Thread by @HoustonChron

After 40 years, a murdered Houston couple has finally been identified. But where is their missing baby?
✏️ @stjbs
➡️ houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

@stjbs When he left his home in Florida to build houses in Houston, life seemed promising for Harold Dean Clouse, his mother said.

But he was sometimes prone to poor decisions, his sister said. In the mid-70s, he’d run off and join a cult and dabble with drugs. houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

It wasn’t until he’d returned from that misadventure that he met Tina Gail Linn, his brother-in-law’s sister.

Soon enough, he became infatuated with her. They then married and had Hollie. houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

With responsibility for a family, Clouse told his mom that he was thinking about moving to Texas.

His mom let him borrow - and later buy - her car. For a time, letters occasionally arrived in Florida from the couple. Then, in late 1980, they stopped. houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

A few months later, Clouse’s mother got a call from a group of people saying they had her son’s car and would drive it back to her from California for $1K.

She agreed, and a trio of women showed up with the car, dressed in religious-looking robes. houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

Donna Casasanta begged them to let her speak to Clouse, to give her some information about her son.

They couldn’t answer any questions about Clouse or Linn. They only told her that they’d joined a religious group and were cutting ties with the family. houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

On a January day in 1981, a dog in north Harris County wandered out of the woods. It carried a human arm in its jaws.

That grisly finding led police to the bodies of two people: a young man, beaten to death, and a woman, who died after being strangled. houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

No one in Houston knew who they were. At the time, officials hired a pastel artist to create sketches based on photos of the corpses.

🗣️The move was “probably our last shot,” the now-deceased medical investigator said at the time. houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

Years later, staff with @Identifinders, connected the remains’ DNA to Clouse’s close cousins living in Kentucky.

The break was the result of new genealogical testing contributed by millions of people using testing sites, like Gedmatch and FamilyTreeDNA. houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

For the family of Clouse and Linn, it was closure for a question that agonized them for decades. It also brought a sharp new pain:

What about their baby? houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

If the baby is still alive, she would be turning 42 — although she likely doesn’t know anything about her true identity — or the relatives out there wondering what happened to her.

That will likely present significant challenges for investigators. ➡️houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

Casasanta takes heart in the fact that she finally knows what happened to her son.

“We can lay it to rest. We know he’s gone and she’s gone and I know they are both in heaven,” she said.

But she still wonders about Hollie.

“I hope we can find her." houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…