Amazing story below. things to note: the abducted child’s parents never gave up hope and continued to celebrate her birthday in her absence for 50+ years (despite themselves being accused of covering up their daughter’s death), things which some on here and elsewhere have sneered at the McCanns for doing. Question is, would you have told these parents that their hope was pointless and misplaced, that holding parties for her birthday was pathetic, that they should just accept their child was dead? I’m guessing probably you would.
Parents find daughter 51 years after her abduction
David Charter, Washington
Wednesday November 30 2022, 12.01am, The Times
Melissa with her mother, Alta Apantenco, and father Jeffrie Highsmith
Melissa with her mother, Alta Apantenco, and father Jeffrie Highsmith
A family who never gave up searching for their daughter after she was abducted by a woman posing as a babysitter 51 years ago have been reunited with her.
The discovery was made after a genealogy website matched her father Jeffrie Highsmith’s DNA to that of three grandchildren he never knew he had.
They are the children of Melanie Brown, who agreed to meet Highsmith and his former partner, Alta Apantenco, after they contacted her with the evidence that she was in fact their long-lost daughter, Melissa Highsmith.
At first she did not believe that they were her parents but, after they mentioned a birthmark on her back, she agreed to take a DNA test. They had an emotional reunion last weekend in Fort Worth, Texas, and a formal police DNA test is under way to confirm the match identified by the 23andMe website.
According to her sisters, Brown now wants to be known as Melissa instead of Melanie and is planning to renew her wedding vows so she can be married under her birth name and have her father walk her down the aisle.
“We found Melissa!” the family posted on Facebook, bringing closure on five decades of heartache, guilt and malicious gossip that they had covered up the death or murder of their daughter.
“Though missing for decades, the family never forgot about Melissa,” they wrote, adding that they had “continued to throw birthday parties for her, including the most recent one in November. That same day, the family found a match in DNA results.”
Fort Worth police said they would investigate whether the woman who brought up Melissa as Melanie was involved in her kidnapping. The statute of limitations for charges has long passed.
Melissa’s mother was working as a waitress in 1971 and was desperate for childcare so she could keep the job she needed to pay her bills after separating from Melissa’s father. She placed an advertisement in a newspaper looking for a babysitter.
A woman who responded agreed to meet her at the restaurant where she worked but she never showed.
The woman called later, saying that she cared for other children. Melissa’s mother arranged for her to pick up her daughter from her shared apartment but the woman then disappeared.
Sharon Highsmith, another daughter of Apantenco, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: “She couldn’t risk getting fired. So, she trusted the person who said they’d care for her child.”
