Found 42 years on ... girl who went missing the day her parents were both murdered
A BABY who vanished after her newlywed parents were killed 42 years ago has been found alive and well.
Holly Marie Clouse went missing in the United States in 1980 along with her father Harold Dean Clouse, 21, and mother Tina Gail Linn Clouse, 17.
Her parents’ bodies were found the following year in woods in Texas but Holly was not with them.
For the next four decades her family held out hope she would one day be found.
Last year, her parents’ bodies were exhumed and she was identified using new DNA technology.
Holly is now a mother-of-five aged 42 who is living in Oklahoma.
Last night, first assistant attorney general of Texas, Brent Webster, said Holly had been left at a church in Arizona. She was adopted and raised by a family who are not suspects in the murder of her parents, he said.
He added that two women who were members of a nomadic religious group brought Holly to the church, wearing white robes and nothing on their feet.
Mr Webster did not say if they found Holly or are suspects.
A photo posted on the Facebook page for the Texas attorney general, whose office led the investigation, shows Holly smiling this week while holding up a picture of herself as a baby with her birth parents.
The extraordinary turn of events began last year when the victims’ families found out that the bodies in the woods were their relatives.
Just before they were killed, the couple had moved to Texas from Volusia County, Florida, so Harold could pursue carpentry work.
The killings were violent – Harold was beaten, bound and gagged while Tina was strangled.
Their bodies were exhumed in 2011 but it took another decade for the technology to develop to identify them. Investigators contacted Holly for the first time at her workplace on Tuesday, her father’s birthday, and informed her of the case.
Hours later, she met her family on a Zoom call. Donna Casasanta, Holly’s grandmother, said it was the ‘birthday present from heaven’ and that they had ‘prayed for more than 40 years for answers’.
Cheryl Clouse, Holly’s aunt, said: ‘It was so exciting to see Holly. I was so happy to meet her for the first time. It is such a blessing to be reassured that she is alright and has had a good life.
‘The whole family slept well last night’.
Last night, Mr Webster explained how in 1980 or 1981 the victims’ families were called by a woman named ‘Sister Susan’.
She said wanted to return Tina and Harold’s car to them in exchange for money.
The families agreed and met up with two or three women and one man at a race track. They appeared to be part of the religious group. The families had notified the authorities and the group was arrested but there is no report on file as it was so long ago, Mr Webster said.
He urged the public to come forward with information and said they were ‘still looking for suspects in this case’. No arrests have yet been made.
‘Left at a church as a baby’