Home photo of Tina, Holly Marie, and Dean Clouse

Harold, Tina, and Holly Marie Clouse (Credit: Debbie Brooks)

Tina Linn and Harold Dean Clouse Jr. both went missing along with their infant daughter Holly Marie Clouse who was 1 years old at the time. The two were known as Harris County Jane Doe and John doe from the time they were both discovered on January 12th, 1981. The couple and their daughter moved to Lewisville, Texas in the Summer of 1980 after deciding to leave Volusia County Florda. Tina was 17 at the time of her murder and Dean was 21. The couple became estranged from their families in October 1980. Dean was a carpenter and had moved his family to Texas in hopes of better career opportunities and began working with a home construction company. The family lived with Deans cousin while they worked on saving money to purchase a home.

It is believed that only after a few months of living in Texas the disappearances and murders took place approximately in October of 1980. The bodies were found just feet from each other in a swampy woodland area just north of Huston near Wallisville Road. A dog had brought a human arm that it had discovered to its owner, and this began the search. The bodies were in a heavily decomposed state and evidence revealed that they could have been deceased between 2 weeks to two months. A sketch artist was able to create facial portraits of both Dean and Tina and found that she had been strangled and he had been beaten to death. The police could not find any evidence as to why the couple would have been over 250 miles away from their last address. Deans mother, Donna Casanta reported the family missing in 1981 just weeks after their disappearance. The police did not conduct much of an investigation due to the assumption the couple had already cut off contact with their family once, they thought maybe they had simply done this again after police found evidence that their car had been returned to Florida by individuals who were involved in a nomadic religious group and that Dean and Tina were possibly members of this cult-like group.

Once Tina and Dean were identified in 2021 the search began on finding Holly since they had never found any infant remains with them. The theories of what happened to Holly ranged from kidnapping and the parents were murdered during the event, perhaps her body had been dragged away from the initial crime scene area by animals, maybe the killer(s) had dumped her body somewhere else since the body would have been so small, all of these questions continued and none of the remains that had been found during the time of the investigation never matched Hollys information which led everyone to believe that she was in fact still alive.

It was discovered that Holly was alive, she had been abandoned at a church in Arizona, and it was found that it had occurred after the time of the murders of her parents. A witness stated that the infant had been left by two women, who stated they were part of a nomadic religious group, they were barefoot and dressed in white robes. The church did not receive any other information from the two women. After years of determined research, and DNA testing, the family found Holly Marie alive at 42 years old, in Oklahoma on June 7th of 2022.

The investigation of Tina and Deans murders continue, and the family has not given up hope in finding what happened to them. Holly has stated that she believes that her biological parents had been murdered due to trying to leave the religious group and they were members prior to their murders.

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