AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A decades-long search by a Florida girl and her prolonged household linked to an unsolved homicide case has resulted in the lady lastly discovering her lacking granddaughter, now grown with no earlier data of her tragic historical past, officers stated Thursday.
Meanwhile, the thriller behind who brutally killed the lady’s dad and mom greater than 40 years in the past stays unsolved and has Texas authorities searching for the general public’s assist.
Harold Dean Clouse Jr., Tina Linn Clouse and their toddler daughter had vanished in October 1980, shortly after the younger household moved from New Smyrna Beach, Florida, to the Dallas suburb of Lewisville, Texas, in keeping with the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
In January 1981, in a rural space east of Houston, a canine that returned residence with a decomposed human arm in its mouth prompted a police search that situated the stays of an unidentified couple, the Houston Chronicle reported. The Harris County medical expert’s workplace stated the person had been overwhelmed to loss of life, whereas the lady had been strangled.
The couple remained unidentified till final October when a bunch of genetic genealogists who labored with legislation enforcement examined the stays and recognized them because the Clouse couple, First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster stated at a Thursday afternoon information convention in Austin, Texas. But no signal of their toddler granddaughter, identified to them as Holly Marie Clouse, was discovered along with her dad and mom’ stays.
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Webster didn’t reply questions throughout Thursday’s information convention however appealed for public assist in fixing the murder circumstances. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who’s operating for reelection, didn’t attend.
As for the lacking toddler, it wasn’t till Tuesday, when fashionable expertise led investigators into her office, that the now 42-year-old girl would be taught of her organic household and her tragic background. Before that, all she knew was that she had been adopted and raised by an Oklahoma household who had adopted her.
The youngster’s adoptive household are usually not suspects in her disappearance or her dad and mom’ deaths, Webster stated. He declined to offer their identities or how the kid identifies herself at this time.
Hours after the beautiful revelation, the Oklahoma girl was launched to her grandmother, aunts and uncles throughout a Zoom name. She advised them she had been married for greater than 20 years and has 5 youngsters and two toddler grandchildren, the Chronicle reported.
But many questions stay, together with who killed the Clouses.
At some level, two girls left the kid at an Arizona church and took her into its care, Webster stated.
“Two girls who recognized themselves as members of a nomadic non secular group introduced (the kid) to the church. They had been carrying white robes, they usually had been barefoot. They indicated the beliefs of their faith included the separation of female and male members, practising vegetarian habits and never utilizing or carrying leather-based items,” Webster stated.
It was not identified how the ladies got here into possession of the toddler. Investigators believed the group traveled across the American Southwest, together with Texas, and had been identified in the Yuma, Arizona, space for asking for meals, Webster stated.
In late December 1980 or early January 1981, the lacking couple’s household acquired a phone name from a girl figuring out herself solely as “Sister Susan.” The girl stated she was calling from Los (*42*) to clarify that the lacking couple had joined their non secular group, renounced all her worldly possessions and needed no additional contact with their households. The girl requested if the household needed the return of the lacking couple’s automobile.
A rendezvous was organized on the Daytona Motor Speedway in Florida and authorities had been notified, Webster stated. They encountered a person and three berobed girls. The girls had been taken into custody and the automobile was turned over to Donna Casasanta, Harold Dean Clouse’s mom, however no case file in regards to the girls’s arrest may very well be discovered by Florida authorities, Webster stated.
Webster appealed Thursday to the general public for any data concerning the unsolved murder chilly case, noting that many questions stay unanswered. Casasanta herself stated in a press release issued by the Attorney General’s workplace that she “prayed for greater than 40 years for solutions, and the Lord has revealed a few of it.”
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