This story is so wild – but, has such a happy ending!

In 1971, Melissa Highsmith was abducted from her Fort Worth, Texas, home. She was just 22 months old.

Our news partners at KTAL NBC 6 is reporting:

She was under the care of a babysitter the family had never met — a woman who had answered an ad in the paper. Melissa’s mother asked her roommate at the time to give Melissa to the babysitter, and the toddler was never seen again.

Melissa’s story resurfaced this fall when an anonymous tipster said she spotted Melissa in South Carolina. That turned out not to be Melissa, but, it did encourage her dad to use a DNA kit. His DNA matched with Melissa’s kids, and the rest is history.