An American family has found their missing daughter five decades later thanks to genetic testing.
Melissa Highsmith, now a grown woman, was an infant when she was abducted from her parents’ home in Fort Worth, Texas. August 23, 1971 will forever remain in the lives of Alta Atapenko and Jeffrey Highsmith, who more than 50 years later managed to find their daughter again, without the participation of the police or private investigators, thanks to DNA.
According to the BBC, Melissa Highsmith was 22 months old when her nanny took her in. The mother, who was looking after her daughter alone at the time, posted an ad looking for a nanny to take care of the child in her absence. And it was the nanny, whom Alta never met in person, who disappeared with Melissa on the very first day of work, never to return.
The Highsmiths reported the disappearance to the police, naming the woman as their prime suspect, but the investigation turned up nothing. And for more than half a century, they never gave up, even with the help of 23andME, a DNA testing service that uncovers family ancestry and can match unknown relatives by genetic code. The truth is that after 51 years of suffering that never gave hope of dying, it happened. With the help of DNA, Alta and Geoffrey discovered that their missing daughter was not only alive, but living in the same city.
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Correspondence with Melissa’s children brought the family to a happy conclusion. “One of our sisters spoke to Melissa’s daughter, the youngest, and she took us to her mother,” said Jeff, Melissa’s younger brother, who never met his sister, Fox News was quoted as saying.
When her biological father got involved on social media, Melissa (raised as Melanie by the woman who kidnapped her) couldn’t believe it. “My dad texted me and said, ‘You know, I’ve been looking for my daughter for 51 years.’ I asked the person who raised me if there was anything they wanted to tell me. It’s baby Melissa,” he told KTVT. , an affiliate station of CNN International.
“We are very happy to announce that we have found Melissa. There are so many details we’d like to share, but for now, we’d just like to say that we followed the DNA match that led us to her,” announced meanwhile. , family in social networks. , in a long emotional text accompanied by snapshots.
The crime of kidnapping has been banned for many years, but the Fort Worth police have already announced that they will conduct an investigation to find out all the information they have about the kidnapping.
