Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - INFANT-GIRL STOLEN AFTER PARENTS MURDERED 4--YEARS AGO FOUND AFTER DNA MIRACLE

Episode Date: June 23, 2022

The bodies of Tina and Dean Clouse are found after a dog carries a human bone out of the forest. There's no sign, however, of their daughter. This decades-old cold case has one happy ending after baby Holly is identified by genealogical DNA. Police say Holly was taken to a church in Arizona by members of a religious group. The search is still on for who murdered the parents.  Joining Nancy Grace Today: Colleen Fitzpatrick - President and Founder, Identifinders International, Author: "Forensic Genealogy", identifinders.com, Twitter/Facebook: @identifinders  James Shelnutt - 27 years Atlanta Metro Area Major Case Detective, Former S.W.A.T. officer, Attorney (Gadsden, AL), The Shelnutt Law Firm, P.C., ShelnuttLawFirm.com, Twitter: @ShelnuttLawFirm Dr. Shari Schwartz - Forensic Psychologist specializing in Capital Mitigation and Victim Advocacy (Miami Beach, FL), Panthermitigation.com, Twitter: @TrialDoc, Author: "Criminal Behavior" and "Where Law and Psychology Intersect: Issues in Legal Psychology" (Sheryl McCollum - Forensic Expert, Founder: Cold Case Investigative Research Institute in Atlanta, GA, ColdCaseCrimes.org, @ColdCaseTips   Jeffrey M. Jentzen Professor of Forensic Pathology and Director of Autopsy and Forensic Services at the University of Michigan Medical School, former Medical Examiner in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin  Dave Mack - Crime Online Investigative Reporter  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A tiny baby girl goes missing when her parents are murdered. What happened to baby Holly? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. First of all, take a listen to our friends at KPRC. Holly Marie Klaus. The baby girl along with her parents, Harold Dean and Tina Lynn, vanished. In 1981, the remains of the couple were found somewhere on Wallaceville Rd in Northeast Harris County,

but they were not identified until last year when investigators used genetic testing on Thursday, investigators revealed Holly was left at a church in Arizona and taken into care, but there was two women who identified themselves as members of a nomadic religious group

who brought Holly to the church. They were wearing white robes and but there was two women who identified themselves as members of a nomadic religious group who brought Holly to the church. They were wearing white robes and they were barefoot. They indicated the beliefs of their religion included the separation of male and female members, practicing vegetarian habits, and not using or wearing leather goods. The women indicated they had given up a baby before at a laundromat. This sounds straight out of a mystery novel. The parents are murdered. The baby disappears. Then she's basically left by people wearing robes and barefoot. Is this real? With me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now,

James Shelnut, 27 years Metro Major case and SWAT, now lawyer at Shelnut Law Firm, Dr. Sherry Schwartz, forensic psychologist specializing in criminal law. She wrote Where Law and Psychology Intersect and Criminal Behavior. Cheryl McCollum, founder and director of the Cold Case Research Institute. Jeffrey M. Jensen, professor of forensic pathology, director of autopsy and forensic services, University of Michigan Medical School. You can find him at jmjensen at gmail.com.

Colleen Fitzpatrick, president and founder of Identifinders International and author of Forensic Genealogy. But first, to Dave Mack, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Dave, tell me what happened to the parents in this case. You've got Harold Klaus Jr. and his wife, Tina Klaus. The family calls Harold Dean Klaus Jr. Tina Gale, they were in a whirlwind romance in the late 70s. They got married in 1979, June of 79. They had a pregnancy right off the bat and had baby Holly. They moved from Florida, where all their family lived, out to Texas, to Louisville, Texas, in 1980. The last time the family had contact with Harold Dean Claus and Tina Gale Lynn was in October of 1980.

They had a lot of contact until then, but then all the contact ended. The next thing we know is the first week of January, a dog, a hunting dog wanders out of the woods with a human arm in its mouth. And of course, that's when the police are called and they find these two bodies. Okay, wait, let me just write there to Cheryl McCollum, founder, director of Cold Case Research Institute. That's telling me a lot about the killers of Harold Klaus Jr. and Tina Klaus's wife. They're murdered and they're left out in the woods. Their bodies only found when a hunting dog retrieves a human arm.

What does that tell you about the killers? Well, I believe they were buried. So it tells me that this took some time to bury two people. I believe the gentleman was bound and gagged still and beaten to death. And the female victim was strangled. So again, it indicates to me it might have been more than one person. I've always believed it was more than one person to overcome two adults. And you've got the man bludgeoned dead and the woman strangled, two different modes of death. Now, of course, to Dr. Sherry

Schwartz, forensic psychologist, you often hear, wow, that doesn't fit this, let's just say serial killer because it's a different MO, modus operandi, method of operation. But that's not necessarily true. We see serial killers deviate from their normal MO. So that doesn't mean that there were two people, but it's highly suspect. I think there was more than one killer. Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. Serial killers usually don't travel in packs. That's true. So it is highly likely there's more than one killer. But you're correct. They do sometimes change up their modus operandi. I'm looking at the two victims right now with their baby, Harold Dean and Tina Gale Klaus. Here they are pictured together with their daughter, Holly Marie. At that time, she was one years old. They're found

dead, murdered in a wooded area, Houston, Texas. At the time, their identity is unknown. To Jeffrey Jensen, professor of forensic pathology at Michigan Medical School, University of Michigan Medical School, what do you make of the modes of murder? Well, as we've discussed on multiple occasions on your show, multiple modes or types of injury inflicted on individuals can give a clue as to the mental intentions of the assailants, even the victims in some cases. So in this case, it looks like there's multiple and varying modalities of death on both the victims, including the evidence of bondage and possibly torture. So I would agree with this kind of injury pattern. I would suspect that there would be multiple individuals involved.

And not only that, Dave Mack with me, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. The people that murdered this young couple, these parents, his mother and father, actually bring the car back to Florida and try to extort money from Donna. Is that true? Explain that for me. Okay, Nancy, that's partially true. We don't know who murdered Dean and Tina. That is still an unsolved murder. What we do have is an odd group of religious people out of what appears to be Christ's family, a group that was led by a man, Charles McHugh.

This is a group of people who a woman named Sister Susan called the family of Dean Klaus from California and offered up to give them back their 1978 AMC Concorde vehicle in exchange for a thousand dollars. Whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait. The Concorde belonged to Harold Klaus and Tina? Actually, yes, it was their vehicle, but it was actually in the name of his mother, I believe. Okay. Take a listen to what we know. This is the Texas First Assistant Attorney General, Brent Webster. The return car belonged to Dean's mother and was in fact the car that they had in their possession. And this is the description of the vehicle. It's a 1978 two-door red burgundy AMC Concord. Tina Lynn Klaus and Harold Dean Klaus were likely murdered between December 1980 or early January 1981.

Their bodies were found off of Wallaceville Road in Harris County, Texas. And this was between January 6th and January 11th of 1981. They were last heard from by their families in late October 1980. And they had been living in Louisville, Texas in October of 1980, around that time. So you've got Harold Jr. and Tina Klaus murdered and left in the woods. One's bludgeoned dead. The woman, Tina, is strangled dead. Then you've got this so-called religious group turning up,

trying to make money off the dead couple's car. Basically holding the car for ransom, saying, if you give me $1,000, I'll give you your car back. Is that right? No, actually, Nancy, they didn't know that Dean and Tina were dead. Their bodies were not identified. The bodies were found in the woods. I'm not saying they didn't know.

I'm saying that these two are murdered and left in the woods and then this so-called religious group just happens to have the car of the dead couple, trace it back to the owners in Florida, and try to sell it back to the owners. Yes, to a degree, because in reality, Dean's sister Brenda said that Dean had become infatuated with a cult, and that that's where he met Tina. Then this religious group shows up, and they claim that Dean and Tina have joined their group, that they're getting rid of all of their possessions. And if Dean's family wants the

car back, they'll bring it to them for $1,000. How is that any different from what I just said? Because they, first of all, they don't, the religious group that has the vehicle, okay, they're not allowing Dean's family to talk to Dean and Tina. They're going on a lie. The family now believes that Tina and Dean have joined this religious cult and that they can buy the car back. They don't know that Tina and Dean are dead. Yeah, and? Anyway, that's where it is. So maybe it was exactly what you said and I just misunderstood.

I actually think it's exactly what we're both saying. Okay. They say, we'll get your car back to you for $1,000 because we don't believe in possessions, but you can have the car for $1,000. Yeah. Okay. And the family says, we want to talk to Tina and Dean. And they said, well, no.

And so that's when Dean's family called the cops when they met to get the car. That made perfect sense to me. Did it make perfect sense to you, James Shelnut? It did make perfect sense to me. OK, Cheryl McCollum, it does make sense to me. You know, versions of the truth are not mutually exclusive. Everything Dave Mack just said is correct. And I believe what I said was correct, too. Give me your spin. And I also find it now. I know cults very often will not let the devotees talk to their families. So is that why they

wouldn't let them talk to the family? Or is it because they knew they were dead? Well, I believe it's because they were already dead because Dean stops writing letters to his mom in October of, you know, 1980. And I think 81 is when this Sister Susan is trying to sell the car back to his family. So it's ironic to me when they say that the men and women are separated in this group because women drop off the baby, Sister Susan's making the call, and then this group of women go to meet the family to give the car back. They are clearly protecting the men of this group. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. You know, we say that we believe Dean and Tina joined a cult in October of 81.

There's this picture of them in their own home, we think, with baby Holly, which is the point of all this. Baby Holly goes missing. And they have on regular clothes in their own home and they're not in a cult in january of 1981 based on this photo so they would have had to be approached by the cult join the cult live with the cult give up their car all of that by october is that possible is Is that what happened? What about it, Dr. Sherry Schwartz? I mean, I suppose it's possible, but it doesn't sound like from the evidence that's available, right, the picture, that that's what did happen, right? The family maybe believe that. I'm

interested to know why would they believe that these two joined up with a cult? But also one of the things that I think of is the Manson family victims, Dean Klaus Jr., had been involved in a cult before he met Tina? sex slash cult in the 1970s. He then became infatuated with Tina after returning from what Debbie called a misadventure with that group. Okay, is this the cult that had and handed over baby Holly? Experts say there's a nine out of ten chance that the nomadic Christ family, whose child molester leader convinced followers to give up their children, had the little girl after her parents were killed. Take a listen to our friends at KPRC2. Authorities say back in 1981, the families of Tina Lynn and Harold Dean received a phone call from someone in California who said she was Sister Susan. She wanted to return Tina and Dean's car in exchange for money. She further stated that Tina and Dean had joined their religious group and no longer wanted to have contact with their families.

They were also giving up all of their possessions. And from there, investigators said Sister Susan met with the family at the Daytona racetrack in Florida. That's when investigators say that they were taken to at least two to three women and a man in custody. But right now they're still looking for a police report and they are asking anyone if they have any information to contact the Texas Attorney General's office. So Sister Susan and others from this so-called Christ's family cult show up at the Daytona racetrack to hand over the car. Did anybody mention, okay, here's the car, where's the baby? Dave Mack? Not that we know of. All we know is that whatever answers these people gave to the family was not sufficient enough for them to keep moving without looking into everything. They called the police.

And that's the thing that was said in that report. A police report was made out at the time in 1981, but they can't find it now. And the women were not detained okay i don't understand that at all um so the women and a man were taken into custody because they had the couple's car but they were let go i guess that was founded on the belief that dean harold jr had actually joined the cult because he had been with the cult in the past. Is that right, Dave Mack? That's what it appears to be, Nancy.

So what can you tell us, Dr. Sherry Schwartz, about giving up all your possessions and cutting off contact with your family when you join a cult? Is that true? That does seem to be how it goes because everything goes to the cult leader. And when people join up with the cult, they typically don't join up because they believe in the cause. They believe in the leader. They want to please the leader. So everything that they do is for whatever the leader says. And I understand that the families that joined this cult were told to, quote, get rid of the baby, hand the babies over to the cult.

What do we know about that, Dave Mack? Well, we know that this is a claim from the women that actually had given the baby over to a church in Arizona, where they actually admitted or claimed or bragged about dropping another baby off previously at a laundromat. Now, I understand the group really would stick out in public. They wore white robes, went barefoot, ate a vegetarian diet, separated men and women, and shunned animal products. What can you tell me about the leader of the cult known as Lightning Amen, who was convicted in 2003 of annoying or molesting a child. What do you know about him, Dave Mack or Cheryl McCollum? Cheryl, you probably know more from a legal standpoint of it.

Nancy, I was looking at it from a religious standpoint of what this man, Charles McHugh, he actually made his name was Lightning Amen. That's who his followers were told to call him. He claimed to be God's representative. And like most cult leaders, he would twist and turn the words from the Bible to proving that he was the God's representative on earth. They had to listen to and he directed every movement of the cult, what they wore, what they ate and where they went. Well, he was also convicted for selling and distributing methamphetamines and things like that. It is not uncommon for religious groups to be a cover

for criminal activity. And a lot of times these leaders, whether they're sexually assaulting people or, you know, growing and selling drugs or whatever it is they're doing the religious component is a great cover because a lot of times they don't have to worry about taxes they don't have to worry about different things and they can get followers so easily and then of course manipulate them which looks like this is what he was doing can i tell you a little bit more about i learned about this cult they grew and used openly marijuana and called it quote God's tranquilizer they encouraged the use of drugs and the men would wear diapers on their heads like turbans so they have the baby. They've got the car.

But I'm supposed to believe somebody else killed Dean and Tina Klaus. To Jeffrey N. Jensen, Professor of Forensic Pathology, Director of Autopsy Services, University of Michigan Medical School. What do you make of that? So, they've got the baby, baby Holly. They've got the murdered couple's car. Yet I'm supposed to believe they didn't kill the couple. Right.

And, you know, when we have connections with infants and either other victims, adult victims or adult perpetrators, it's always kind of a complex connection. have incidences where the child is basically discarded, either alive or dead, in order to avoid arrest. So a child with a perpetrator becomes a very confusing and complicated scenario. So I forgot to throw in the dope. You've got Lightning Amen, not his real name, who claims to be Christ. Convicted of child abuse. His cult has the car of the dead people. His cult has the baby. And he encourages the production sale and use of drugs and he's not the killer or connected to the killer dave mack you were the one that was so

stridently defending the cult at the get-go what about that okay just to be clear i wasn't defending the cult merely pointing out yeah you were i'm not about to defend these wackos. Thankfully, this cult disbanded after Lightning McQueen, amen, actually when he was busted. Lightning McQueen is actually a character. Yeah. Okay. It's a fake car that goes on races with Mater, a.k.a. Tomater. Interesting to note that back in May of 1980, the Washington Post did an expose on this group about Lightning Amen and talked about some of the things that they did.

He actually was convicted in 1987 on gun charges at that point, and he claimed that the group had disbanded two years previously. I think it's an obvious connection that the people with the car are the people that killed the couple, but the issue here, again, is that they were not identified. At this point, the family still believes that Harold Dean and Tina are living a religious life with the cult they aren't they don't believe they're dead they don't know this wow okay speaking of that take a listen to Claire Metz at WESH2 you'd see someone in the store is that junior you know but it never was of course they knew nothing of their loved ones. Then, last year, they learned the bodies of a couple found murdered near Houston back in 1981

were Junior and his wife, Tina. It's very heartbreaking knowing that they had been killed that long ago, and we never knew it. You know, their bodies just dumped in the woods. Genetic genealogy linked the murder victims to their families but baby holly wasn't with the remains i'm trying to gauge james shelnut you and i have dealt with a lot of crime victims the emotions this family went through for all these years they think their own relatives have basically turned their backs on them, joined a cult, and were never heard from again, ever. Only to find out, decades later, they were murdered. In fact, Dean was bound before he was murdered, which tells me he tried to fight back.

I mean, crime victims' families have it bad enough, much less to go all those years, probably angry that Dean and Tina had left the family and had no contact with them, only to find out they had been murdered all this time. Oh, it's almost like they've lost them twice, right? They lost them the first time when they lost connection with them, when they felt like they were abandoned. And then now they have these feelings of guilt that maybe they didn't look a little bit harder, didn't push a little bit harder over the years for police to open up a real missing persons investigation.

And then now they wind up dead and they're suddenly probably planning a memorial service. They've been victimized several times over this. You know, I agree with Cheryl McCollum. I think I shared this with you at one point. After Keith's murder, my fiance's murder, I would have nightmares that he really hadn't been murdered. He just went away and didn't want me to know. And in the dream, I wouldn't be able to comprehend that right before our wedding, he would just leave. And it was a horrible dream.

And then when you'd wake up, you'd realize it was even worse, that he really was murdered. But in that dream, in those moments, and I would have it repeatedly, of the abandonment of just someone you love deeply turning their back on you. So all these years, Cheryl, that's what the family thought. That Dean Jr. and Tina had just said, screw you and left with this cult. Because he had shown interest in the past. And I think Shell Nuts owned something as far as just the overall guilt and horrible experience of not losing them once. But then there's the aspect of the baby.

The baby was not with them. So they have no idea now. Did animals drag the baby off? Did the people keep the baby? Has something horrible happened to the baby at another location? So now they have that to deal with, too, on top of knowing that these two young people. Oh, dear Lord, you're right. Right.

Think about it, Dr. Sherry Schwartz. You're the forensic psychologist. All these years, the families of Dean Jr. and Tina think, well, they chose to leave us. They didn't love us enough. They've chosen their own life, and they've left with baby Holly. Then they find out Tina and Dean have been murdered when a dog shows up with Dean's arm for Pete's sake. And they have no idea where baby Holly is. I mean, that's hell on earth, doctor.

Yes, it is. And imagine how they've lived with the trauma over the years. And now it's compounded because not only were they they find out they're murdered, but brutally murdered such that there's body parts floating around. Right. And where is the baby? And now even beating themselves up more, why didn't we do more? When in reality, there's really not much they could have done. I mean, they were told, relatives of Dane and Tina, that they joined the cult. They gave up all of their earthly possessions, including that car, for a $1,000 donation.

The relatives could get it back and did not want to be contacted. But then years later, 2021, they are contacted that two bodies have been discovered in Houston and enter DNA technology. Take a listen to our friends inside edition. 42 years ago, Tina and Dean Klaus and their infant daughter Holly vanished without a trace. The year was 1980 and that was the last time their families ever heard from them. Tina, Dean and baby Holly had simply disappeared. Where were they? Were they even alive? Nobody knew. Three months later, the bodies of a man and woman were discovered badly beaten and dumped in the woods outside Houston. The man was bound and gagged. The woman had been strangled. They were never identified until now using modern DNA technology. They did have some remains that have been kept aside. We took pieces of those and extracted DNA from them. What did you find? What we found was the people that they were related to. And so I picked up the phone and called someone that we knew was related to these

victims and asked them if they had ever had missing family members. And they immediately said yes. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Joining me right now, DNA expert Colleen Fitzpatrick, president, founder of Identifinders International, author of Forensic Genealogy. You can find her at Identifinders, not identifier, but Identifinders.com. Colleen Fitzpatrick, please explain and please speak in regular people talk so I can understand what you're saying. How did this happen? And noticeably, the baby's body was never found. But we do find the bodies of two adults. How did it happen? Well, Nancy, what happened is we had just received a grant from AudioChalk to do several

cases using genetic genealogy. And one of our genealogists, Misty Gillis, had spotted this couple, which seemed to go together. They had already been DNA tested and they showed they were not related, but they could be married so we took those cases and it took several months to get the dna analyzed and in shape and then how do you get the dna when the body has been skeletonized oh well you send the bone to an extraction lab and there's um you know very very good ways of you know extracting the dna from from the bone matrix because DNA is hiding in the bones. And of course, there's a chemical analysis that can pull it out. How difficult is that? Well, for remains that are in good shape, yeah, it's not that difficult at all. It's done every

day. Extraction is done by bones. I think we use the bones, but you can also extract DNA, of course, from semen, from blood, from tissue samples. In this case, we had a couple of bone specimens sent to our lab in very old remains. I mean, we worked on cases from the 50s. We have a case in the 30s, and that requires ancient DNA analysis similar to what you use for mummies. Wow. Okay. I've got to write that down. Ancient DNA analysis. Is that what you just said? I sure did. And that's used for, for instance, Egyptian mummies. Yeah. Wow. It's used for, you know, it's even been used for cavemen. I could listen to you talk all day long. Okay. And let me understand when When you extract DNA from, say, an arm, a skeletonized arm, do you scrape along the surface of the bone or do you have to go into the center of the bone and get bone marrow?

Is that where you get bone marrow from the center of the bone? Well, my understanding by then the marrow is gone. It's just the matrix of the bone itself. The bone is cleaned, you know, so it's not, there's no contamination from the environment. It's clean with ultraviolet light and other chemical protocols. And then the bone is drilled and then it's ground into a powder. And the powder has a lot of surface area and that, you know, allows the DNA to be pulled out of that chemically. Okay. Colleen Fitzpatrick, I believe I asked you to dummy down for me.

Could you at least say that a little bit more slowly? Okay, start with the bone being clean. Did you say with ultraviolet light? Yeah, because you don't want to have contamination around. You don't want the surfaces, you know, surface has been in the soil, it's been probably handled. And so the first thing you do is clean it so that when you get the DNA out of it, the DNA belongs to the person that owns the bone. It's not the person handling it. You know, it's clean. And so you drill in the bone and you get DNA from it. But what does ultraviolet light have to do with it?

It kills germs. It kills bacteria. Ah, yes. Okay, right. Then you drill in, and then you grind that portion of the bone down to powder, and from that you extract the DNA. Yeah, you either drill it or you section the bone, and then you grind it into powder, and then there's a chemical process of dissolving the bone, and then the DNA is left behind. Okay. And then once you get the DNA, I assume that you enter it into the DNA data bank to see if it matches anyone missing or dead.

Otherwise, you have to pull a Paul Holes, as I say, like in Golden State Killer, and do genetic genealogy way back to the great, great, great, great grandpa, grandma, and come all the way down to present day and see who was living in the area, who traveled to the area, and start calling them. But in this case, how did you connect? How was it connected to the relatives? Well, Nancy, we did the same thing that Paul did. You know, we did genetic genealogy. So you have the DNA and, you know, typically, you know, the law enforcement will send the DNA to a lab. They will make a profile. They will upload it to CODIS and look for matches. Well, we do the same thing. We have the DNA. We send it to our lab. We generate a profile and we upload it to the database using it looking for matches,

except we use a different profile, different database and different kind of matches. But it's the same process. In the end, we come up with a list of people that are related. We call them DNA cousins. They share DNA with our unknown. And it's like a big Sudoku puzzle, because you may have a first cousin, a second cousin, second cousin once removed, a great nephew. And you take those people. And what we do is basically keep rearranging them in a way

until there's the only one way it makes sense, like a Sudoku puzzle. And the missing piece is the person you're trying to identify. Has anybody ever told you, Colleen Sudoku puzzle, and the missing piece is the person you're trying to identify. Has anybody ever told you, Colleen Fitzpatrick, that you're brilliant? Because I could listen to you all day long. Where were you when I was trying DNA cases? Because anybody that can compare this to Sudoku, and it makes sense, and I can understand it. Look, I'm a JD. I'm not a brilliant scientist like you and so many other people on this panel. And I don't expect yours to be. But you just made that so understandable.

So now we have the two dead bodies. Now we know they're Tina and Dean Jr. The relatives are contacting. They're like, well, what about baby Holly? Take a listen now to Texas First Assistant AG Brent Webster. In late December 1980 or early January 1981, the families of Tina Lynn Klaus and Harold Dean Klaus received a phone call from someone identifying herself as Sister Susan, who explained she was calling from Los Angeles, California, and wanted to return Tina and Dean's car to their

family. She further stated that Tina and Dean had joined their religious group and no longer wanted to have contact with their families. They were also giving up all of their possessions. Sister Susan asked for money in exchange for returning the car to Florida, where the family lived. The family agreed, but contacted the local authorities about the situation. The family agreed to meet Sister Susan at the Daytona racetrack in Florida. The family described meeting two to three women and possibly one male, and once again, these women were wearing robes and appeared to be members of this religious group. So, Dave Mack, I've got the car, but did the same Sister Sarah indicate where's baby Holly? No, she didn't tell the family in Florida anything other than that Dean and Tina no longer wanted any contact with them.

But we know that baby Holly was dropped off by women wearing the same type of robe, barefooted. They dropped baby Holly off at a church in Arizona. Take a listen again to Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster. Baby Holly was left at a church in Arizona and was taken into their care. Two women who identified themselves as members of a nomadic religious group brought Holly to the church. They were wearing white robes and they were barefoot. They indicated the beliefs of their religion included the separation of male and female members, practicing vegetarian habits, and not using or wearing leather goods.

The women indicated they had given up a baby before at a laundromat. It is believed that this particular group traveled around southwestern United States, including Arizona, California, and possibly Texas. There were sightings of this religious group around the Yuma, Arizona area in the early 80s. The women members would be seen around town at various points asking for food. Then, after four decades, a miraculous twist in the case. Listen. Through collaborative efforts of the Texas Attorney General's Office Cold Case and Missing Persons Unit, the Louisville Police Department, the Volusia County Sheriff's Office in Florida, the Arizona Attorney General's Office, the Harris County Sheriff's Office, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, I'm excited to announce that baby

Holly has been located alive and well 42 years later. I also am happy to announce that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children have offered and will be paying for Holly to be reunited in person with the Lynn and Klaus families. Holly has been notified of the identities of her biological parents and got to meet her extended biological for the family for the first time this Tuesday. They hope to meet in person soon and NCMEC, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is going to facilitate that meeting. And now take a listen to our friends at Inside Edition. After all these years, the mystery of what happened to Tina and Dean was finally

resolved. But what about baby Holly? Could she still be alive? This week, we finally know the astonishing truth. I'm excited to announce that baby Holly has been located alive and well. And here she is, now 42 years old and living in Oklahoma. She's a mom of five kids and, can you believe it, she's also a grandmother. What happened to baby Holly is still being pieced together. It seems that the people who killed her parents spared her life and brought her to Arizona, where they abandoned her on the steps of a church. A loving family who belonged to the church took Holly in and raised her as their own,

not knowing her parents had been slain. Straight out to Jeffrey Jensen. What about it, doctor? Well, this is fortunately the best outcome that could occur with a tragedy like this. And recently, there's been the development of the National Unidentified and Missing Persons Format investigative software system that allows medical examiners and coroners the ability to do identifications on these missing persons. It also allows the family to input valuable identification data that will assist the medical examiners in making these identifications.

It's amazing to you, Shalnut. I don't know how such a happy offshoot could occur from a double homicide. This is a miracle for this baby to have actually survived all these years, never knowing who her parents were, never being connected with her bio relatives, yet baby Holly survived. It is a miracle God had his hand on her. You know, how many times have we talked about the longer something goes on, the worst outcome is when it comes to missing persons and missing children. But I'll also tell you something else. This case is not over. There is still a chance to solve these murders. They know who the leader

of this cult was. These people were obviously well-known and well-documented, news articles written on them. They can go back and identify these people. They need to start conducting interviews, and they need to dedicate some manpower to this and get this murder solved. That would be the ultimate closure for the family, to get this child back, who's now a grown woman, but to also have justice for these two murdered family members. Yeah, I'm so happy we found Holly, but I'm not letting go of the murders. Take a listen to the assistant AG. If you have any information regarding these murders, we ask that you come forward. Even if it's a piece of information that may not be concrete evidence.

We need to find pieces of the puzzle to solve this crime. The Texas AG's Office Cold Case Unit and the law enforcement agencies that work with us are committed to bringing justice in this case. We wish Holly the best. We're grateful that we found her. But we must continue with our purpose of finding who murdered this couple colleen fitzpatrick way in you know it is a an open uh homicide investigation right now and should there not be a codice hit you know to the dna we could certainly try and solve it using

forensic genealogy um just the way we solved the, you know, the identification of the Klaus, you know, Dean and Tina Klaus, you could do the same thing to solve the murder. So we'd be very open to helping with that. Now, wouldn't we need DNA from the killer off the bodies in order to do that? Well, yeah, we would need to look at the evidence and get the DNA from the clothes or the tape or the, you know, the bodies themselves. Of course, you have to use DNA from the crime scene to, you know, to do a DNA identification. So, you know, I'd hope there'd be something like that or the evidence is being researched. Absolutely. And that tape is a very good conduit for DNA. If you have information about this double homicide or think you do, please call 512-463-2100. Repeat, 512-463-2100.

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