Murders of Dean and Tina Clouse

The then-unidentified bodies of the Clouses were found on 12 January 1981 in northern Harris County, Texas, in a boggy, wooded area just north of the Houston city limits.[1][2] A civilian’s dog let to wander into the woods returned to its owner with a decomposing human arm.[12] Search parties prompted by the dog’s discovery subsequently found the heavily decomposed bodies of the Clouse couple near Wallisville Road.[14][13] The bodies were found within feet of each other having been killed at approximately the same time, and taken to be part of the same case.[15] Both had been dead for anywhere between a week to two months, heavily decayed, with the male body already having been partially skeletonized.[16][17] However, their faces were still recognizable enough for a reconstruction to be drawn of each.[18] Despite significant decomposition, it was determined that both were victims of homicide. The female had been strangled, and the male had been bound and gagged[19] before being beaten to death.[20] It is believed that the female victim had been attacked first, and the male victim attacked for attempting to defend her.[2] Also recovered at the scene of discovery was a bloodied towel and a pair of gym shorts.[15] It was unclear if the bodies had been killed where they were found, or if they had been taken there afterwards.[15]

Further investigation turned up very few leads beyond what was gathered from the scene. Initial age estimates placed them as teenagers or young adults. Initial theories speculated that the female victim was attacked first and that the male victim had been killed while defending her. Harris County forensic artist Mary Mize drew the initial facial reconstructions of both victims,[21] but the reconstructions failed to generate any leads, now known to be because the Clouses had not built roots in Texas yet at the time of their deaths.[13][22] As yet unidentified, the "Does" were buried in the Harris County Cemetery.[6] No arrests were ever made in their murders and even after the victims were named this remains the case.[5]

The bodies were exhumed in July 2011 to extract DNA, originally to find out if they were related.[5][23] The funding for exhumation was acquired when Harris County received a grant from the National Institute of Justice to exhume several unidentified murder victims, including the Clouses, to extract their DNA and enter it into databases.[2] In charge of the exhumation of the Clouses was Jennifer Love, forensic anthropology director of the identification unit in the Harris County medical examiner’s office.[23] Funding for continued genealogical research into the Harris County Does was then secured from the true crime podcast company Audiochuck.[8][23]

Holly Marie was found alive in Oklahoma at 42 years old on 7 June 2022, which was also coincidentally Dean’s birthday.[8] While the search for Holly Marie was ongoing, it was hypothesized that if she were to be alive, she would not be aware of her identity or past, which ended up being correct.[5] While several different agencies were involved in the investigation into Holly Marie's disappearance, confusion occurred over whether her name was spelled as Hollie or Holly. When investigators asked to see her birth certificate, they found that it had been sealed due to an adoption.[27]

While few details of Holly Marie’s life have been released out of respect for her privacy, it has been reported that she has led a satisfactory life, with a 20-year marriage, five children and two young grandchildren.[7] Details of her childhood are also being kept confidential due to the investigation into her parents' deaths being an active case,[28] but it has been stated that her adoptive family was never considered suspect in her case.[1] The church that took Holly in had adopted her to a family, and both the church and the family were unaware of how Holly had come to be in the possession of the church and nomadic group.[9][26] Holly Marie met with her biological family over Zoom the same day she was found,[29] and NCMEC helped to fund a visit to Florida in November, 2022 so she could meet them in person.[26]

After her safe recovery, the Hope for Holly Project was renamed the Dean and Tina Linn Clouse Memorial Fund, shifting the focus to identifying other unidentified decedents.[8] A few months later, in October, 2022 growth of the memorial fund led to the establishment of a 501c3 charitable organization, Genealogy For Justice™ with members of the Clouse and Linn family, as well as genealogist Peacock acting as advisors. In the memorial fund's first sponsored case, Wilkes County, North Carolina native Virginia Higgins Ray was identified as a 1982 Columbia, South Carolina Jane Doe on Mother's Day, 2023.

In the 1970s, “Jesus freak” movements were common, and the structure of these movements could be favorable conditions for the formation of cults. However, they were decreasing in relevance by the 1980s.[2] According to his family, Dean had a history of interacting with such movements during his teenage years, but drifted away from them after meeting Tina Linn.[2]

During December 1980, and what is now known to be close to the time of the murders, a woman who introduced herself as “Sister Susan” reached out to the family of the couple in Florida, claiming to be interested in returning the couple’s car.[1] By that time, Dean and Tina had already been out of contact for more than several weeks.[2] The family agreed to meet Sister Susan and several other members of her religious group at Daytona Racetrack in Florida.[1] Multiple elements about the meeting did not make sense to the attending family members. The religious group arranged for the meeting to be at night.[30] During the meeting, though multiple members of the group were present, only Sister Susan spoke.[2] The attending family members were told that Dean and Tina had joined their religious group and no longer wished to have worldly contact with their families.[1] The group then asked Donna Casasanta to donate 1,000 dollars to them.[2] Police were notified of the meeting in advance, but no formal police report for the incident has been uncovered.[3]

When Donna Casasanta later tried to report Dean as missing to the authorities, her claim was quickly dismissed as him having joined the religious group as Sister Susan had said, with the police citing the return of the car as proof that Dean's disappearance was voluntary.[12][2] The couple's families said that they never found it believable that the couple would join a cult, and it is now believed that the car was intentionally returned to lessen the chances of a formal investigation.[9][2]

It is believed that the religious group that returned the car is also the same group that left Holly at the church in Arizona.[26] This group was observed living nomadically around the Southwest United States.[31] Their beliefs involved male and female separation, as well as vegetarianism and not using leather goods.[26][32] It also claimed to have left another baby before, at a laundromat.[26]