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A cold case stemming from the early 1980s murder of a Houston couple has yielded a positive development on Thursday (June 9) when Texas Attorney General (AG) Ken Paxton announced that their infant daughter who subsequently went missing has been found alive, Houston-based media outlets reported.
Tina Gail Linn Clouse and Harold Dean Clouse Jr. were found dead in a rural part of Houston in 1981, according to Houston ABC affiliate KTRK.
The station reported that "Baby Holly" wasn't found with her parents' bodies. Holly Marie Clouse is now 42 years old.
Paxton said that his office's new Cold Case and Missing Persons Unit found Holly, who has been told about her biological parents' identities, per KTRK.
The woman's whereabouts essentially is the welcome news her paternal and maternal relatives have been waiting for for 40 years.
"Finding Holly is a birthday present from heaven since we found her on Junior's birthday," Donna Casasanta, the woman's grandmother, said, according to the station. "I prayed for more than 40 years for answers and the Lord has revealed some of it. We have found Holly."
Houston NBC affiliate KPRC reported that the Cold Case and Missing Persons Unit worked with the Lewisville Police Department (LPD), the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office (VCSO) in Florida, the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in the search for Holly.
Her parents' homicides; however, remained unsolved.
Houston CBS affiliate KHOU reported that Texas OAG Senior Counsel Mindy Montford and LPD Detective Craig Holloman visited the woman at her place of employment on Tuesday (June 7) – on what would've been Holly's father's 63rd birthday.
She had an online reunion with her loved ones from both sides, with the NCMEC covering Holly's airfare to Florida to visit the family who thought she was gone forever, according to KHOU.