Authorities confirmed the identity of a Texas woman who was abducted more than half a century ago and reunited with her family last year, police said Thursday.
The Fort Worth Police Department said it had completed DNA testing for Melissa Highsmith, who was allegedly taken by a babysitter 51 years ago, when she was 22 months old.
The testing confirmed the results of a home DNA test kit used by her family.
In a news release, the police department said that although the statute of limitations on possible criminal charges expired when Highsmith was 38, its major case unit continues to ask for the public’s help with information about the abduction.
Highsmith’s mother was initially suspected of possibly having killed the girl and concealed the crime, NBC Dallas-Fort Worth reported. The family said a babysitter who responded to an advertisement for child care took the infant, according to the station.
Highsmith told her family that her life had been hard and that she ran away from home at 15, according to the station. She’d lived most of her life in Fort Worth.
Highsmith's family spent decades trying to find her.
Sister Victoria Highsmith told the station that the discovery came late last year, weeks after her parents submitted DNA samples to Ancestry.com and 23andMe. The samples matched DNA submitted by Melissa Highsmith’s children, the sister told the station.