Family Finds Texas Woman 51 Years After Her Abduction As Baby

• DNA test, anonymous tip to the rescue

More than 50 years after the Nanny kidnapped her as a baby in Texas, United States (US), a woman, Melissa Highsmith, has happily reunited with her family.

Interestingly, the family tracked their missing loved one down with a DNA test and without help from any law enforcement or other outside involvement.

According to the family, the now fully grown woman, Melissa, was in 1971, abducted in Fort Worth, an area located in South Carolina, more than 1,000 miles away from where she was eventually found.

A report from the Charleston Television news station, WCIV, as well as a news release from her family said the incredible saga centering on the disappearance of Melissa came to a joyful ending on Saturday, November 26, 2022, in South Carolina.

In 1971, Highsmith was one year old in Fort Worth, Texas, 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, Apatenco hired a woman who expressed interest in the job without ever meeting her in person.

Apatenco’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.

WCIV reported that 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.

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.

“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.

However, it was their own private investigation and 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, adding; “Right now, we just want to get to know Melissa, welcome her to the family and make up for 50 years of lost time.”

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 family statement said, adding; “Chase every lead.” – With The Guardian report.