The Texas Attorney General Office announced Thursday that is has located Holly Clouse, an infant who went missing in 1981 when her parents were found dead near Houston.
On January 12, 1981, two bodies, apparent homicide victims, were discovered in a wooded area near a road in Harris County, according to a news release from the AG’s office. The victims’ identities could not be determined at the time.
Last year, Identifinders International used genetic genealogy to identify those victims as Tina Gail Linn Clouse, 17, and Harold Dean Clouse Jr., 21, a young couple who had been living in Lewisville and were missing. Their infant daughter, Holly, was not found with her parents’ remains and has been missing since then. Lewisville Police Det. Craig Holleman joined the investigation into Holly’s disappearance in November 2021, along with the AG Office’s Cold Case and Missing Persons Unit, 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.
On Tuesday, investigators met with Holly, a 42-year-old mother of five, in Oklahoma. She was informed about her biological parents and is in contact with her extended biological family. Holleman, who was present at the meeting with Holly, declined to comment publicly on the investigation other than to say “he is glad this family could be reunited and find some answers after so many decades,” according to a news release from the city of Lewisville.
In a press conference Thursday, Texas First Assistant AG Brent Webster relayed some of the investigation’s findings. Webster said two women wearing white robes, identifying as members of a nomadic religious group, left Baby Holly at a church in Arizona, where she was adopted and raised. The family that adopted Holly are not suspects in the case.
In late December 1980 or early January 1981, Tina and Dean’s families received a phone call from someone who identified herself as “Sister Susan.” “Sister Susan” told them that she was in Los Angeles and wanted to return Tina and Dean’s car to their families in Florida, in exchange for money, Webster said. She told them Tina and Dean joined their religious group and were giving up all their possessions and no longer wanted to be in contact with their families. The family had last heard from Tina and Dean in October 1980.
The family agreed to meet “Sister Susan” at the racetrack in Daytona, Florida, and they contacted police before the meeting. They met “Sister Susan” and a couple other apparent members of the nomadic religious group, and police took them into custody, but no police report has been found. The returned car was, in fact, the Clouses’ car. Police believe the Clouses were murdered in late December 1980 or early January 1981.
The investigation into the murders of Holly’s biological parents is ongoing and if anyone has information about their deaths, they are asked to contact the Texas Attorney General’s Cold Case and Missing Persons Unit at [email protected].
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