winston-Salem, North Carolina at 11:30 a.m. on June 13, 1970 and rode the bus to the mall. Truesdale never returned to her family's residence and has not been heard from again.

Truesdale is described as a quiet, studious girl. She had won a scholarship to attend a summer fine-arts program at Mount Tabor High School and one of the reasons she went to the mall was to buy school supplies. She also planned to buy donuts for her older sister and make payments on her mother's charge account at Rayless Department Store. She was last seen by a clerk at the department store at 4:30 p.m.

Truesdale's parents reported her missing the day after her disappearance, when she did not come home and they spent the night searching for her without result. They thought she may have drowned in one of the creeks at Happy Hill Park, as it rained heavily that night and there was flooding. Investigators launched a six-week search of the Winston-Salem area, but turned up no sign of Truesdale. Her case is unsolved.