Melissa Highsmith was 21 months old when a stranger posing as a babysitter walked out of a Fort Worth apartment with her in August 1971 and never came back. More than five decades later, the woman once known only as Baby Melissa is speaking publicly for the first time about what happened to her after that — including abuse she says she endured in her abductor's home — through a new seven-episode podcast series.
The series, titled BABY: The Melissa Highsmith Story, is hosted and produced by Sean Kipe, an Atlanta-based podcaster for whom this marks his first Texas true-crime project, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The first episode dropped in September, with the sixth arriving this coming Monday and the finale set for November 2. Episodes are available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Highsmith's mother, Alta Apantenco, was a waitress raising her daughter alone in Fort Worth when she placed a newspaper ad seeking a babysitter, per the Star-Telegram's account. A woman calling herself Ruth Johnson answered the ad but never showed up for their planned meeting at the downtown restaurant where Apantenco worked. Still, Apantenco arranged for Johnson to watch Melissa the following Monday.
A Woman in White Gloves
Johnson arrived at the apartment wearing long white gloves and dark glasses, the Star-Telegram reports, telling Apantenco's roommate that “it's all been arranged with the mother.” The roommate handed over Melissa along with extra clothing and diapers. Shortly after, she heard a car with a loose muffler drive away — and Johnson never brought the child back.
Highsmith grew up roughly ten minutes from that same apartment, raised under the name Melanie Miyoko, without ever knowing she'd been kidnapped or that her biological family had spent decades searching for her, according to the Star-Telegram. The break in the case came from an unexpected source: a commercial DNA test. As Sean Kipe's own account of the series describes it, “a breakthrough came via a commercial 23andMe DNA test.”
The DNA Match That Cracked a 51-Year Mystery
That 23andMe search turned up a match to three of her father's grandchildren, the Star-Telegram reported in its earlier coverage of the case, and genealogical digging by the family led them to Highsmith in November 2022. She was reunited with her parents, Alta Apantenco and Jeffrie Highsmith, on November 26 of that year at 53 years old — 51 years after she vanished. The Fort Worth Police Department later completed its own official DNA testing to confirm her identity, a milestone also covered at the time by both The New York Times and CNN as a decades-long missing-person case finally resolved.
Even after police confirmed who she was, the case could not be prosecuted — the criminal statute of limitations on her kidnapping had expired decades before she was ever found. Fort Worth police said at the time that the department's Major Case Unit would continue to ask for the public's help with any additional information concerning Melissa's abduction, even though no charges could follow.
Pushing for Melissa's Law
That legal dead end is now driving Highsmith toward advocacy. She is working to change the law for other families through what's being called Melissa's Law, which would eliminate the statute of limitations on kidnapping cases in Texas. A petition backing the measure has gathered nearly 225 signatures toward a goal of 10,000, per the Star-Telegram's reporting.
Kipe said Highsmith's case stands out both for how long she was missing and because she was ultimately found alive and safe. He has said it's time to remove statutes of limitations in cases like hers, framing the podcast as an effort to help other families still searching for answers. Highsmith herself has said she hopes her story gives hope to people still looking for loved ones.
The series marks the first time Highsmith has spoken in detail about the abuse she says she endured while living under her abductor's roof, after previously only alluding to it. The podcast was created alongside producer Jason Hoch and made by Particle Entertainment and Wavland, according to Kipe's own description of the project. Highsmith has since legally reclaimed her birth name, closing out a chapter that began with a stranger in white gloves and a car with a loose muffler disappearing into a Fort Worth night.
