The Disappearance of Lulaida Morales Sejalbo, November 1973

Lulaida Sejalbo. Photo from NamUs.

In 1973, Lulaida Morales Sejalbo was a 17-year-old Filipina girl living in Santa Clara, CA. At the time of her disappearance she was a student at Wilcox High School in Santa Clara, where she also worked at a McDonald's.

Lulaida disappeared on Sunday, November 25, 1973, three days after Thanksgiving. All modern sources state that she disappeared on her way home from work. However, the January 16, 1974 edition of the Peninsula Times Tribune states that after having dinner with her family, Lulaida left to go bowling with a female friend; she was last seen at about 11pm by the friend as she started to drive home from bowling, and she has not been seen or heard from since. All sources, including the clipping, state that Lulaida was last seen wearing her McDonald's work uniform.

On Wednesday, December 24, 1973 — one month after her disappearance — Lulaida's car was found abandoned in Santa Clara with her purse inside. According to the Peninsula Times Tribune, a coat belonging to Lulaida was also found inside the car, while other sources do not mention the coat. CA DOJ, Charley Project, and Doe Network state that Lulaida's keys were inside the car as well as her purse, alongside "other personal belongings" according to Charley Project and Doe Network. The Charley Project states that Lulaida's work uniform was also found inside her car; however, this is the only database that says so. The Charley Project seems to have gotten that piece of information from this 2012 San Jose Mercury News article. Any other sources that mention the work uniform being found in the car seem to be using either that article or the Charley Project as a source. The Charley Project's account was also sourced from the Doe Network and CA DOJ.

Lulaida was on good terms with her family, and had no apparent motive to run away. According to the Peninsula Times Tribune, Lulaida had lived in the US periodically since 1969, and she "speaks English, but not fluently." She was a junior in high school at the time of her disappearance. She was in the Wilcox High School yearbook in 1972 (when she was a freshman), 1973, and 1974; these seem to specifically be the yearbooks for the school years 1971-2, 1972-3, and 1973-4, meaning that the latter was published after Lulaida's disappearance.

On May 20, 2019, user nanajani commented on Lulaida's WebSleuths thread: "Lulida [sic] was my friend. She was so sweet and had a beautiful smile. She was from the Philipines [sic], and was living with her aunt and uncle when she disappeared. She had just gotten off work at McDonalds, which was just off the corner of Scott Blvd and El Camino Real (original location, not the one just torn down). She was supposed to go to a birthday party if I recall correctly, but never made it there. We always thought somebody was waiting in her car in the McDonald's parking lot, but I don't know if that is the truth."

Nanajani then went on to say that the McDonald's was caddy corner with the Mervyn's Shopping Center, which according to various sources was located at 2004 El Camino Real at the time, where the Target stands today. Based on this description, the McDonald's that Lulaida worked at and went missing from seems to have been located at 1995 El Camino Real in Santa Clara.

NCMEC age progression to 59 years old.

If nanajani is in fact a friend of Lulaida's, and their comment can therefore be regarded as a reputable source, then this is the only one to mention a party of any sort. It's possible that this birthday party could have been the bowling excursion with a female friend mentioned in the Peninsula Times Tribune, though this is just speculation on my part. The female friend's name was not given in the paper, possibly due to being underage at the time.

(Note: The Peninsula Times Tribune gives Lulaida's age as 18. However, this edition was published on January 16, 1974, after Lulaida's 18th birthday on December 3, 1973. She was 17 when she went missing on November 25, 1973, only a little over a week before her birthday. WebSleuths user nanajani does not state whose birthday party Lulaida was headed to or where. This is also the only comment the user has ever made on WebSleuths. Furthermore, the above clipping is the only mention I could find of Lulaida in the papers. I also could not find anything regarding a car being found in Santa Clara in late December 1973 in the newspapers.)

Demographics

Lulaida was born on December 3, 1955; if alive today, she would be 69 years old. At the time of her disappearance, Lulaida was 17 years old, 5'3, and 120 lbs, with brown eyes and long black hair. She has a scar on her right foot, as well as a small mole on her lower left lip. She may use the first name Loyola. Her high school yearbooks spelled her surname as "Sejalvo." One of her teeth — tooth 19 — is missing. Tooth 18 has restorations, and teeth 17 and 20 are virgin teeth.

(Some sources say that Lulaida is Asian, while others state that she is Pacific Islander. It is definite that Lulaida was Filipina; the discrepancy is instead due to differing interpretations of what race "Filipina" would fall under, as the Philippines is an Asian island country in the Pacific Ocean.)

Lulaida's fingerprints are not available for comparison, but her DNA and dentals are. Furthermore, according to CA DOJ, her dental x-rays are available. NCMEC has created an estimation of what Lulaida would look like age progressed to 59 years old (c2015).

Foul play has been suspected in Lulaida's case since at least January 1974, and continues to be suspected to this day. She is classified as Endangered Missing on Charley Project, while her case is classified as a Non-Family Abduction on the Doe Network. According to the Charley Project, authorities believe that Lulaida may have been taken against her will.

The Santa Clara Police Department is investigating. A newspaper clipping from January 1974 states that, "Anyone with information regarding [Lulaida] may contact Officer Paula Florentina at the Juvenile Bureau of the SCPD"; while none of the other sources mentioned it, it's possible that Lulaida's case is still (as of Jan. 2025) being handled by the Juvenile Bureau.

Anyone with information regarding Lulaida should contact the Santa Clara PD at 1-408-615-5580 (according to NCMEC) or (408) 615-4700 (according to NamUs, CA DOJ, DN, and Charley Project). The agency case number is 8019037. Tips can also be submitted via NCMEC (link provided below); her NCMEC case number is 1232639.

Lulaida has nine UID exclusions on NamUs, five of which were found in CA, while the other four were found in VA. None of the UIDs are estimated to be Asian or Pacific Islander. The CA Does include an unidentified Black female found in Orange County in 2005. The remaining CA Does were found in San Bernardino County, including Nipton Jane Doe 1985. The other three no longer have available NamUs pages: one of them, Rancho Cucamonga Jane Doe, has since been IDed as Karen Marie Heverly, while the other two were found in 1989 and 1999, respectively.

Lulaida is also on the NamUs exclusion list of San Fernando Jane Doe 1976, however Jane Doe is not on Lulaida's list; however they are both included as rule-outs on each other's wiki pages. They are likely still exclusions, as, according to a personal email from Mary Bell of the Doe Network, "Unfortunately, listing NamUs exclusions is not a high priority. We get exclusions all the time that never show up on the NamUs exclusion list."

Furthermore, according to users on WebSleuths, Lulaida has been submitted as a potential match to LA Jane Doe July 1990, who was a 12-16 year old girl of Asian descent with possible Black admixture who is estimated to have died in 1965-1987. However, one WS user commented in June 2022 that they received an email from Doe Network stating that the match had been excluded using dental records. However, Lulaida and Jane Doe are not on each other's exclusion lists on NamUs.

Potentially Related Cases

Users on WebSleuths, including nanajani, have brought up the case of Linda Jozovich in connection to Lulaida's case: Linda, a 19-year-old white college student, worked as a cashier at Mervyn's Shopping Center, which, if nanajani's comment is accurate, is a very short walk from the McDonald's Lulaida supposedly worked at. Linda went missing from the parking lot of the Mervyn's Department Store in the evening of November 7, 1979, and in 1995 some of her remains were found by a hiker in the Santa Cruz Mountains. In 2007 convicted killer Terry Childs confessed to Linda's murder, and the following year he was convicted and sentenced to another life sentence without the possibility of parole for Linda's death. Childs also received the same sentence twice more in early 2017 for the murders of Joan Leslie Mack, 28, and Christopher Hall on October 11, 1984 and February 3, 1985, respectively; both murders occurred in Aptos in Santa Cruz County. Childs was 24 when he killed Linda, and would have been 18 years old at the time of Lulaida's disappearance.

(While user nanajani states that Mervyn's Department Store was "caddy-corner" to the McDonald's that Lulaida worked at, this is only semi-true: while the street address of Mervyn's — and the Target that has since replaced it — is on El Camino Real, it technically was at the corner of Harrison St and Scott Blvd. The Target parking lot can be accessed from Scott Blvd to the east or from a small street named Anna Drive to the north. The street to the north of Anna Dr is El Camino Real, with a few more buildings — including a Panera Bread — and parking lots in between the two streets. So, technically, the building that would be "caddy-corner" to the McDonald's at 1995 Camino Real would be the Panera Bread at 2002 El Camino Real. However, given that nanajani also stated that the McDonald's was at the corner of El Camino Real and Scott Blvd, I'm still fairly certain that I have ascertained the correct address. 1995 El Camino Real is a seven minute walk from Mervyn's Shopping Center, which Linda Ann Jozovich went missing from.)

It should also be noted that from at least 1972 to 1973, seven girls and young women were killed in what became known as the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders. All seven victims were found nude in rural areas, and were either abducted from or dumped in Santa Rosa. At least sixteen other murders and disappearances are suspected to possibly be linked to the series. While most confirmed and possible victims were white and non-Hispanic, semi-canonical victims Jeannette Kamahele and Yvonne Quilantang were Hawaiian and Filipina, respectively, while possible victim Rosa Vasquez was Latina.

(Just like with Lulaida, Jeannette's race varies across databases: some erroneously state that she was Asian, while others say that she was Pacific Islander. However, it is clear that Jeannette — who disappeared on April 25, 1972 — was most definitely Native Hawaiian.)

The sixth canonical victim in the series was Theresa Diane Walsh, who was last seen on December 22, 1973 at Zuma Beach in Malibu; her body was found six days later by kayakers in Mark West Creek, which is an over seven hour drive north of Zuma Beach. Lulaida’s car was found only two days after Theresa’s disappearance, and Santa Clara, where Lulaida was last seen and her car was found, is along the route between Zuma Beach and Mark West Creek.

Furthermore, authorities have noted that from 1966 to 1975 — though primarily from 1969 to 1972 — there was a rash of unsolved killings and disappearances of (largely young) women whose cars became inoperable in some way, primarily in northern California. These cases, which are often known as the Bad Samaritan murders, are: Cheri Jo Bates, Rose Tashman, Cindy Mellin, Kathleen Johns, Robin Graham, Christine Eastin, Ernestine Terello, and Mona Jean Gallegos.

I have not been able to find anything about the location or condition of Lulaida's car upon discovery — nor even a description of the model — but I think it is interesting to note that it took an entire month to find it despite still being in the same city. While there hasn't been anything mentioned regarding Lulaida's car being inoperable, I do think her case fits into the general pattern of a young woman being abducted while driving in Northern California, with her car found abandoned later on. To my knowledge, Lulaida's case has never been mentioned alongside those of SRHM or the Bad Samaritan by others online, though I thought they were both worthy of note.

Furthermore, while I originally had this case tagged as Database, as I found it while going through NamUs, etc, I have since found that Lulaida has been brought at least once in an "All Other Possible Zodiac Victims" thread of a Zodiac forum, so I have since changed this case to a Connection.