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'God Kept Me Safe And Protected All These Years': 'Baby Holly' Has Emotional Reunion With Biological Family
Holly Miller--once known as Holly Marie Clouse--was reunited with her biological family decades after she went missing and her parents Tina Linn Clouse And Harold Dean Clouse Jr. were found dead in the Texas woods in a still unsolved murder case.
More than four decades after “Baby Holly” disappeared when her parents were brutally murdered and left in the Texas woods, the now 42-year-old reunited with some of her biological family members.
The emotional reunion between Holly Miller and relatives including her grandmother Donna Casasanta was captured by ABC News.
“I love you,” Miller said as she embraced her grandmother. “Thank you for all your prayers.”
Miller was born Holly Marie Clouse to her biological parents Tina Linn Clouse and Harold Dean Clouse Jr., but she was adopted as a baby after getting dropped off at an Arizona church by two women wearing white robes.
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The Oklahoma mother of five never knew her history—or the grim fate of her parents who were discovered dead off a wooded road in Harris County, Texas in January of 1981—until the Texas Attorney General’s office found her earlier this year.
“God kept me safe and protected all these years and I just want you to know that,” Miller told her grandmother during the reunion.
“We never gave up on you,” a tearful Casasanta responded.
For decades, the family had not known what happened to Tina and Dean Clouse. The couple had last talked to their family in October of 1980 when they were living in Lewisville, Texas.
Authorities believe they were killed sometime in December of 1980 or early January of 1981, according to an earlier press conference. Around the same time, authorities have said the family received a strange call from a woman who identified herself as “Sister Susan,” saying the couple had joined their religious group and the group wanted to return the couple’s car in exchange for money because they no longer needed any of their possessions.
The family agreed—although they also contacted law enforcement—and met with two or three women and possibly one male from the group at the Daytona racetrack in Florida. The women had been wearing white robes, authorities said.
The couple’s bodies were found in the woods in early January about 100 feet apart. They had been brutalized, bound and gagged, Oxygen.com previously reported.
For decades, the remains went unidentified until a forensic genealogist was able to positively identify them last year, according to the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
Once the couple was identified, the family began looking for answers about what happened to “Baby Holly” and investigators were ultimately able to positively identify Miller as the missing baby.
Texas First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster said the press conference earlier this year that the baby had been dropped off at an Arizona church by two women wearing white robes who identified themselves as members of a nomadic religious group. The group allegedly believed in the separation of its male and female members.
Miller was later adopted by her adoptive family, who are not considered suspects in the death of her parents.
The recent family reunion was the first time Miller reconnected with her biological family in person.
“I am so wonderfully blessed to have a loving, faithful family to embrace as we meet again after 41 years. My heart is overwhelmed with joy and sadness. Joy to get to know my parents' family who have been praying and searching for me," she said in a statement to ABC News. "Sadness for our loss of my parents and the time we could have shared together. I am hopeful for many more gatherings with my newfound family to embrace one another and share memories together."
The family—which also included Miller's biological aunts Debbie Brooks and Tess Welch—took time to look through old photo albums and share memories together.
Miller has vowed to continue to fight for answers about who killed her biological parents.
“I promise that, one day we will, we will know and the suffering will end,” she told her grandmother.
Anyone with information about the case, is urged to contact the Texas Attorney General’s Office Cold Case and Missing Persons Unit at coldcaseunit@oag.texas.gov.
