A Texas baby who mysteriously disappeared way back in 1980 is alive and well—though the mystery of who killed her parents and dumped their bodies in the woods just north of Houston remains an open and active double murder case, the Texas Attorney General’s Office’s new Cold Case and Missing Persons Unit announced. Authorities aren’t saying much about the baby’s adoption, but suspicion still centers on a mysterious band of wandering people the family knew only as “Jesus Freaks,” who were in possession of the couple’s car after they disappeared. It’s the attorney general’s first big case; the unit is holding a press conference later today.
In January 1981, the remains of a young man and a woman, both victims of homicide, were located in the woods by a dog. Their identity remained unknown for 40 years. Found side by side, they were presumed to be a couple and buried together in unmarked graves. Finally, in 2021, a team of genetic genealogists formed by Identifinders International used a profile developed by Harris County authorities, tapped consumer databases for possible relatives, built elaborate family trees, and was able to link those remains to relatives in other states and identify them as a married couple: Tina Gail Linn and Harold Dean Clouse Jr.
That astonishing discovery, shared with family members only eight months ago, set off another search: Who killed Dean and Tina, and where was the couple’s infant daughter, Holly?
