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Donna Casasanta got the call this week, a call she’s spent half of her life praying for.
A call about Holly Marie.
More than 40 years ago, her son, Harold Dean Clouse, moved to Texas from New Smyrna, Fla., with his wife, Tina Linn, and their young daughter. Then, all three abruptly vanished.
Finally, in October 2021, genealogists called Casasanta and her relatives with painful news: Police had discovered the couple’s bodies, back in 1981, in a copse of trees in east Harris County, but only had recently identified them using modern technology.
Dean was beaten to death. Tina had been strangled.
There was no sign of their baby, Holly Marie.
This week that changed. Holly Marie is alive and well and living in Oklahoma, after a family adopted her as a baby.