Global Courant 2023-05-05 02:44:11
The Fort Worth Police Department has completed official DNA testing and confirmed the identity of a woman who was abducted as a child 51 years ago and was found by her family in late 2022, police announced in an update on Thursday.
“We hope this test result will provide additional closure for the Highsmith family,” police said in a press release.
Melissa Highsmith was 22 months old at the time kidnapped by a babysitter in 1971. She lived in Fort Worth most of her life and was unaware that she was missing or that her birth family was looking for her.
Her family hired an amateur genealogist and had a DNA test done 23andMe — a website customers can use to find relatives and create a family tree — which led them to a woman from Fort Worth who went by Melanie Brown.
Highsmith’s family moved to Facebook in November 2022 announce that they have found their missing daughter on a page called “WE FOUND MELISSA!!!”
Melissa Highsmith, who was kidnapped in Fort Worth in 1971, was found by her family through DNA testing in November 2022. The Fort Worth Police Department confirmed her DNA in May 2023.
The 23andMe database found a match with three grandchildren of Melissa’s father, Jeffrie Highsmith, who are the children of Melanie Brown and her husband, John Brown. A DNA test of Melanie Brown – which also went through Melanie Walden – was done to confirm she is Melissa Highsmith, Jeffrie wrote on the Facebook page.
Melissa first reunited with her parents and two of her four siblings the weekend after Thanksgiving 2022.
The Fort Worth Police Department said in November they would conduct official DNA testing to confirm Melissa’s identity, and the department would provide an update once official results are back in.
“While the criminal statute of limitations has expired 20 years after Melissa’s 18th birthday, the Fort Worth Police Department’s Major Case Unit continues to seek the public’s help with additional information about Melissa’s abduction that occurred more than 51 years ago,” the police said in a statement. the update. Thursday.
Generally, under Texas state law, the statute of limitations applies at a kidnapping charges amounts to five years. The statute of limitations, which expires 20 years after a victim’s 18th birthday, is for an aggravated kidnapping charge.
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a meeting was held in downtown Fort Worth on Saturday as a call to the Fort Worth Police Department to provide more resources to the department’s Cold Case Unit.
The unit has more than 1,000 unsolved cold cases, according to rally organizers Kelli Arnold and DiAnne Kuykendall.
There is single a detective assigned to the Fort Worth Cold Case Unit on a full-time basis, police said.
Melissa Highsmith attended the meeting with many other family members of cold case victims. They all marched from the Tarrant County Courthouse to the Cold Case Unit.
“There are so many that are just unresolved and shelved. They should be able to reopen these cases, but they don’t have enough people to investigate these cases and not enough funding,” Melissa told Star-Telegram at Saturday’s meeting.
Many of those at the meeting believe that funding is an issue that plays a role in the unsolved cold cases in Fort Worth.
“We are teaming up with our amazing law enforcement officers, the heroes in the city of Fort Worth, to raise money, raise awareness, but most of all, raise money to help cold case officers perform the forensic tests that available now and that enable us to solve unsolvable murders in the past. We have new technology that is changing the game,” said Jim Walker, who began the walk and prayed for the families at the meeting.
Jim is the brother of Carla Walker, who was murdered in 1974. Cold case detectives arrested Carla’s killer decades later and he pleaded guilty at his trial in 2021.
Information on solved and unsolved cold cases in Fort Worth is available from the Fort Worth Police Department website.
The Major Case Unit of the Fort Worth Police Department can be reached by calling 817-392-4439.
