(Source : NBCDFW) The family of Teresa Gonzales, a 66-year-old Dallas woman, is demanding answers after her body was found at a sewage treatment plant days after she went missing. Gonzales was last seen on October 22, 2024, walking near a construction site on Record Crossing Road and Riverside Drive in northwest Dallas.
According to her daughter, Cynthia Gonzales, Teresa fell through a manhole at the site, which witnesses said had been left uncovered. Her body was discovered three days later, more than nine miles away at the Central Wastewater Treatment Plant in southeast Dallas.
“I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I still can’t,” Cynthia Gonzales said, describing the shock of learning that her mother had fallen into the manhole and ended up so far from where she was last seen.
Attorney Ramez Shamieh, representing the family, claimed that the site where Teresa fell was unreasonably dangerous. Witnesses, including a driver who called 911, reported seeing workers at the scene who appeared to blame each other for leaving the manhole uncovered.
Dallas police are investigating the incident as an “unexplained death,” with the autopsy still pending, though foul play is not suspected. The City of Dallas has not yet commented on the case.
The family has filed a $100 million lawsuit against the city, seeking accountability for what they describe as a preventable tragedy. Cynthia Gonzales, still grappling with the loss of her mother, said no family should have to endure such pain. “Nobody should have to feel that,” she said.
The site of her mother’s fall has since been altered, but for the Gonzales family, the memory of the tragedy remains a painful, unanswered chapter.
