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A child dubbed “Baby Holly” after going missing in the 1980s when her parents were apparently murdered in Texas has been found alive more than 40 years later, officials said Thursday.
Cold case group Identifiers International located Holly Marie Clouse, now 42, “alive and well” just months after using genetic genealogy to positively identify her parents, murder victims Tina Gail Linn Clouse and Harold Dean Clouse Jr., officials revealed. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office made the stunning announcement on its website and planned to divulge more about the case during a press conference on Thursday.
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“Baby Holly has been located alive and well and is now 42 years of age,” Paxton’s office said in a press release. “Holly has been notified of the identities of her biological parents and has been in contact with her extended biological family and they hope to meet in person soon.”
The newly-created Texas Attorney General’s Office Cold Case and Missing Persons Unit worked with Identifiers International, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and several law enforcement agencies in Texas, Florida and Arizona in reaching the major development.
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Tina Gail Linn Clouse and Harold Dean Clouse Jr., who were from Florida, were discovered apparently murdered and left in a wooded part of Houston, Texas, in 1981, officials have said.
Holly – an infant at the time – was nowhere to be found and was classified as missing for decades, while Tina’s and Dean’s remains were unidentified until 2021. All the while, loved ones continued searching for answers surrounding the whereabouts of the trio, whom they had not heard from since 1980, Paxton’s office said.
“Last year, when the families learned that the two bodies found in Houston in 1981 were, in fact, Tina and Dean Clouse, the families began looking for answers as to what happened to Baby Holly and the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the Clouses,” the office said.
Details surrounding Holly Clouse’s life and background before she was located were not immediately provided.
Holly’s grandmother, Donna Casasanta, said her family learned of Holly’s wellbeing on Dean’s birthday, calling the news “a birthday present from heaven.“
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“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 alright.”
