Recovery Of Cleveland Women Brings New Hope To Missing Girl's Family
DENVER (CBS4) - Families in Cleveland are celebrating the return of three women held captive for a decade. Authorities say they were only allowed out of their kidnappers' house twice in those 10 years.
What happened in Cleveland has cast a spotlight on other missing person cases. In Colorado, this August will mark 30 years since a 14-year-old girl disappeared west of Denver.
Elizabeth Ann Miller was known as Beth. She disappeared while jogging in Idaho Springs 30 years ago. Now the recovery of the three women in Cleveland has brought Miller's family a renewed sense of hope.
"I sometimes feel like maybe I gave up too soon and I have resigned myself to the fact that Beth is gone," Miller's sister Lynn McLaughlin said.
However, McLaughlin says she wonders if her sister is still alive and being held.
"There's part of me that's envious that they (in Cleveland) have this moment and I don't," McLaughlin said.
But she added that she is incredibly happy for the families in Cleveland.
The investigation into Miller's disappearance has taken investigators across the country to nothing but dead ends. But the working theory remains she was abducted by someone she did not know.
Idaho Springs Police Chief Dave Wohlers has been involved with the search since it began. The recovery in Cleveland reminds him anything is possible.
"We hope for the same thing with Beth, but again, as time goes on, it's a struggle to make sense of it," Wohlers said.
Miller vanished, and her mother, Ilene Wear, in Spokane, Wash., is still hoping for word.
"I would like to ask them to say a prayer that maybe someday we will know for sure whether Beth is alive or whether she's not," Wear said.
Perhaps one day the answer will come.
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