Rebecca Withers recalls the memories of her childhood friend Tina Rice McQuaig fondly. “Her parents would come over to our house a lot, and Tina would come,” she told Dateline.
The girls were the same age, and called themselves “slumber party friends.”
“She would go to the lake house with us on weekends,” Rebecca said.
Over time, the friends lost touch. Years later, purely by chance, Rebecca would play a role in trying to help solve her old friend’s mystery.
Tina Rice McQuaig was last seen on March 15, 2000, leaving her job at what was then known as Shands Jacksonville Medical Center in Jacksonville, Florida. The name has since been changed to UF Health Jacksonville.
Tina, a 27-year-old mother of one, was a pharmaceutical technician.
Dateline spoke to Tina’s mother, Linda Rice, who recalls hearing the heartwrenching news that her daughter was missing. “How I found out, initially, was I got a phone call from her husband. He asked me if I heard from Tina. I said, “No.” He says, ‘Well, she’s not home from work, and it’s 6:15. She’s typically home by 5:30,’” she said.
“So we kind of all stayed up the whole night waiting to see if she’d show up, and she never did,” Linda recalled. “We called the cops the next morning, and they came out.”
In an email, Officer Max Morel of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office confirmed to Dateline that Tina was reported missing by family. “A citywide BOLO (be on the lookout) was completed in which officers are notified of Tina being a missing person. An image of Tina was also released to the public along with an image of her vehicle,” he wrote.
Four days went by with no sign of Tina.
But on March 19, old friend Rebecca Withers happened upon a clue. She had learned Tina was missing from family members and knew to be on the lookout for her and/or her vehicle. She was on her way to Blockbuster when something caught her eye in the parking lot of a shopping center. “It was her silver little car I noticed first,” Rebecca said.
She pulled into the parking lot to investigate. “Her car was parked facing the road, the main road,” Rebecca said. “It wasn’t parked like she was going into a store or anything, it was just parked, like, out on its own,” Rebecca said.
When she got to the car there was no sign of Tina. “I went to the trunk and hollered her name in the trunk,” Rebecca said. “I was, you know, I was just terrified that that’s where she would be.” There was no response.
Detectives were called to the scene, a Walmart on Normandy Boulevard. They found no sign of Tina in the vehicle.
“She was just gone,” Rebecca said. “It was just crazy. I couldn’t believe it. I kind of felt like God led me there.”
“The vehicle was processed for evidence and surveillance, if available during the time, would have been reviewed,” Morel said. He was unable to comment further about what, if any, evidence was found in the car.
Tina remained missing for close to three years.
While she waited for news of her daughter, Linda Rice tried to do what she could to help other families experiencing her same pain. “During that time, I started an organization -- a nonprofit organization -- for missing adults. [Tina] was an adult. She wasn’t a child, but she was my child,” Linda said. The organization, which is no longer active, was called Families of Missing Loved Ones.
“I found four other families in Jacksonville that had a missing adult child. So we all got together one day, and we met at the church down by the corner of my house. We created our little organization,” Linda explained. “I stayed busy with that organization, which kept my mind occupied, and I was busy, so I didn’t dwell so much on what was going on.”
Still, she held out hope that Tina would be found safe. “I honestly felt like she was still alive,” Linda said.
In December of 2002, that all changed.
“We got a call from the police department, ‘We’d like to come out and talk with you,’” Linda remembered them saying. When they arrived, police told her some remains had been found that could belong to Tina. According to Officer Morel, the remains were found by a surveying crew in a wooded area near Cecil Field, a military base in Jacksonville at the time, now known as Cecil Airport. The location is about 10 miles from the Walmart where Tina’s car was found. The Duval County Medical Examiner’s Office determined the manner of death was “homicide violence.”
DNA test results on the remains came back in March 2003. “The DNA matched perfectly,” Linda said. “So that means that she was definitely my daughter. That was Tina.”
After three years, Linda was finally able to grieve her daughter. “We had a little, small memorial for her because we knew then that we had found her,” Linda said. “We had about a hundred people come to the service, and we had it at the church down on Normandy Boulevard, not too far from the cemetery. And then we drove to the cemetery and had her a little burial at the cemetery.”
What they didn’t have, was answers.
On March 15, 2011, the 11th anniversary of Tina’s disappearance, the Justice Coalition of Duval County and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office held a news conference to announce a reward of $5,000 for information leading to “the arrest and the conviction of the person or persons responsible” for Tina’s murder. “In this case, it’s not that we don’t have evidence,” the sheriff at the time said. “We just have insufficient evidence to get a conviction.” He urged the community to reach out with information, no matter how small. “It could be that one little piece that leads to solving this crime,” he said. He also assured Tina’s family that the investigation is ongoing. “We will never stop working this case,” he said.
Today, 25 years after Tina’s murder, the sheriff’s office confirms that all leads have been exhausted in the case. Someone will need to come forward with that one piece of information if justice is to be served.
Linda Rice is now 74 years old and a great-grandmother. Tina’s son, who was only 4 years old when his mother went missing, now has a child of his own. “Tina would be a grandma now, and she would be the best grandma because she loves children,” Linda told Dateline. “He was still a baby, you know, and he doesn’t even remember her. But he knows he has a mama. He knows she’s watching over him.”
If you have any information that could help in Tina McQuaig’s case, please contact the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office at 904-630-0500. You can also send an email to [email protected] or contact CrimeStoppers at 1-866-845-TIPS.
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