SE Indiana woman missing since 1974 found in Texas

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A woman who went missing in 1974 has been found living under an alias in south Texas.

Indiana State Police said that shortly after giving birth to her third child in 1974, Lula Ann Gillespie-Miller, then 28 years old, felt she was too young to be a mother at the time and signed her children over to her parents in Laurel.

Detective Sergeant Scott Jarvis and discovered Richmond Police had a case of a deceased unidentified woman found in 1975. The woman was buried in an unmarked grave in the Earlham Cemetery in Richmond.

A search warrant was obtained in December 2014, and a body was exhumed from an unmarked grave for DNA analysis. A DNA sample was also obtained from Lula Gillespie-Miller’s biological daughter, Tammy Miller, for comparison.

But while waiting for results, ISP said, Jarvis began to investigate the trail of a woman with similarities to Lula Gillespie-Miller, who had lived in Tennessee in the 1980’s, then later in Texas. Further investigation led Jarvis to a woman living in a small town in south Texas since the 1990’s, possibly still living under an alias.

On Thursday, Texas Rangers went to a home and met a woman who admitted that her name is actually Lula Gillespie-Miller, now 69, ISP said.

Although Gillespie-Miller could offer no explanation as to why she left her life behind in 1974, she did give consent to Jarvis for her contact information to be given to her daughter, Tammy.

Tammy Miller hopes to make contact with the mother she has never known, ISP said.