'MY HEART JUST ACHED': Daughter Angered After Missing Mom Resurfaces

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  April 26, 2013: This combination of Associated Press file photos shows, left, an undated driver's license photo distributed by police in 2002 of Brenda Heist, and right, an April 26, 2013 photo of Heist taken by the Monroe County, Fla. Sheriff's Office and released by the Lititz Borough, Pa. Police.AP

HARRISBURG, Pa. –  The teenage daughter of a woman who just revealed she abandoned her family 11 years ago said Thursday the disclosure has angered her and she is not eager to restart their relationship.

Morgan Heist, who learned last week Brenda Heist had surfaced in the Florida Keys, said the news has made her recall with bitterness the years of mourning she endured when she assumed her mother was dead and feared she'd been murdered.

"I ached every birthday, every Christmas," said 19-year-old Morgan Heist, a freshman at a community college outside Philadelphia. "My heart just ached. I wasn't mad at her. I wanted her to be there because I thought something had happened to her. I wish I had never cried."

Brenda Heist's mother, Jean Copenhaver, said Thursday that her daughter "had a real traumatic time" but was doing OK.

Brenda Heist was released from police custody on Wednesday and is staying with a brother in northern Florida for now, Copenhaver said.

Copenhaver, of Brenham, Texas, said she had spoken with Heist several times since Friday, when the 54-year-old woman turned herself in to police in Florida and was identified as a missing person.

"She just said she thought the family wouldn't want to talk to her because of her leaving," Copenhaver said. "And we all assured her that wasn't the case and we all loved her and wanted to be with her."

Morgan Heist said she's not sympathetic, partly because her mother had a choice, unlike the family she secretly abandoned.

"It's definitely very selfish," Morgan Heist said. "She clearly did not think of me or my brother or my dad at all with that decision. She thought of herself."

Heist told police she made a spur-of-the-moment decision in 2002 to join a group of homeless hitchhikers on their way to Florida, walking out on Morgan, 8, and her brother, then 12.

Brenda and her husband, Lee, were living together but going through an amicable divorce when she learned she had been denied housing support, police said. She was crying about that in a Lancaster park when three strangers befriended her and offered to let her join them.

Morgan Heist said her parents had agreed to live near each other once they divorced. Brenda Heist had been a bookkeeper at a car dealership.

"It's more of a mystery than ever," she said. "Her life was not hard at all."

Brenda Heist told police she slept under bridges and survived at times by scavenging food from restaurant trash and panhandling. But Lititz Police Detective John Schofield said Thursday he is looking into reports that have come in over the past day suggesting Brenda Heist's time in Florida included much less miserable periods.

"We're getting several calls from people down in Florida that knew her who want to say she's not being truthful with us," Schofield said.

Heist told a detective with the Monroe County Sheriff's Office that she had recently been arrested in the Tampa Bay region and might be in violation of probation. She told the detective she used the name Kelsie Lyanne Smith and provided a date of birth.

Jail and court records show Kelsie Lyanne Smith, with a matching birth date, was arrested in January on misdemeanor charges of marijuana possession, possession of drug paraphernalia and providing false identification to law enforcement. After pleading guilty, Smith was sentenced to time served and was released on Feb. 13. She was also ordered to pay court costs but failed to do so and was found delinquent on April 15.

Copenhaver said she has not pressed her daughter about what led her to walk away from the life she knew in Pennsylvania and then live underground for more than a decade.

"We haven't gone into that with her," Copenhaver said. "She just needs time to recover, and have some peace and that. She'll tell us when she's ready."

She agreed to pass along a message from The Associated Press, asking Brenda Heist for an interview.

Heist told police she contacted them after feeling like she was at the end of her rope and tired of running.

"She's doing OK," Copenhaver said. "She's got a long way to go. She had a real traumatic time, but she's doing OK."

She said Heist was born in South Carolina, then moved as her father was transferred by the Air Force to Italy and Missouri before ending up in San Antonio, where she graduated from high school.

When she vanished, Lee Heist, was investigated but was cleared as a suspect. He raised the children without her and got the courts to declare her legally dead. He has since remarried.

Police erroneously said on Wednesday that daughter Morgan Heist was a sophomore at West Chester University. She is a freshman at Montgomery County Community College.

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'TIRED OF RUNNING': Missing Mom Presumed Dead Is Found in Florida

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  An April 26, 2013 photo taken by the Monroe County, Fla. Sheriff's Office and released by the Lititz Borough, Pa. Police, is of Brenda Heist.AP/Lititz Borough Police

LITITZ, Pa. –  A central Pennsylvania woman who mysteriously disappeared after dropping off her children for school 11 years ago has surfaced in Florida, telling police she traveled there on a whim with homeless hitchhikers, slept under bridges and survived by scavenging food and panhandling, authorities said Wednesday.

Brenda Heist, 54, had been declared legally dead, Lititz Borough Police Det. John Schofield said. The detective said he met with her in Florida on Monday and she expressed shame and apologized for what she did to her family.

Heist was going through an amicable divorce in 2002 when she was turned down for housing assistance, which led her to despair. She was crying in a park when two women and a man befriended her, then invited her to join them as they began a monthlong hitchhiking journey to south Florida, Schofield said.

Her ex-husband Lee Heist, who got the courts to declare her legally dead two years ago and has remarried, said at a news conference Wednesday that he was angry because of the effect her disappearance had on their son and daughter. Lee Heist was looked at as a suspect, but cooperated with investigators, took a polygraph and was eventually cleared.

He was able to maintain a bond with the children.

"They knew that I was there, and I loved them and would take care of them," he said.

He said his ex-wife and their children have expressed a desire to speak with each other, but for now they are taking things slowly.

Her identity came to light after she turned herself in to Monroe County sheriff's deputies in Key Largo, Fla., on Friday, and informed them she was a missing person. She told them she was on probation and had recently been arrested under a name different from her real name. The nature of those charges was not clear in a Monroe County sheriff's office report released late Monday.

Schofield said she was expected to be released from police custody in Florida and was likely to spend some time with a brother in that state before moving in with her mother in Texas.

"She has a birth certificate and a death certificate so she's got a long ways to make this right again," Schofield said. "She's got to take it slow with her family, I'm sure, and it's going to be a long process."

Inside her Lititz home the day she disappeared, dinner was defrosting and the laundry was half done. Police located her car in neighboring York County but none of her personal belongings were missing.

When Schofield called recently to meet with her ex-husband and their daughter, they assumed he would be notifying them that her remains were found, the detective said.

Lee Heist said he struggled financially after his wife disappeared, quitting his job and losing his home. She had been a bookkeeper at a car dealership.

"There were people in the neighborhood who would not allow their children to play with my children" because he had been a suspect, he said.

Brenda Heist had been homeless for the past two years, most recently living in a tent community run by a social service agency.

"She said she was at the end of her rope, she was tired of running," Schofield said.

For about seven years she lived with a man in a camper in Key West and worked odd jobs. Schofield said she never had access to a computer and never checked to see if she was being sought, although she assumed she was.

The Heists' daughter is now a 19-year-old West Chester University sophomore, and their son, 23, recently graduated from the same college and is pursuing a law-enforcement career. The school is about 30 miles west of Philadelphia.

Schofield said police in Florida were trying to sort out a warrant-related issue before releasing Brenda Heist. Details about any charges, and whether she was being held on an active warrant, were not available from police in Florida or Pennsylvania.

The Monroe County Sheriff's Office said Heist was in "protective custody," although not with the office. The sheriff's office did not immediately respond to a request by The Associated Press for a way to contact her.

Police in Lititz said the investigation eventually involved dozens of detectives, and although the trail had grown cold the case had never been forgotten, with Heist's picture tacked to a wall at police headquarters.

Lee Heist said he and the children also remembered, and observed anniversaries. Her valuables were returned to her mother years ago, he said.

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Remains ID'd as 13-year-old Hailey Dunn, Texas cheerleader missing since 2010

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  Hailey Dunn, a student and cheerleader at Colorado City Middle School in Colorado City, Texas, was reported missing on Dec. 28, 2010. (Colorado City Police Department).

The remains of a 13-year-old Texas cheerleader Hailey Dunn have been found more than two years after she was reported missing, an attorney for the girl's mother says.

Hailey's remains were found in a remote West Texas location last month, and the Texas Department of Public Safety informed her mother, Billie Jean Dunn on Friday that the remains are her daughter's, attorney John Young said.

"She's trying to process the entirety of this," Young said. "She has to process that Hailey isn't coming home."

Officials are expected to hold a news conference Friday afternoon.

The remains were found about 20 miles north of the girl's hometown of Colorado City. She had been the subject of months of intensive searches in and around Colorado City and surrounding fields and landfills.

More than 100 billboards featuring her picture and information about the case have been set up along interstates in West Texas and other states.

Hailey was last seen walking to a friend's house and was reported missing Dec. 28, 2010, when her mother discovered the girl had never arrived.

Billie Jean Dunn told officials she had gotten into a fight with her daughter the night she disappeared. She was arrested a few months later for lying to police about the whereabouts of Adkins, her live-in boyfriend.

Dunn was given a year's probation and reportedly moved to Austin. Adkins had been named a person of interest in the case but was never charged.

Police records revealed Adkins had made troubling statements before Hailey disappeared. According to a police affidavit filed in the investigation, Adkins had remarked to a relative that hurting a teenager would be "like killing a deer." The affidavit also noted that Dunn and Adkins had an apparent fixation on slasher movies and serial killers -- something Dunn called a "hobby."

The affidavit mentioned that in February 2010, police responded to a domestic violence call at the house. Adkins allegedly threatened to kill Billie and Hailey Dunn during a heated argument. After telling police he never issued these threats, he later allegedly confessed to police that he threatened the two. However, both Adkins and Dunn denied having any involvement in the girl's disappearance.

Adkins told The Associated Press that he would "never ever do anything to harm Hailey."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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'Breaking Bad' script missing after man breaks into actor's car in New Mexico

Published March 25, 2013

Associated Press

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  This image released by AMC shows Bryan Cranston as Walter White at the fictional restaurant "Los Pollos Hermanos" in a scene from season 2 of the AMC series "Breaking Bad."AP/AMC

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. –  Authorities in the U.S. have arrested a man who allegedly broke into "Breaking Bad" actor Bryan Cranston's car late last year and stole a script for the popular television show.

Bernalillo County Sheriff's officials announced Monday that 29-year-old Xavier Macafee is being held on suspicion of burglary. They say none of the stolen items have been recovered, but detectives are investigating.

Sheriff's officials say Cranston's car was broken into Dec. 20 while it was parked at Sandia Peak in New Mexico.

The award-winning AMC TV series is filming its fifth and final season.

A call to AMC network officials for comment on the script theft wasn't immediately returned.

"Breaking Bad" follows Cranston's character, Walter White, producing and selling methamphetamine with a former student.

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Government study finds security risks at US bio labs- Vial of hemorrhagic fever virus missing from Texas lab

WASHINGTON –  Three years after a federal agency warned that the country was at risk due to sloppy standards at its labs that handle bioterror germs, such as anthrax, little has been done to fix the problem.

A 56-page report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office says federal officials have failed to develop adequate standards for lab design, operation and construction.

The report also says that the facilities, called high-containment labs, are being built to local standards because there are no national safety guidelines for them. The study released Monday is a follow-up to a similar study done five years ago.

Another government report released late last year by the USDA inspector general found several violations of regulations in bioterror labs went undetected for years. And two years before that, laboratories at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention repeatedly were called out for failing to properly secure bioterror agents, like anthrax, in private government audits.

The CDC and the USDA share responsibility for security at more than 300 government, academic and commercial organizations registered to work with toxins or germs that have bioterror potential.

The news of the lax government standards comes after officials at the University of Texas Medical Branch said a vial containing a virus that can cause hemorrhagic fever went missing from a research facility in Galveston over the weekend.

On Saturday, the Galveston National Laboratory said there was no indication of wrongdoing, but it still could not account for the missing vial at its research facility. The medical branch says the virus, native to Venezuela, is transmitted only through contact with Venezuelan rats. Experts say the disease is not transmitted person-to-person nor is it able to survive in U.S. rodents. 

CDC Director Tom Frieden told USA Today he fears the department’s budget will be slashed even more if the federal government cuts funding, which it is on course to do. He told the paper his agency will lose more than $300 million -- a painful financial hit at a time when the agency is struggling to keep up with bioterror threats and new germs.

Concerns surrounding a bioterror attack took hold of the country after the October 2001 anthrax attacks. The powdery substance was mailed to lawmakers on Capitol Hill and members of the news media in New York and Florida. By November 2001, five people were dead and 17 others sickened.

Ten years after the attacks, a report from the National Research Council said the source of the anthrax could not be verified. That conclusion contradicted some of the evidence from the FBI at the time that supported the conclusion that it came from Fort Detrick, a U.S. Army installation outside Frederick, Md. In all, the investigation into the anthrax case spanned six continents, involved more than 10,000 witnesses, 80 searches and 26,000 email subpoenas and used 29 government, university and commercial laboratories for scientific analyses.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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MISSING LINK: Gun Ties Killed Parolee To Prison Chief's Murder

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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. –  Gun evidence links a Colorado parolee fatally shot in Texas with the death of Colorado's corrections' chief, investigators said Monday.

The El Paso County sheriff's office said that "unique and often microscopic markings" found on shell casings in Texas and Colorado leads investigators to conclude that the gun Evan Ebel used to shoot at authorities in Texas was the same gun used to kill Tom Clements at his home on Tuesday.

It had been known that the casings found at both scenes were of the same caliber and brand but Monday's announcement was the first time Colorado investigators made a direct link between Ebel and Clements' death.

What remained unknown though was why Clements was killed when he answered his front door Tuesday night and whether Ebel acted alone.

"There are no answers at this time surrounding motive and gaining these answers could be a lengthy process for investigators," sheriff's spokesman Lt. Jeff Kramer said in statement.

The announcement came just hours after hundreds of people, including corrections officials and guards from as far away as Morocco, gathered for a memorial service to honor Clements.

The crowd at New Life Church included 39 current and former corrections' chiefs as well as guards from 14 states. A delegation of corrections officials from Morocco also attended along with dignitaries including Gov. John Hickenlooper and U.S. Attorney John Walsh.

Hickenlooper and his widow both spoke about Clements' strong belief in redemption. His family said he decided as a teenage to work in corrections after visiting his uncle in prison, and he worked to reduce the use of solitary confinement in Colorado prisons.

Standing with her two daughters, Lisa Clements said her husband of 28 years would want justice as well as forgiveness.

"We want everyone who hears Tom's story to know that he lived his life believing in redemption, in the ability of the human heart to be changed. He would want justice certainly but moreover he'd want forgiveness. Our family prays for the family of the man who took Tom's life and we will pray for forgiveness in our own hearts and our own peace," said Lisa Clements, a psychologist who oversees Colorado's state mental health institutes.

Hickenlooper, who hired Clements about two years ago, told mourners that Clements was both pragmatic and principled.

"He had common sense and he had courage," Hickenlooper said.

Authorities say the car Ebel had in Texas is also similar to one seen not far from Clements' home the night he was killed.

A federal law enforcement official said Ebel had been a member of the 211s, a white supremacist prison gang in Colorado. El Paso County sheriff's spokesman Lt. Jeff Kramer said Monday that investigators are trying to determine whether there was any gang involvement in the killing, but he stressed that's only one aspect of a broad investigation.

Denver police say Ebel is also a suspect in the March 17 slaying of pizza delivery man Nathan Leon.

Hickenlooper is a longtime friend of the suspect's father, attorney Jack Ebel, who testified two years ago before state lawmakers that solitary confinement was destroying his son's psyche.

Hickenlooper confirmed he mentioned the case to Clements as an example of why the prison system needed reform before the job was offered, but the governor said he did not mention Evan Ebel by name.

There was no indication that Hickenlooper's relationship with Jack Ebel played a role in the shooting. Hickenlooper said he did not having any role in Evan Ebel's parole in January.

Jack Ebel issued a statement offering condolences to all those who have suffered from his son's actions.

Clements, born in St. Louis, worked for 31 years in the Missouri Department of Corrections, both in prison and as a parole officer, before taking the top corrections' job in Colorado just over two years ago. He began a review of the state's solitary confinement system and eventually reduced the number of prisoners being held in solitary. He closed a new prison built specifically to hold such prisoners -- Colorado State Penitentiary II.

His work won praise from groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and the union representing prison workers, which called him a "leader who looked out for those he led."

Officials took additional security measures after Clements' death and placed the state prisons on lockdown Friday.

Following Clements' killing, corrections professionals said their jobs have grown more dangerous for themselves and their families because of the growing influence of prison gangs, their ability to communicate with affiliates on the outside through smuggled cellphones and the ease with which people can be found and tracked online.

Clements is at least the second head of a state prison system to be killed. The top administrator of the Oregon Department of Corrections, Michael Francke, was stabbed to death outside his office in 1989 in what prosecutors described as a bungled car burglary. A former state prison inmate was found guilty of aggravated murder in 1991 and sentenced to life in prison.

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MODEL MYSTERY: Group Suggests Cases of Missing Women Connected

With fears of foul play growing in the cases of three Colorado women who had profiles on small-time modeling websites before they disappeared, an advocacy group for women is launching its own investigation to see if they are connected or possibly even part of a bigger, nationwide case. 

The National Women’s Coalition Against Violence and Exploitation has hired a private investigator who plans to look into the possibility of a connection between the disappearances of Raven Furlong, 17, and Kara Nichols, 19, who both had profiles on ModelMayhem.com, and Kelsie Schelling, who has a modeling profile on the site Explore Talent.

“We are considering the options of an independent investigation into not only the cases we are currently handling but other cases that appear to have common attributes that may or may not be linked to the model sites in question,” Shelley Shaffer, head of the coalition's Missing Persons Division, told FoxNews.com.

“We are in conversations with former security investigators among others to see how significant all of the cases are to each other and then we will provide our findings to the authorities. Although we know of many cases with similar connections we are not placing blame on any one site, but we are following the concerns of our clients.” 

The coalition and investigators working with it have been probing some 14 cases nationwide in which missing women all had profiles on sites like Model Mayhem.

“When you have so many cases with a common denominator, that’s a red flag,” coalition spokeswoman Michelle Bart said.

Internet Brands, which owns and operates ModelMayhem.com, defended the site's practices in a written statement to FoxNews.com.

"While our policy is to fully cooperate with authorities if approached for assistance in an investigation, Model Mayhem has not been contacted by police authorities regarding either of the three recent disappearances in Colorado," Internet Brands spokesman Joe Ewaskiw said in the statement.

"Model Mayhem strongly believes that safety should be top of mind when doing anything online. ... The site offers detailed safety advice to help members understand what to look for when they are contacted by others," he added.

Site members also are encouraged to alert moderators to suspicious activity.

"Moderators view and respond to each and every inquiry," Ewaskiw said.

But the families of the missing tell FoxNews.com that not enough is being done by Model Mayhem.

“Do they run this website with full disclosure of the risk?” said Julia Nichols, mother of Kara Nichols, who has been missing since Oct. 9. She disappeared after telling her friends she was going to Denver from her Colorado Springs home for a modeling job. “These girls are young and impressionable. If they were fully aware, do you think they would use this website? They should inform the users and have more of a screening process.”

Furlong, 17, has been missing from Aurora since Feb. 5. Police consider her a runaway, according to KRDO. Buckley told Fox 31 Furlong called her family last month, but her mother says the call wasn’t normal.

“She said she had to go because it’s not her phone and they need their phone back,” said Lin Furlong.

Schelling was last seen on Feb. 4. Her empty car was discovered in Pueblo.

Furlong’s aunt, Tobi Buckley, discovered her niece's Model Mayhem profile after she vanished and saw some disturbing correspondence. Buckley has launched a Facebook page to build awareness around the case.

“If they are such a legitimate site, why wouldn’t they do anything?” she said to FoxNews.com. “Bad people are using the site, and they are doing nothing to stop it.”

Police have not officially linked the website—which has an “F” rating with the Better Business Bureau-- to any of the disappearances, but they are aware of the possible dangers that can be associated with using a site such as this.

El Paso County Sheriff's Lt. Jeff Kramer told FoxNews.com the modeling aspect is part of the probe.

“From the onset of the case we were aware that (Nichols) was an aspiring model, and we had a concern about the subculture often associated with these sites,” Kramer said.

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COLORADO MYSTERY:3 Missing Women HaveOnline Model Profiles

Three young women who disappeared in Colorado reportedly all had profiles on modeling social networking sites.

According to Fox 31, The National Women’s Coalition Against Violence & Exploitation says Kara Nichols and Raven Furlong both had profiles on ModelMayhem.com. The group says the site is a common link in several cases of missing girls.

“We’re up to 13 or 14 cases that we’re familiar with,” the organization’s co-founder, Michelle Bart, told Fox 31.

Nichols, 19, of Colorado Springs, has been missing since Oct. 9, 2012. She told her friends she was going to Denver for a modeling job and disappeared, KRDO Newschannel 13 reports. Furlong, 17, has been missing from Aurora since Feb. 5. Police consider her a runaway, according to KRDO.

A third missing woman, Kelsie Schelling, appears to have a modeling profile on the site Explore Talent. Schelling was last seen on Feb. 4. Her empty car was discovered in Pueblo.

Furlong’s aunt discovered her Model Mayhem profile after she vanished and saw some disturbing correspondence.

“The photographers asking her to do nude photographs after asking her if she was 18 and her telling them no,” Buckley told Fox 31.

According to the station, Furlong called her family last month, but her mother says the call wasn’t normal.

“She said she had to go because it’s not her phone and they need their phone back,” said Lin Furlong.

Professional model Jillian Mourning, 25, says she learned firsthand the dangers of modeling websites when she was 19. She tells KRDO that she connected with a “manager” on Model Mayhem and was sexually assaulted during a shoot in Arizona.

"He came into my room with three guys, and they [all] proceeded to rape me," recalled Mourning. "They took pictures of it, and would even show me pictures of things that I was doing, and videotaped the whole thing."

She says at 19 years old, she felt trapped. She said she was trafficked and forced to have sex with men for six months until her manager went to prison for an unrelated crime.

The owner of Model Mayhem, Internet Brands, said in an emailed statement to KRDO that it cooperates with all law enforcement investigations involving people on the site.

"Model Mayhem strongly believes that safety should be top of mind when doing anything online. Because there are scams on the Internet, Model Mayhem tries to educate users about scams and how to avoid them. The site offers detailed safety advice to help members understand what to look for when they are contacted by others. This can be found here," said public relations manager Joe Ewaskiw. "The site also has a feedback mechanism called "Contact a Moderator" that allows any member to let site moderators know of any suspicious activity they encounter. Moderators view and respond to each and every inquiry."

Police have not officially linked Model Mayhem to the girls’ disappearances, but the company does have an “F” rating with the Better Business Bureau, according to Fox 31.

Click for more from Fox 31.

Click for more from KRDO.

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