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Pendleton – A woman missing from her home in Laurel, Indiana since 1974, has been found living in a small town in south Texas under an alias. 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. She then left home never to be seen again by her family.

Detective Sergeant Scott Jarvis took the case in January, 2014, after the Doe Network, a web site that assists families with missing person’s investigations, contacted the Indiana State Police at the Pendleton Post. The site advised they had been in contact with Lula Gillespie-Miller’s family. The family had told the site the last contact they had with Lula, was a letter they received from her, postmarked in Richmond, Indiana, from 1975.

Jarvis checked with the Richmond Police Department Records Division and found they had a case of a deceased unidentified female found in 1975. The female 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.

The DNA sample taken from Tammy Miller was also entered into a national data base for missing persons, with no match found. While awaiting the DNA analysis on the exhumed unidentified body, the investigation led Jarvis in a different direction.

He 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.

Today Jarvis contacted Texas Rangers in the area and had them go to the woman’s home. She admitted to the Rangers that her name is actually Lula Gillespie-Miller, now 69 years old, and originally from Laurel, Indiana. Lula Gillespie-Miller did not commit any crime by leaving her home in 1974, and still reserves the right to remain anonymous.

Although Gillespie-Miller could offer no explanation as to why she left her Indiana life behind in 1974, she did give consent to Sergeant Jarvis for her contact information to be given to her daughter, Tammy. Thanks to the hard work of Indiana State Police Detective Sergeant Scott Jarvis, this Easter weekend, Tammy Miller hopes to make contact with the mother she has never known.

Media Note: Due to the extended Easter Holiday weekend, please hold all requests for interviews with Sergeant Jarvis until Monday, March 28th. Thank you