More than 50 years after her babysitter kidnapped her as a baby in Texas, a US woman has reunited with her family, who tracked their missing loved one down with a DNA test and without help from law enforcement or other outside involvement.
The incredible saga centering on the disappearance of Melissa Highsmith concluded in South Carolina on Saturday, according to a report from the Charleston television news station WCIV as well as a news release from her family.
Highsmith was a year old in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1971 when her mother, Alta Apantenco, published a newspaper advertisement asking for a babysitter. Raising Melissa on her own and needing someone to care for her daughter while she worked her job, Apantenco hired a woman who expressed interest in the job without ever meeting her in person.
Apantenco’s roommate handed Melissa over to the babysitter, who allegedly abducted her and never returned her.
Loved ones of Highsmith reported her missing to police and never forgot her in the more than half-century since, even throwing birthday parties for her every November. More recently, they also organized a Facebook page named “Finding Melissa Highsmith” and solicited help in finding their missing relative.
Then, in September, loved ones of Highsmith received an anonymous tip that she was around Charleston, which is more than 1,100 miles from Fort Worth, WCIV reported. The family used the results of a 23andMe DNA test, a birthmark on Melissa and her birthday to confirm that she indeed was the girl who had been taken from them 51 years ago.
On Saturday, during a celebration at the family’s church in Fort Worth, Melissa reunited with her mother, her father and two of her four siblings, the group said in a statement obtained by the Guardian on Monday.
“I couldn’t stop crying,” sister Victoria Garner said in the statement. “I was overjoyed, and I’m still walking around in a fog trying to comprehend that my sister [was] right in front of me and that we found her.”
In the family’s statement, another sister – Sharon Highsmith, who lives in Spain and plans to meet Melissa this Christmas – described how her relatives had turned to law enforcement officials for assistance. But it was their own private search for Melissa, which included the 23andMe test, that paid off.
Sharon Highsmith said her family connected with a clinical laboratory scientist and amateur genealogist named Lisa Jo Schiele to help them with interpreting the key DNA results and mining publicly available records to locate Melissa.
“Our family has suffered at the hands of agencies who have mismanaged this case,” Sharon Highsmith said. “Right now, we just want to get to know Melissa, welcome her to the family and make up for 50 years of lost time.”
It wasn’t immediately clear Monday what became of the babysitter. The statute of limitations to criminally prosecute the babysitter expired 20 years after Highsmith’s 18th birthday.
Melissa Highsmith was raised with the name Melanie. She first learned she was considered missing and that her family was looking for her when a relative reached out over Facebook, a message which she initially feared was a scam, according to CNN.
Sharon Highsmith said she was particularly thankful for her mother, who – in addition to being racked with guilt after Melissa’s disappearance – had faced accusations that she had possibly killed her missing daughter and hidden the crime.
“My mom did the best she could with the limited resources she had – she couldn’t risk getting fired, so she trusted the person who said they’d care for her child,” Sharon Highsmith’s statement said. “I’m grateful … we have vindication for my mom.”
The family statement said Melissa’s mother, her father Jeffrie Highsmith, and her siblings – Garner, Sharon Highsmith, Rebecca Del Bosque, and Jeff Highsmith – all had a simple message for people searching for missing loved ones.
“Never give up,” the statement said. “Chase every lead.”
