Back in 1980, a family of three suddenly went missing in Lewisville, Texas.
Tina Gail Linn Clouse and her husband Harold Dean Clouse Jr. had their 10-month-old daughter Holly with them, when their traces were lost.
The couple’s families had been living for more than 40 years thinking of them and wondering what could have happened to them.
Until late last year, the couple’s close families believed that they might have joined some religious group, as they were told only a few months after the couple and their daughter disappeared.
As Texas First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster said during a press conference, in December 1980 or January 1981, the families received a call from a woman who introduced herself as “Sister Susan”, who told them she wanted to return the couple’s car to their family.
“She further stated that Tina and Dean had joined their religious group and no longer wanted to have contact with their families; they were also giving up all of their possessions,” Webster said.
It has been indicated that during the meeting with the family, two women and possibly one man were taken into custody, but there are no documents to prove it since this all happened four decades ago.
Over these decades, the couple’s families didn’t know what to believe. Every possibility crossed their minds, but they couldn’t really do anything to bring them back.
Until last year, when the bodies of two people who had been strangled and beaten to death back in January 1981 were identified as Tina and Dean Clouse.
And, although everyone who loved the couple was devastated, they still wanted to know what had happened to “baby Holly”.
The answer came eight months later, when the 42-year-old woman was found safe in Oklahoma. She even has five children of her own by now.
“The very first thing that ran through my head when we heard Holly was found was the call that I got eight months ago … about my sister’s death,” Tina Clouse’s brother, Les Linn, said in a statement. “The juxtaposition of that call with Holly’s sudden discovery just popped into my head. To go from hoping to find her to suddenly meeting her less than 8 months later —- how miraculous is that?
And, although not much information has been released about how Holly ended up adopted, it seems that the family that adopted her is not considered to be a suspect in killing the woman’s parents.
At the time, the baby was taken and given up to a church by two women who, according to witnesses, were wearing white robes and were barefoot.
It seems that the police is not giving up on the couple’s murder and their case is open.
“While we rejoice today that Holly has been found and families that were looking for her for decades rejoice, we still are looking for suspects in this case,” Webster added.
What a sad story, which at the same time, in a way brings joy to two families who will soon reunite with their lost niece and granddaughter.
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