Forensic artists created an age progression before Holly was found, showing what she may have looked like today, at the age of 42. Photo / National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children
Forensic artists created an age progression before Holly was found, showing what she may have looked like today, at the age of 42. Photo / National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children
"Baby Holly", a child who went missing in the 1980s when her parents were apparently murdered in Texas, has been found alive more than 40 years later.
Holly Marie Clouse, now 42, was found "alive and well" after a group of cold case investigators used genealogy to positively identify her parents, murder victims Tina Gail Linn Clouse and Harold Dean Clouse Jr, officials revealed.
Harold and Tina Clouse had disappeared in late 1980 while moving from Florida to Texas.
The newlyweds were found dead in some woods in Houston a few months later.
Their remains were identified last year when DNA connected the couple to family members in Kentucky.
Holly and her biological family met virtually for the first time earlier this week, and the National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children is facilitating an in-person meeting soon.
Harold and Tina were last heard from by their family in October 1980 while they were living in Lewisville, Texas.
Harold had been beaten, bound and gagged, while Tina had been strangled.
Holly – an infant at the time – was nowhere to be found and was classified as missing for decades, while the couple's remains were unidentified until last year. DNA was extracted by investigators, who found a match with Harold Clouse's cousins in Kentucky.
First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster revealed baby Holly "was left in a church in Arizona and was taken into their care".
Webster described how a pair of women "who identified themselves as members of a nomadic religious group" brought Holly to the church.
"They indicated the beliefs of their religion included the separation of male and female members, practising vegetarian habits and not using or wearing leather goods. The women indicated they had given up a baby before at a laundromat."
The group is said to have travelled around the southwest region of the country, such as California, Arizona and possibly Texas.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office revealed that Holly Clouse was now living in Oklahoma and has five children. Photo / AP
Holly's grandmother, Donna Casasanta, welcomed the news.
"I prayed for more than 40 years for answers and the Lord has revealed some of it ... we have found Holly," she said.
"Thank you to all of the investigators for working so hard to find Holly. I prayed for them day after day and that they would find Holly and she would be all right."
Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact the Texas Attorney General's Cold Case and Missing Persons Unit.
"We wish Holly the best. We are grateful we found her but we must continue with our investigation into who killed them," Webster said.
