Criminology - The Clouse Family Murders

Episode Date: January 30, 2022

The bodies of Harold and Tina Clouse were found in Houston, Texas in January of 1981 but it took 41 years to identify them. A lot of hard work went into the identification of Harold and Tina. But, once that was completed, there were a large number of questions to answer. What was the couple involved with back in 1981 and who may have murdered them? Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the mysterious case of Harold and Tina Clouse. Once they were identified, it was learned that the couple had a young daughter named Holly. This is an ongoing case as Harold and Tina were only recently identified. There have been reports that it is possible that they may have been involved with a cult. Did this cult have anything to do with what happened to Harold and Tina? And is there a woman out there right now that has no idea she is Holly Marie Clouse? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 192 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And I'm Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, what's up with you, buddy? Not too much. We were just talking a little bit before we started recording about some possible bad weather, some snow coming for part of the country. So hopefully it's not too bad for people, but maybe they'll just kick back, uh, put the covers on and listen to some criminology. How about you? Hey, I'm fine with that. No, I'm,

doing well. You and I are both working out. We were talking about that too before we started recording. And so, you know, we're trying to slim down a little bit before Vegas CrimeCon. It's kind of hard to believe, man. It's coming up very, very quick. We're literally, what, 90 days away or so from CrimeCon Vegas. Yeah, it's April 29th through May 1st, 2022, and I know you and I have been excited for this and talking about it for a while. It seemed like it would never get here, and I think it's definitely going to be fun. We've heard from a lot of people that say they're going and we're excited to see them and meet up with them.

If you haven't made your plans, I think it's crunch time right now. Yeah, no doubt it is. So don't wait. Make your plans now if you're going to go. And why not save a few bucks in the process? Just go over to crimecon.com. Use our promo code when you register for CrimeCon Vegas. which is criminology, and you'll save 10% on your standard badge.

And you mention it more for looking forward to seeing people. We'll definitely have some type of get together and we'll let people know more about it as we get closer to that time. Before we jump into this episode, let's give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Denisea Salomovic. We had Gibby's number one fan and Jane Powell. So some great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, that goes a long way to helping us put up the show, and we can't thank you enough.

And for anyone that would like to support criminology, you can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. All right. So all that out of the way, it's time to jump into this episode. You know, we spent a lot of time on criminology talking about cases where someone remained unidentified for a long time, even with family members actively looking for them. In some cases, this has been due to issues with jurisdiction or limits with technology. In this episode, we're talking about the case of Tina and Harold Klaus,

and this is a case that recently made headlines because the victims were finally identified 41 years after the remains were found. A missing person's report was never officially filed for Tina and Harold. Because early on, it seems if there was some disbelief that they had met with foul play and perhaps had vanished of their own free will. In many cases, news of victims being identified provides us with more answers. But in the case of Tina and Harold Klaus, the mystery of what happened to them and who is responsible remains. On January 12, 1981, two bodies, just a few feet apart from one another, were found about 100 feet south of Wallaceville Road in Houston, Texas. The thickly wooded area was very secluded, and these bodies may have never been found, if not for

a dog that actually led to the discovery of the remains when it returned home with a human arm bone in its mouth. The spot where the dog actually found the bone was unknown, and authorities had to search the woods in the area. Finally, the bodies were discovered. One body, a male, was tied up and gagged. He had been beaten. The other body, a woman, had been strangled. Investigators believed they had been dead for about two weeks before they were found, possibly killed around New Year's Day. It couldn't be determined whether they had been killed at the spot where they were found, a secluded area down an overgrown path in the woods, where the dog stumbled upon the remains, or whether they were murdered somewhere else. Neither victim was found to have an ID on them.

The area where they were found, even today, four decades later, when viewed, on a map shows only a few homes in the immediate area, and it's pretty thick with trees. This area is along a road called seclusion drive, an aptly named road in this case. In addition to the few homes nearby, there also appears to be access roads or old railroad tracks that look like ways to gain access to that area without necessarily raising suspicion of any neighbors. If the victims were on foot, they may not have set off any alarm bells for nearby neighbors at all, as opposed to a vehicle making its way to the location. There were no reports of gunshots being heard around the time the victims were believed to

have died, and as we mentioned, the causes of death were a beating and strangulation, both generally quiet ways to kill. So it is possible that the pair were killed where they were found. John Doe was determined to be white with dark brown, wavy hair. His age was estimated to be between 16 and 30 years old. He may have had a previous back injury. As evidenced by old damage found to a spine area, he had one filling in his teeth and may have had his wisdom teeth removed. Jane Doe was also white with possible Native American ancestry.

She had dark reddish brown hair that was long and worn in a ponytail. She had brown eyes. Her right ear was pierced. And she was noted to have signs of, of excessive facial hair growth. She had four fillings in her teeth, and her age was estimated to be between 15 and 25 years old. She was wearing green shorts.

A bloody towel was found close to her body. There was no mention of sexual assault released publicly and the fact that she was still wearing clothes on the lower half of her body. May point away from that as being a motive. Jane Doe's fingers showed that. that she frequently bit her nails. Police checked for cases of missing couples in the area to see if Jane and John Doe may be a match to any, but they had no luck. Forensic sketches of the two unidentified victims were created by artist Mary Mize and released to the public. John Doe's

sketch depicted a man with a unibrow. The sketches of both victims showed them with tan skin and dark hair. They looked very similar as if they could have been siblings. John and Jane Doe collectively came to be known as the Harris County Does. The two were buried in the Harris County Popper Cemetery. Another Jane Doe found in Harris County in 1982 would later be buried next to them. So obviously more if this is the early 1980s. So we're talking pre-DNA days here. And, you know, I think you have to kind of talk about it.

Just how hard was it for the authorities to try to figure out, you know, who a John or Jane Doe was without the benefit of DNA. I mean, obviously, you have fingerprints and they had some tools to work with, but definitely nothing like what is available today. And I think if there's no fingerprints at all that can be gained or examined and compare to other prints that are on file, it's going to be an uphill battle. And I think without an idea on them and not matching any nearby, cases, you know, what do you do if you're those detectives back then? There's not much you can do

besides maybe circulate the information and hopefully someone out there in another jurisdiction or whatever says, hey, that sounds like our case or it might be a couple we have missing in our area. Just as police were stumped by who the Harris County doves were, they were equally baffled by who killed them and what? The case of the Harris County does are similar to other cases we've covered like the Sumter County Doze. That case, which we covered in episode 145, unlike the Harris County Does, received a lot of online attention over the years and generated a lot of discussion on forums. For whatever reason, the Sumter County Doe's just received more coverage. I think it's important to discuss the area of Texas where the Harris County Doe's were found.

Harris County is the largest county in the state of Texas, which itself is a large and very populated state. As we mentioned, Harris County, despite having a large population of around 4.7 million residents in 2021, has many wide open and hard-to-access patches of woods and fields. I-45, a major highway running from Galveston, north to Dallas, passes right through Harris County in the Houston area. It's in this area that for almost three decades, from the 1970s to the 1990s, many murder victims, many of which were young women and girls were found in a series of killings dubbed the I-45 murders.

We covered the I-45 murders in episode 111. It seems likely that the I-45 victims were the work of multiple killers as opposed to one single serial killer. But no matter the number of killers, what's clear is that Harris County and the I-45 area back then was a dangerous place.

For years, the case of the Harris County does was dormant, but science and technology was evolved. which led to renewed hope that the pair might one day be identified. In July 2011, the bodies of the Harris County Does were exhumed in order to obtain their DNA for testing. The Jane Doe buried next to them was also exhumed at the same time because Harris County authorities were trying to clear their backlog of unsolved cases. The exhumation process was overseen by Dr. Jennifer Love, the forensic anthroposoph, Apology Director of the Identification Unit at the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office. Investigators wanted to determine if the two doze were related and even the most basic of DNA work would quickly determine that.

At the time in 2011, the Harris County doze were one of four pairs of still unidentified homicide victims in Harris County alone, and they were also just two of over 400 unidentified deceased people in the county. A staggering number. Dr. Love noted during her examination of the remains that both victims had very good dental hygiene, stating that they had beautiful teeth. But basically, that was the only new information about the victims. It's unknown if the bloody towel found that the crime scene was preserved, or if any samples were taken from it, to be analyzed. That information isn't available from police. There are really no other mentions of the towel other than it being found. It could potentially be blood from whoever killed the pair. But unless police disclose this information,

we may never know. As far as the case of the Jane Doe buried next to the Harris County Doe's, a web sleuth user named Polly Penwell noticed a possible match between Jane Doe and a 15-year-old named Michelle Garvey, who had been missing from Connecticut since June 1982. She submitted her hunch to authorities. And they felt strongly enough that Polly might be correct that they looked into the Michelle Garvey case. Using a DNA sample from Michelle Garvey's brother to compare to their Jane Doe, they found it matched. Harris County Jane Doe was confirmed to be Michelle. Not much is known about her case, but Michelle had run away from her home in Connecticut and had apparently hitched a ride and ended up in Texas. Her murder is

still unsolved. And how cool is it that someone that's an online sleuth or a citizen detective, whatever you want to call it, takes some time, does some research and winds up hitting the nail on the head with this person being the unidentified victim. I think that's really cool. Yeah, it's kind of amazing when you think about it. I mean, there are a lot of people like Polly Pinwell out there. A lot of people are fascinated with true crime. Many people study certain cases or, you know, disappearances. And we know a lot of people have their own theories. In this case, Polly developed a theory based on some certain information and it turned out to be correct. The other thing that I think is amazing morph is that the authorities actually looked into her hunch.

because I'm not sure that that might happen all that often. You've got a lot of amateur sluice out there, probably sending in information to various jurisdictions. I just wonder how many times those types of tips or hunches or whatever you want to call them get discarded and are never really followed up on when they may actually be correct. Yeah. kudos to the police in this case for taking her serious and putting a little bit of work and giving

it a shot and finding out that she was right, you know, because of that. Michelle's family, you know, at least knows a part of what happened to her and they can have some kind of peace in that. In October 2021, the California-based company Identifierer's International was tasked with trying to ID the Harris County Does. Identifiners International was founded by one of the co-founders of the DNA Doe Project, Colleen Fitzpatrick. We've definitely talked about Colleen in previous episodes of criminology, and I'm sure we'll probably mention her again, as more and more cases are solved through the use of forensic genetic genealogy. Using the DNA sequenced from a sample taken during the 2011 Exclamation, investigators from Identifiers

International uploaded the DNA profiles of both John and Jane Doe into Jedmatch.com. As many of our listeners likely already know, this website is similar to Ancestry.com or 23 and me, but users can opt in to allow law enforcement to use their information for potential matches on Jedmatch, unlike on some of the other sites. In very little time, Harris County John Doe was easily identified. In October 2021, just 10 days after Identifinders International was officially on the case, a woman named Debbie Brooks received a call from her husband while she was at her job, at a semiconductor plant, he told her that two genealogists wanted to speak to her and that it was urgent.

When Debbie called them back, she spoke to Misty Gillis, who asked her if she had any missing relatives. Immediately, Debbie told Misty that her brother, Harold Dean Klaus Jr, had been missing for more than 40 years. Misty then broke the news to Debbie that it was believed that her brother had been found murdered in 1981, alongside a female who had also been murdered, but who they were still working to try to identify. Debbie gave Misty and her identifiers colleague Allison Peacock, information that would make their work a lot easier. Debbie excitedly told Misty and Allison that her brother Harold's wife, Tina, had gone missing at the same time. Using Florida marriage records, Allison discovered that Tina's full name was Tina Gal Lynn.

Identify under his International were then able to contact Tina's family and obtain a sample of their DNA, which proved that Harris County Jane Doe was indeed Tina Galin Klaus, the wife of Harold Claus. Misty Gillis was able to track down Harold's information pretty easily because Kentucky, where Harold was born, has their birth records available to view online. but Oklahoma where Tina was born keeps their birth records private. At the same time, Misty Gillis was working to identify full details for Harold's background. Allison Peacock had tracked down Tina's grandparents. But the process to identify Tina herself was slow because her grandparents apparently had 11 kids who lived in six different states.

Cooming through the records took some time. and she was running into trouble getting information from any of the Jane Doe's first cousins. Some had never called her back. One even hung up on her. Finally, one of Tina Lynn's cousins called back and helped tie everything together to confirm Tina's identity. Identifiers were finally able to paint a clear picture of Harold and Tina's background. Harold and Tina Klaus married in June 1979. while they were living in New Smyrna Beach in Volusia County, Florida.

They met because Tina's brother was married to Harold's older sister, Debbie. He came home one day without warning and told his mom that they had gotten married at the courthouse. The pair was clearly in love and didn't want to wait to plan out a fancy wedding. On January 24, 1980, the two welcomed a baby girl they named Holly Marie. The same year, Harold was offered a job with the builder, D.R. Horton, in Texas, where Harold believed he could better take care of Tina and Holly. Harold talked his mother into loaning him or car, a sort of borrow to rent to own kind of deal.

And then he moved his family from Florida to Houston in 1980. It was at his new job that Harold would build custom cabinets in brand new houses, something that he was pretty skilled at. They kept in touch with family in Florida through letters. Eventually, Harold and Tina moved to Louisville, Texas, closer to Dallas. In the beginning of December 1980, Tina sent Harold's mother a letter and photograph of them with their baby Holly Marie Klaus. Everything seemed to be going well for the

young family. Then the letters back home to Florida stopped with no warning. In early 1981, after months of not hearing from either Harold or Tina, Donna Cassa Santa, Harold's mother got a call, but not from Harold. Instead, it was from a man calling about Harold's car. The man claimed that he had found it in Los Angeles, California. Days later, he called back, offering to have someone drive it from Los Angeles, where it had apparently been found earlier in the year. He said he would drive a cross-country to Daytona, Florida, where Harold's mother lived. But for his trouble, he wanted $1,000. Donna agreed that she would pay the $1,000 in return for the car. Donna talked about this call with some police officers who were regulars at the restaurant where she worked at. And they told her that she should just take her car back since it's still in her name and not pay anyone for it. In the summer of 1981, three women showed up with Harold's car. One of them looked to be about 30 years old. And the other two looked to be a little younger. One of the women, the older one, called herself Sister Suzanne or Susan, the two younger women who appeared to be between

15 and 20, apparently only tried to speak a few times, but every time they did. Sister Suzanne hushed them and she mostly took the leap. All three of the women wore what was described as religious-looking robes and sandals. They all had long hair. Donna questioned sister Suzanne wanting answers about where Harold, Tina, and Holly were. They hadn't sent any more letters. They hadn't been in contact by phone. And a stranger had Harold's car.

Obviously, she was very worried. So, more of let's take a step back here because there's a lot going on. Harold's mother, you know, has not heard from the family, Harold, Tina, Polly, for some time. All of a sudden, she gets a call from a man saying that he has Harold's car. But it's not near Dallas where they live. he says he found it in Los Angeles, California. Okay, right off the bat, you've got to try to process that. Number one, where are they?

Why does this man have Harold's car and why was it found in Los Angeles? On top of that, he's offering to drive it out to Florida. But he wants $1,000. Okay. Now all of a sudden, three women show up with Harold's car, dressed in, you, know, what was described as a religious type garb. One of the women, the older of the three, is kind of doing all the talking. Obviously, you know, Harold's mom's going to want to know what they're there for. And she's going to have a lot of questions. Yeah, and I feel so sorry for

Don and Harold's mom because she's essentially got to go by what these people are saying and telling her. You know, this is before cell phones. This is before FaceTime, before, you know, find my friend apps and things like that. So she's got no way to track them. You know, the only ways that she could be in contact with them back then were through letters or through phone calls. And perhaps, there's not a lot of mentions about phone calls happening. Maybe they were on a budget and it was long distance back then. You couldn't call across the country without running up a pretty high bill. so it might have been only letters that they were sending. So when these letters stopped for her,

she's at the mercy of these people to give her any kind of information, and she has no way to know if what they're saying's true, and that had to be just a terrible position for her to be and to not know what was going on. And unfortunately for Donna, these strangers wouldn't answer any questions about Harold or Tina, and they wouldn't say anything about where they were. Sister Suzanne told Donna that Harold and Tina didn't want to speak to her anymore,

and that they were happy with the group of people they were now with. Dejected, Donna had what she believed was her answer. Her son had cut off ties from his own family. She had no idea that by the time Harold's car was supposedly found in Los Angeles, he and Tina had already been murdered, and their bodies discovered in Harris County, Texas, but were listed as unidentified victims. And there was no sign of remains of an infant child near them.

Details surrounding Donna's dealings with these three women are murky. we don't know for sure if she wound up paying for the car or not, and if she got it back or not. If she did get the car, it would seem like it could be full of potential evidence, something police may have had interest in, but unfortunately, we just don't know. Donna told authorities that her now missing son had previously joined a religious cult and that the visit from the three strange women made it possible that he had joined another one. At the time, police believed that idea that Harold and Tina had likely rejoined the cult. Donna was not able to file an official missing persons report for Harold or Tina, as it was believed they were missing of their own free will. I think it might sound hard to believe for some listeners that a family could just disappear and join a cult. But during that time period, there was a lot of that going on, which we're going to get into a little bit as we go along in the episode.

people would join these cults and would disappear and get mixed up with them. And many times our families were cut off from them. So this may not have been hard to believe for police as opposed to today. It would sound a little bit more far-fetched. But back then this was a lot more common. Well, you know, whatever group you might want to talk about, if you want to call it a cult or just a group, you know, some of these entities kind of had that MO. which was to try to cut off the members of the group from their family. I mean, if you've watched documentaries about these types of groups or cults,

if you want to call them that, it's pretty evident that many of them had that plan in place, right? To keep the members contained, to keep them in the group. part of that was to force them or coerce them into cutting off ties with their family. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder which emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do

but had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio and Twitter. Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Donna, after waiting for five years with no answers and no contact from her son, reached out to the Social Security Administration and the Salvation Army, trying to make sure that both Harold and Tina's names were on an updated yearly list of missing people. Tina's family, too, filed a missing persons report with the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army has a missing persons program that exists,

to help families make contact with missing loved ones. This type of program run by civilians, not law enforcement, can help people who don't want contact with their family, at least let their family know that they're safe and not really missing. Unfortunately, Donna didn't find any additional information on her missing son using these methods. Harold and Tina's baby, Holly Marie Klaus, was last known to be alive in late 1980,

when the photos we mentioned were taken of her and sent to Harold's mother. As far as Donna knew, baby Holly and her parents were somewhere, maybe still in Texas, happy with a group of like-minded religious folk. At the time the photos were taken, Holly had just learned to walk, as shown in some of the photos of her pushing a stroller that were sent to Donna. For years, she wondered about her granddaughter and how she was doing. The best clue or starting point in figuring out who murdered Harold and Tina,

might be the women that delivered Harold's car to Donna. It's unclear exactly who the sister Suzanne was, or which religious groups she may have been part of. It's also unknown whether she was a part of the same group that Harold had been involved with, or how she was associated with the unknown man who called Donna about the car in the first place. In the mid-1970s, Harold had left home and joined a cult

and experimented with drugs. It was determined that Harold had been known to associate with members of the religious groups, the Brethren, as well as the Jesus people. There appears to be a group called the Brethren, associated with a man named Jimmy T. Roberts. This movement was created in 1971 with the bulk of followers from California and Colorado. Many recruits to the brethren, also called the brothers and sisters,

were members of the Jesus movement, which started on the western coast of the U.S. in the late 1960s, and spread across the globe. until the movement faded out in the late 1980s. The Brethren believed that we were at the end of days, which in Christian theology would generally include a great tribulation, plagues, earthquakes, wars, things like that, as well as the revelation or apocalypse,

and perhaps the rapture and or the second coming of Christ. The many different Christian denominations make this hard to explain completely and quickly, especially because many different groups use brethren in their name, obscuring which group we're actually talking about here. Jimmy Roberts, brethren, believe that salvation must be earned. Members seek to cleanse and purify themselves by getting rid of their earthly possessions, including their money, due to passages like Luke 1433, which states,

So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh, not all that he hath. He cannot be my disciple. And another verse, for we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us be there with content. The brethren took this very seriously, even going as far as to shun their family members, who were not believers. This practice was backed up by scriptures such as Matthew 1929's message, and everyone that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or church. children or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold and shall inherit everlasting

life. It appears that new recruits to the brethren would often, but not always, write home a few times, with their letters becoming increasingly distant and more critical of their family until finally communication was cut off. The letters generally start with one assuring their family back home that everything is okay. There would sometimes be one final letter sent with a final statement saying that the brethren cult member didn't want to see their family back home anymore. This does line up in some ways with the few letters Donna got when Harold moved his family west to Texas.

What these letters would seem to do is buy the cult some time. If the cult members' family had just heard from them saying that everything, you was fine, the cult could then take possession of the member's belongings or perhaps even their children and maybe more easily get away with harming them and slipping away before anyone who knew them noticed that anything was wrong. And more if I kind of mentioned this practice with some of these types of groups, right, forcing the members to distance themselves from their families. I'm not saying all of these groups did it to then try. try to harm their members or or anything like that.

But if they had wanted to, you know, if some of these cults had that type of motive, this kind of forced distancing from a member's family kind of gave them the perfect opportunity. Yeah, I think in this scenario, the cult members family would just assume that they were busy or fine in whatever was going on in their lives. And they'd be sitting around waiting for the next letter. to come, unaware that something had happened to their loved one, and by the time they do realize something's wrong, any clues to what happened could be hard to find. In Harold's case, his family was

focused on the Los Angeles area, where the caller claimed Harold's car was found, but now it seems likely that he never left Texas. This redirection kept the family from looking in the Texas area for years. On the website for the Roberts Group Parents Network, an organization of parents with a child lost to a cult, the story of a 22-year-old man named Robert Carroll is highlighted. According to his parents, he was on his way home from an Alaskan vacation in September 1974 when he was recruited by the group led by Jim Roberts. He soon stopped contacting his family, except for one visit home with another brother, a member of the group. When it became apparent that the only reason for the visit was to try and recruit his family

and it wasn't working, Robert and the other brother left. After many years of searching, Robert's family learned that he had been basically banished from the group and left on his own after he experienced an emotional breakdown in Houston, Texas. As far as it seems online, he was never tracked down. This story, if nothing else, shows a connection between the brethren who cut off ties with their families and the Houston area, which may strengthen the possibility that Harold fell in with the Jim Roberts group. 41 years after Harold and Tina's unidentified bodies were found in Harris County, Texas, their murders remained unsolved. But that's just one part of the mystery, the other being what happened to their baby daughter, Holly.

And could she be alive? If she is still alive, Holly Marie Klaus would have just turned 42 on January 24th. It's possible that she was adopted illegally by a family, maybe someone related to the Jesus movement or the brethren, and Holly may have no idea that her real parents are dead. Murder victims discarded in Harris County four decades ago. Allison Peacock from Identifinders is working with the National Centers for Missing and Exploited Children to develop an age progression. to give the public some idea of what Holly may look like today.

As of January 19th, 2002, three women have purchased ancestry DNA kits, specifically related to Holly Marie Klaus. That's at least three women who think they could be Holly. According to Allison Peacock, one woman has come forward indicating that she had a memory of Tina, babysitting her and her sister when she was a child.

This woman also had a second little sister that no one remembers her mother being pregnant with. It was almost as if just one day out of the blue. This woman and her sister were suddenly greeted with a new baby sister. These girls didn't have a great childhood. In fact, Alison Peacock says the woman who reached out shared some terrible stories. And they do suspect that Holly may be their little sister. The woman recalls bad things she has. and her sister saw happened to Tina Klaus, around their parents. And they also remember moving

in the little of night multiple times when they were growing up. Not much more can be said about this lead due to the open investigation, but Allison Peacock says it's being strongly pursued. It's not clear if this is the same woman whose sister believes she may be Holly, but Allison said there's one woman whose phenotype is pretty similar to Hollies, her chin shape, eyes, and her nose, the way her genetics express themselves. It seems that there's hope to find Holly, even if she isn't related to anyone who has come forward to this point, and hope to reunite other families too. The Hope for Holly Project has been launched by Family History Detectives, and they will screen, DNA test, and help identify those with uncertain childhoods, including the women who have come

forward with possible memories of Tina Klaus. A memorial gathering will take place for Harold and Tina Klaus in early March 2022. If you follow us on social media, we'll try to share more details on this ceremony as we get closer to the actual date in March. Hopefully one day we can share

information that Holly has been found and is alive and if that happens, it could lead to the question of who killed her parents being answered once and for all. If you have information about the whereabouts of Holly Klaus or the murders of Harold and Tina

You can contact identifiers international at 714-576-6-377. If you happen to be a woman around the ages of 40 and 45, and you're hearing this, and you think you might be Holly, we highly encourage you to get a home DNA testing kit through Ancestry 23 and Me, and keep your eye out for the upcoming age progression of Holly. You never know who may be out there looking for you. If you think there's any possibility that you may be Holly, and you've already taken a DNA test through one of these sites, we also encourage you to upload your data to jedmatch.com. There's a lot to think about with this case. We know that the area of Texas

where the Klaus family lived was a dangerous place. We talked about the I-45 corridor there. There was a lot of bad stuff going on, a lot of bad people, a lot of bodies turning up. So it was a dangerous area. And I wonder, is it possible that the Klaus's weren't even evictive. of a cult that somehow they ran into one of these dangerous people, or maybe had a jealous person in their life that wanted their child and killed them for that reason. And the cult thing is just a red herring, just something that takes the case in a different direction and keeps us from looking where we should be looking. I think there's a lot to examine here. Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt. The cult angle, especially. You know, I want to be careful because

there have been a lot of quote unquote cults or groups throughout the years, you know, many of them extremely benign. And, and so, you know, I'm worried that, you know, I don't want to come off as too down on cults in general. I think specifically, though, when you look at the ones that we talked about, there was some evidence that there may have been some less than ideal things going on in those cults. But I agree with you, Morf, in that the cult angle, and you can kind of maybe compare it to satanic panic a little bit, is possibly just an easy way out, right, to explain what happened to these individuals. I guess you have to, ask the question, what is more likely that they were the victim of some bad act perpetrated by a

cult or that they were, you know, killed by, you know, someone that they knew that had an axe to grind with them or that they were a victim of another type of serial predator. I think the one thing that really stands out in this episode, you know, obviously you have. Obviously, you have, have the deaths of two individuals, Harold and Tina, but we know they had a daughter. And it's kind of that what happened to Holly? You know, did she meet with an untimely end as well? And her body has just never been found. Or is she still alive? Possibly having no recollection of her parents, not really knowing who she really is. I mean, that's a fascinating angle, obviously very sad.

So there's still so many questions to be answered in this case. And the one thing I go back to is something I mentioned earlier in the episode, the lack of technology, social media, there was no Facebook, there were no cell phones, no FaceTime. So it was very hard for the Klaus's to keep. keep in touch with their families and very hard to get a picture of what they were doing in their everyday lives, who they were hanging out with, what was going on. If they went to different functions, you know, people will post, hey, I'm at this place checking in. That wasn't a thing back then.

So a letter every once in a while was, or a phone call, a long distance was the best you would get. The one thing we don't have in this case, because there's just not a lot of information about it is what kind of investigation was done into the friends, the coworkers, acquaintances, neighbors, people like that of the Klausus, who may have been able to tell us a little bit more here and paint a broader picture who was coming and going to their home, who were they hanging out with, did they have any run-ins with anyone? I think that's what we're missing. And I hope that maybe since this case is partially solved, that more answers will come out and we'll be able to find out that, yes, people knew the Klausus back then and they're sharing information, they're providing

tips, and maybe it will lead to some answers and some kind of justice here. Yeah, so, you know, the other thing with this case is that the Klausus were just identified. I mean, it literally happened months ago. So I think to your point, I do believe that maybe some of that information will still come out about, you know, people they knew where they lived in Texas and what was going on. Now, it could be if they really were heavily involved in, you know, one of these types of groups that they only socialized with people in the group. And they didn't have a lot of friends outside the group. They didn't talk to their neighbors. So, I mean, a lot of that stuff is still yet to come out.

And to your point, only associating with people in the group is interesting because a lot of times people escape these cults and they look back on their time and say, what was I thinking? Why did I join them? A lot of people change and look back and they know that that stuff they were doing, it wasn't something that was healthy for them. And someone like that escaped this cult and went on to live in the area, maybe they had. have information and they can go back and say, yes, I was part of that cult. I remember them being in it. Or the reverse. Maybe someone comes forward and says, hey, I was high up in that cult and I didn't know

them at all. I don't remember them being in the cult. And that might lead in the investigation in a different direction looking towards someone with a, you know, a motive, someone close to them. Yeah, it's interesting to do these types of cases. but one of the hurdles that you run into is when things are so fresh, right? Things are happening. They were just identified, you know, four months ago.

So there's still a lot of unknown. There's always unknown in these unsolved cases, even more so here because a lot of the breakthroughs happened so recently. So I do think, you know, this is a case to really keep on the radar. Because I do believe there's going to be more to come out. Yeah, hopefully for their, for their family's sake. And for Holly, if she's out there someplace, that answers are going to be coming soon. And maybe it'll help us solve this mystery once and for all.

So more if that's it for our episode on Harold and Tina Klaus and obviously you have to add Holly in there as well. If you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating. Keep telling your friends. That word of mouth about the criminology podcast really goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at criminology pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for criminology podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast discussion and fans. So another episode of criminology is in the can, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode

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