FAMILY MATTERS

Kidnapped Texas Toddler Reunited With Her Family—51 Years Later

Melissa Highsmith was just 22 months old when she was snatched out of her parents’ home by a purported babysitter in 1971.

A woman kidnapped as a toddler more than a half-century ago has been reunited with her family, they announced on Sunday. Melissa Highsmith, now 53, was just 22 months old in 1971 when she was snatched out of her parents’ home by a purported babysitter. Her discovery comes two months after an anonymous tipster reported a potential sighting of Highsmith in Charleston, South Carolina, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Highsmith was eventually tracked down in Fort Worth, where she was using the name Melissa Walden, KTVT reported. The Highsmith family said DNA evidence eventually led to their daughter’s discovery, with further forensic testing to come in order to confirm a match, “although in the moment we saw her pictures, found out about her birthmark, and realized her “birthday” is so close to our Melissa, WE KNEW beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was OUR GIRL,” they wrote in a celebratory Facebook post, adding later that the “joy is palpable amongst all family members.”