Mary Rachel and her mother, Lelia, went missing on May 10, 1941, in Carolina Beach, North Carolina. Lelia left home with Mary Rachel at 9:00 p.m., purportedly to buy groceries or a brassiere from a dime store. They were driving a black 1935 Ford Model A coupe with the license plate number 219-056, but the vehicle was never found.

While some speculated that Lelia may have killed her daughter and committed suicide, authorities found no evidence to support this theory. In 1948, Lelia and Mary Rachel were declared legally dead.

E.C. Bryan, Lelia's husband, was considered the primary suspect in their disappearance, but he died in 1976 without being charged. There were suggestions that he buried the bodies under the foundation of his beach cottage, but a 2009 search yielded nothing of interest.

The case remains unsolved.