Melissa’s biological sister Victoria Garner posted a message on Facebook saying, “I couldn’t stop crying. I was overjoyed and I’m still walking around in a fog trying to comprehend that my sister is right in front of me and that we found her.”
Sharon Highsmith, Melissa’s younger sister, said that the discovery was “overwhelming and incredible.”
“We have worked with law enforcement, and we’ve tried to do our own private family investigations. For decades, my parents have chased leads, hiring their labs and investigators. And yet, these DNA tests, which are available to anyone, helped us find our lost loved one.”
The Highsmith family credited their long-awaited reunion with Melissa to their strong Christian faith.
Jeffrie, Melissa’s father, said, “We give all the credit to God. We believe it was — we’re people of faith, and we believe it was through prayer.”
“The whole time I was there, it was a bad childhood,” Highsmith said of life.
“I wasn’t allowed to go outside and play, and she always sheltered me,” she recalled. “And she said the reason she sheltered me was that I was born at home and that I had brain damage… I used to wonder, ‘Why did she even have me if she didn’t want me?'”
