[1] After moving in the summer of 1980 with their infant daughter, Holly Marie, from Volusia County, Florida to Lewisville, Texas,[2] the Clouses stopped contacting their families in October, 1980.

[5] In 2021, forensic genealogists positively identified the Harris County Does as Dean and Tina Clouse, however, Holly Marie’s whereabouts remained unaccounted for.

[7] Harold Dean Clouse Jr. and Tina Gail Linn were both living with their families in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, when they met in 1978.

[2] Dean and Tina had what was described by those around them as a “whirlwind romance”, and married a short time later at the Volusia County Courthouse on June 25, 1979.

[citation needed] In the summer of 1980, the Clouses moved with baby Holly to the suburb of Lewisville, Texas, in the Dallas metropolitan area.

Dean was an adept cabinet maker, and moved his family to Texas in hopes of finding a good job in the trade.

[11] However, there was little effort put into the investigation by the police who strongly believed that the young family had deliberately cut off contact, citing the mysterious return of their car to Florida by members of an unidentified nomadic religious group.

[2] The then-unidentified bodies of the Clouses were found on January 12, 1981 in northern Harris County, Texas, in a boggy, wooded area just north of the Houston city limits.

[11] Search parties prompted by the dog’s discovery subsequently found two heavily decomposed bodies near Wallisville Road.

[2] Jennifer Love, forensic anthropology director of the identification unit in the Harris County medical examiner’s office, was put in charge of the exhumation.

[22] Funding for continued genealogical research into the Harris County Does was then secured from the true crime podcast company Audiochuck.

[1][5] Using Gedmatch as the genetic database they searched, forensic genealogists Misty Gillis and Allison Peacock were tasked with identifying them.

Peacock, acting as representative for both her and Gillis, called Debbie Brooks, Dean's sister, and asked if there was a member of her family who had disappeared 40 years or more ago.

[4] Dean and Tina Clouse were publicly identified by the Texas Attorney General's cold case unit[13] on 12 January 2021, on the 40th anniversary of the discovery of their remains.

[4] It is reported that when Peacock delivered news of the findings to the Clouse family, Debbie Brooks asked if the investigators had found the baby, to which Peacock responded, “What baby?”[12] Several theories about Holly Marie’s whereabouts were put forward, including theories that her small body had been carried away by scavenging animals, or that investigators missed her at the scene.

[2] Another increasingly popular theory was that the baby had been kidnapped by the killers, which became the general consensus after Holly Marie was recovered alive.

[9][13] Allison Peacock and her organization FHD Forensics, along with the Clouse and Linn families continued to search for Holly Marie.

[9][25] Holly Marie met with her biological family over Zoom the same day she was found,[28] and NCMEC helped to fund a visit to Florida in November, 2022 so she could meet them in person.

[29] 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.

[30] The investigation into the Clouse murders is still considered an active criminal case,[26] according to Harris County Police Deputy Thomas Gilliland.

[9] The focus of the investigation has since turned to finding the parents' killers, while the publicity surrounding Holly’s return generated an increase in new leads to the Texas Attorney General’s cold case unit.

[29] In an November 2023 interview with ABC on 20/20, Holly Clouse revealed that she believes the religious cult her parents were involved with may have murdered them because they wanted to leave the group.