HOUSTON – Police on Wednesday found a rental car that a missing 82-year-old woman was driving when she disappeared more than four months ago. A dive team discovered the car in a retention pond in southeast Houston. Police said Lillian High’s body was inside.
Officers said High, who disappeared on her way to work at a local Chase Bank branch in October, was still wearing her bank ID badge and uniform when she was found. They also found her purse inside the car.
HPD said a dive team was conducting training in the retention pond off Old Galveston Road near the Beltway Wednesday morning when they happened upon the black Dodge Avenger.
They chose to do the exercise there because it was in the middle of the seven-mile path High would have taken from her home to work.
"It really was on the whim of, ‘Let’s do a training exercise and find out.’ And within two hours of the exercise, that’s when the discovery was made," HPD’s John Cannon said.
The murky pond, which is 8 feet deep, was searched by air and by volunteers along the banks back in October, but they never found any evidence of anyone driving into the water.
"It doesn’t appear that there was any foul play or any damage to the vehicle indicating anything other than an accident – a tragic accident – or a medical problem of that type," Cannon said.
On October 2, 2011, High left her home around 6 a.m. to go to work. But about an hour later, her son, Earl High, received a call from Chase saying his mother never made it in that day.
Lillian High had been driving the Avenger, a rental car, because her vehicle was in the shop.
Police said they believe High may have crashed the car because she was unfamiliar with it. There is a curve in the road High would have taken to work, right before the pond.
"She didn’t like the rental car. It’s bigger than she’s sued to. She wasn’t comfortable with it. She was out of her element," Earl High said.
After Lillian High disappeared, police, family and volunteers launched an exhaustive search effort, combing the Greater Houston area, passing out fliers and offering a $20,000 cash reward for information on her whereabouts.
But until Wednesday, there had been no sign of the great-grandmother or her vehicle.
Earl High maintained throughout the case that it was unlike his mother to go anywhere without telling someone about her plans.
"She just got up, got in the car, drove to work and never made it, and we’ve been searching for her since," Earl High said back in November. "This is not Momma. This is not typical of her behavior at all."
Wednesday evening, Lillian High’s family was left only to grieve anew, after a sad end to a four-month-old mystery.
