"It's extremely hopeful"

06:59 PM CST on Sunday, November 16, 2003

By Mike Zientek / 11 News

HOUSTON -- It seems like we hear about a missing person's case every week. Some victims are found. Others never turn up. And families in immense pain have no idea what happened to their loved ones. But now, thanks to science, that is changing.

Texas Equusearch, a local group that searches for missing people, held a fundraiser Sunday at the Firehouse Saloon in the 5900 block of the Southwest Freeway.

In the dark club sat Susan Butts. Her sister, Kimberly Langwell, was last seen in Beaumont almost five years ago. The family believes she was killed, but no body was ever found. "There's no words to describe it," says Susan. "It's extremely difficult, there's a lot of unsaid things."

But now families like Kimberly Langwell's have a source of hope thanks to a new database in north Texas that was created by the state legislature.

The Texas Missing Persons DNA Database got cranked up in March.

Family members of those who've vanished give DNA samples to law officers who send them to the database. There technicians can compare them to DNA samples of human remains from around the country, and possibly make a match.

"Families that have had missing children, missing family members for 15, 20 years -- now they still have the potential of having those loved ones identified," says the database administrator, Stephen Gammon.

And their families can at least have the mystery separated from the pain. "It's extremely hopeful," says Susan Butts. "It's all you have left. It's all you can hope for."

Some of the money raised Sunday for Texas Equusearch will go to pay for the costs of that database. But families say you can't put a price on hope.

Administrators with the DNA database say they have collected 130 samples so far, and they have made two matches. They hope that as more law enforcement agencies find out about them they will make even more.