“Every mom thinks their kid is absolutely amazing,” Corlitta Johnson said. “But Tre is one of — he’s one-of-a-kind.”
Eodis “Tre” Harris went missing from his Fort Worth, Texas apartment on June 16, 2021. For three years, his mother has been trying to make sense of the series of events that preceded his disappearance.
The second-to-last time Corlitta spoke to her son was when he called her on Tuesday, June 15. “He was hysterical. He was crying,” Corlitta told Dateline. “He was going through a lot.”
Tre, who had quit his job as a special education teacher weeks earlier, told his mother what was going on in his life. “He was hurting. But when I calmed him down, he was OK,” Corlitta told Dateline. Although she knew her son was hurting, Corlitta felt there was nothing to indicate something serious was going on — just a son calling his mother for support.
Tre called his mother again several hours later, around 3:45 a.m. “I was like, ‘Son, why are you up this early?’ You know, ‘What’s wrong?’”
Tre told his mother that he couldn’t sleep, so he was taking his two dogs, Smoky and Bandit, on a walk around the neighborhood. “I heard him talking to two people. And they were talking about, you know, their dogs,” Corlitta said. “I didn’t think anything of it because, again, it was just a cordial, nice conversation.”
Corlitta said that when they got ready to hang up Tre said he would call her again later in the morning.
That call came at 4:01 a.m. when Corlitta was asleep. “That haunts me every day,” she told Dateline. “That could’ve been his call — ‘Mom, I need your help.’”
Tre was unreachable the next day, according to Corlitta. “I kept calling. I kept texting,” she said. “No response.”
Though she initially brushed it off as “nothing,” her feeling of dread began to grow as the hours passed. “Something came over me that didn’t feel right,” she said.
It was a mother’s intuition, which would, eventually, be proved true.
Later that day, Tre’s empty truck was found three and a half hours away from Fort Worth in Aspermont, Texas — stopped at a light, the engine still running. Tre’s wallet was inside the car.
Chief Deputy Gordon Walker of the Stonewall County Sheriff’s Office told Dateline that, around 8:00 a.m., at least three witnesses saw a Black male leaving the truck with Tre’s two dogs walking in front of him. “The guys that were working [on the bridge] said that a Black male got out of the truck and started walking up north,” he said.
Walker said that security footage from Tre’s apartment in Fort Worth showed him getting into his truck with his two dogs wearing a “red-ish or pink-ish” shirt and tan pants around 3:45 a.m. The witnesses who later saw a man getting out of Tre’s truck in Aspermont described him as wearing dark or black clothing. Walker also said the witnesses were unable to identify Tre as the man when they were shown his photo.
Corlitta told Dateline that she also doesn’t believe that the man who left Tre’s truck at that stoplight was her son. “I don’t believe it either,” Deputy Walker said. The condition of the truck also made the deputy question that it was Tre who had left it. “It looked like somebody detailed that truck out,” he said. “It was really clean.”
According to Deputy Walker, Tre’s phone last pinged around 6:00 or 7:00 a.m. in Quanah, Texas — about an hour and a half from Aspermont.
“His luggage was found [by a rancher] in Paducah on the side of the road,” Walker added. Paducah is roughly halfway between Aspermont and Quanah. “Wasn’t thrown out or nothin’ — it was like somebody laid it there for somebody to find, [from] what I was told,” he said.
Corlitta went through the contents of the luggage when it was returned to her. “What was in his luggage is something that I would never see that Tre would pack,” she told Dateline. “There was no toiletries, there was no socks, no underwear, no shoes — my son would never pack like that.”
One of Tre’s neighbors told the Stonewall County Sheriff’s Office that he saw Tre that morning. “That guy told me that he saw him at like, 8 or 9 that morning,” Deputy Walker said. “But that’s not possible. Because at 8 o’clock, 9 o’clock in the morning, [Tre’s truck] was in Stonewall County.”
Tre's dog Smoky was found near the truck in Aspermont the day Tre disappeared. His other dog, Bandit, was found dead in Aspermont about a week after Tre disappeared. He had been run over by a vehicle. Deputy Walker told Dateline that the dogs being abandoned is further evidence that the man seen leaving Tre’s truck in Aspermont was probably not Tre. “If that was him driving, he wouldn’t have left those dogs,” he said.
Tre’s mother, Corlitta, agrees. “Those dogs loved him,” she said. “Soon as we picked [Smoky] up and we went right by the place that they said Tre jump out the car, he went to the window. Dogs are very smart — but only if they could talk and tell us.”
The Stonewall County Sheriff’s Office told Dateline that they believe that foul play was involved in Tre’s disappearance. Deputy Walker encourages anyone with information about what happened to Tre to come forward. “He’s a human being,” he said. “Reach out to somebody.”
Tre’s mother agrees. “Somebody out there knows something. Say something. ‘Cause what if it was your son?” she said. “I want him found so I can give him the proper burial he needs,” she told Dateline. “Then, I wanna know what happened. What, where, how, and why did you mess with this loving guy that loved everybody?”
Corlitta told Dateline that her grief has transformed her. “I wouldn’t put this on my worst enemy. The hole in my heart for three years, it’s — it’s unbearable,” she said. “And everybody say, ‘You so strong.’ I’m not. My insides is ugly. My heart is broken.”
But she can’t give in to the grief or give up on her son. “I have to keep going ‘cause I have four other children. And I can hear my son, ‘Mom, never give up. Never give up.’ And I’m not,” she said. “I won’t give up. Until I’m six feet under I’m going — I’m going to find a way.”
Tre is 5’8’’ and weighs about 190 lbs. He has dark brown eyes and short black hair. He would be 35 years old today.
Anyone with information about Tre’s disappearance is asked to contact the Stonewall County Sheriff’s Office at 940-989-3333. You can also contact Deputy Walker directly at 940-200-0335.
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