American woman, kidnapped as a baby, reunited with family after 51 years

After five decades of searching, a woman in the United States who went missing as a baby 51 years ago has been located and reunited with her family. On August 23, 1971, Melissa Highsmith was kidnapped from her home in Fort Worth, Texas, by a person posing as a babysitter, according to a report in The Guardian.

Her mother, Alta Apantenco, placed an ad for a babysitter in a newspaper. She hired a woman without ever meeting her as someone had to look after her daughter while she worked as she was raising the little one alone. Melissa was given to the babysitter by Mrs. Apatenco’s roommate, who then allegedly kidnapped her and disappeared with her.

In September of this year, Highsmith’s relatives received a tip that she was near Charleston, which is more than 1,000 miles from Fort Worth. The DNA test results, Melissa’s birthmark and her birthday all helped the family prove that Melissa was the child abducted from them 51 years earlier, the outlet further reported.

Melissa met her mother, father and two of her four siblings on Saturday at a celebration at the family’s church in Fort Worth, according to a statement from the group carried by The protector.

Read also: American woman gives birth to baby in McDonald’s bathroom and calls her “Little Nugget”

According to Sharon Highsmith, Melissa’s sister, her family contacted Lisa Jo Schiele, a clinical lab scientist and amateur genealogist, for help deciphering the important DNA results and digging through publicly available information to find Melissa.

“Our family has suffered at the hands of agencies that mismanaged this case,” said Ms Sharon Highsmith. “Right now we want to get to know Melissa, welcome her into the family and make up for 50 years of lost time,” she told The Guardian.

It is also reported that their mother was accused of possibly murdering her missing daughter and concealing the crime.

Click for more trending news