annalyzer
06-06-2009, 11:15 PM
Missing for 7 years, Lititz mom declared dead
http://images.lancasteronline.com/local_new_mini/238439/1
Brenda Heist (left) and Lee Heist
Lancaster New Era
Published: Jun 05, 2009
By CINDY STAUFFER, Staff Writer
It's been more than seven years since Brenda Heist walked out of her Lititz home on a February day, leaving behind two children, a husband, laundry sorted into neat piles and pork chops thawing in her refrigerator.
Police found her car five days later, near a York bus station, but never found the 42-year-old mom. Though they continue to work the case, she has disappeared without a trace.
As the years passed, her children grew into people she might not recognize today.
Her daughter, Morgan Heist, once a determined 9-year-old basketball player who stole the ball from boys in her co-ed league, now plays sports at Cocalico High School, where she will be a sophomore in the fall.
Her son, Lee Heist IV, just 12 when his mom disappeared, recently completed his first year of college at West Chester University, and plans a career in criminal justice.
Her former husband, Lee Heist III, got remarried about two weeks ago in Hawaii. The couple were in the midst of an amicable separation when Brenda Heist disappeared, and he divorced her two years later.
Thursday, Heist, who works as a trainer for a convenience store chain, went to Lancaster County Court and asked Judge Jay Hoberg to formally declare his former wife dead.
There is a $100,000 insurance policy at stake. But Heist said that was not why he asked for the hearing, an unusual court procedure that does not happen often here.
"It's over," Heist said matter-of-factly before the hearing. "We've begun new lives. It's time to close out the past."
Heist, now 62 with white hair and a beard, said his family thinks about his former wife "a lot less."
"Maybe fleeting moments, I wonder if, I wonder where," he said. "It doesn't dominate my life anymore."
Is it too hard to remember?
"No," he said. "It's unnecessary. ... The three of us have moved on. We're excited about the future."
But police, and Brenda Heist's family and her former neighbors still think often of the woman, who would have turned 50 in April.
"It's something I don't think you ever, ever get over," said Brenda Heist's mother, Jean Copenhaver, of Brenham, Texas. "You're not supposed to bury your children, and that's one of the things that's hard, not having a final thing with her."
Mrs. Copenhaver said she has leaned on her faith since her daughter's disappearance. The 72-year-old widow, who also has lost two sons over the years, does not expect to see her only daughter on this earth again.
"I believe she's in heaven with her brothers and her dad," she said. "That's the only way we can handle it."
Mrs. Copenhaver said it helps her to stay in touch with her two grandchildren here, though she has not seen them in 10 years. Morgan is planning to visit her grandma this summer for the first time since the disappearance.
"I talk to them on a regular basis. I have pictures," Mrs. Copenhaver said. "The last picture I got from Morgan, I just sat and cried. She looks so much like her mother."
And police continue to work on figuring out what happened to her daughter.
Lititz Police Detective John Schofield said, "This case is still being actively followed up on. It sits on my desk open. Her missing persons poster hangs near my desk. ... I guess every detective has that certain unsolved investigation that they keep closest to them, and this is one that I've always been attached to."
Schofield testified in court Thursday that after Brenda Heist disappeared, police interviewed her family members, her co-workers at a local car dealership, her neighbors and anyone else who may have had information about what led to her death.
They searched the car she was driving, inside and out. They put her DNA into a national law enforcement bank and followed leads as far away as Florida and Canada.
They found no evidence of foul play, but they also found no evidence that Brenda Heist voluntarily walked away from her family, who were having some financially tight times.
One ordinary item persuaded both police and her family that she had not chosen to disappear.
It was her eyebrow pencil.
Left behind in her makeup items, the pencil was important to Brenda Heist, who was careful about her appearance, particularly the fact that she had to draw on her eyebrows as she was unable to grow facial hair.
"Nothing was reported missing from her home at all," Schofield testified.
The case had what looked like a development several years ago, when police got a possible hit on her DNA, from a baseball hat dropped by a robbery suspect in New York. Further testing showed that the DNA was not hers, however.
Police have monitored her Social Security number, but found no hits on anyone in the nation using it to open any accounts or apply for any kind of benefits.
Last year, on the sixth anniversary of her disappearance, Schofield gathered with about 30 other detectives from local police departments, the state police, the FBI and other agencies to conduct what's called a "cold case review."
The law enforcement experts went through the case step by step, to see if anything had been missed or if there were new angles to pursue. They reinterviewed people and conducted some new interviews, but made no progress on the case.
Through his years of work on the case, Schofield said he has learned a lot about Brenda Heist. One thing has stood out about the Lititz woman, whose former husband Thursday called her a "Beaver Cleaver mother."
"Every single person I've spoken to said she was a loving and devoted mother," Schofield said, adding it would be totally out of character for her to leave her children.
He added, "We just have no idea of her whereabouts."
Though Brenda Heist was legally declared dead, the investigation into her disappearance lives on, Schofield said after the hearing.
The Heists' former next-door neighbors in Lititz, Arlene and Bill Bingeman, often think about the friendly woman who played outside with her two children.
"Every time we hear of a body being found we perk up our ears and think, geez..." Mrs. Bingeman said. "You'd think she would have to have a job, and some record would show up somewhere, some Social Security number.
"I don't know. It's really strange."
Mrs. Copenhaver said she and her husband, who died nine months after his daughter's disappearance, did not leave the house for two weeks after Brenda disappeared.
"We didn't go to church, we didn't do anything," she said, because they were hoping and praying their daughter would call or turn up at their doorstep.
Mrs. Copenhaver no longer expects that. She hears about other missing women being found, and wonders someday if she will get that call.
"Maybe it was so horrible we're not supposed to know," she said. "That's one of my thoughts. I know whoever did it, they will pay. I'm a firm believer that there will be justice when they pass on from this world."
Staff writer Cindy Stauffer can be reached at cstauffer@LNPnews.com or 481-6024.
http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/238439
http://images.lancasteronline.com/local_new_mini/238439/1
Brenda Heist (left) and Lee Heist
Lancaster New Era
Published: Jun 05, 2009
By CINDY STAUFFER, Staff Writer
It's been more than seven years since Brenda Heist walked out of her Lititz home on a February day, leaving behind two children, a husband, laundry sorted into neat piles and pork chops thawing in her refrigerator.
Police found her car five days later, near a York bus station, but never found the 42-year-old mom. Though they continue to work the case, she has disappeared without a trace.
As the years passed, her children grew into people she might not recognize today.
Her daughter, Morgan Heist, once a determined 9-year-old basketball player who stole the ball from boys in her co-ed league, now plays sports at Cocalico High School, where she will be a sophomore in the fall.
Her son, Lee Heist IV, just 12 when his mom disappeared, recently completed his first year of college at West Chester University, and plans a career in criminal justice.
Her former husband, Lee Heist III, got remarried about two weeks ago in Hawaii. The couple were in the midst of an amicable separation when Brenda Heist disappeared, and he divorced her two years later.
Thursday, Heist, who works as a trainer for a convenience store chain, went to Lancaster County Court and asked Judge Jay Hoberg to formally declare his former wife dead.
There is a $100,000 insurance policy at stake. But Heist said that was not why he asked for the hearing, an unusual court procedure that does not happen often here.
"It's over," Heist said matter-of-factly before the hearing. "We've begun new lives. It's time to close out the past."
Heist, now 62 with white hair and a beard, said his family thinks about his former wife "a lot less."
"Maybe fleeting moments, I wonder if, I wonder where," he said. "It doesn't dominate my life anymore."
Is it too hard to remember?
"No," he said. "It's unnecessary. ... The three of us have moved on. We're excited about the future."
But police, and Brenda Heist's family and her former neighbors still think often of the woman, who would have turned 50 in April.
"It's something I don't think you ever, ever get over," said Brenda Heist's mother, Jean Copenhaver, of Brenham, Texas. "You're not supposed to bury your children, and that's one of the things that's hard, not having a final thing with her."
Mrs. Copenhaver said she has leaned on her faith since her daughter's disappearance. The 72-year-old widow, who also has lost two sons over the years, does not expect to see her only daughter on this earth again.
"I believe she's in heaven with her brothers and her dad," she said. "That's the only way we can handle it."
Mrs. Copenhaver said it helps her to stay in touch with her two grandchildren here, though she has not seen them in 10 years. Morgan is planning to visit her grandma this summer for the first time since the disappearance.
"I talk to them on a regular basis. I have pictures," Mrs. Copenhaver said. "The last picture I got from Morgan, I just sat and cried. She looks so much like her mother."
And police continue to work on figuring out what happened to her daughter.
Lititz Police Detective John Schofield said, "This case is still being actively followed up on. It sits on my desk open. Her missing persons poster hangs near my desk. ... I guess every detective has that certain unsolved investigation that they keep closest to them, and this is one that I've always been attached to."
Schofield testified in court Thursday that after Brenda Heist disappeared, police interviewed her family members, her co-workers at a local car dealership, her neighbors and anyone else who may have had information about what led to her death.
They searched the car she was driving, inside and out. They put her DNA into a national law enforcement bank and followed leads as far away as Florida and Canada.
They found no evidence of foul play, but they also found no evidence that Brenda Heist voluntarily walked away from her family, who were having some financially tight times.
One ordinary item persuaded both police and her family that she had not chosen to disappear.
It was her eyebrow pencil.
Left behind in her makeup items, the pencil was important to Brenda Heist, who was careful about her appearance, particularly the fact that she had to draw on her eyebrows as she was unable to grow facial hair.
"Nothing was reported missing from her home at all," Schofield testified.
The case had what looked like a development several years ago, when police got a possible hit on her DNA, from a baseball hat dropped by a robbery suspect in New York. Further testing showed that the DNA was not hers, however.
Police have monitored her Social Security number, but found no hits on anyone in the nation using it to open any accounts or apply for any kind of benefits.
Last year, on the sixth anniversary of her disappearance, Schofield gathered with about 30 other detectives from local police departments, the state police, the FBI and other agencies to conduct what's called a "cold case review."
The law enforcement experts went through the case step by step, to see if anything had been missed or if there were new angles to pursue. They reinterviewed people and conducted some new interviews, but made no progress on the case.
Through his years of work on the case, Schofield said he has learned a lot about Brenda Heist. One thing has stood out about the Lititz woman, whose former husband Thursday called her a "Beaver Cleaver mother."
"Every single person I've spoken to said she was a loving and devoted mother," Schofield said, adding it would be totally out of character for her to leave her children.
He added, "We just have no idea of her whereabouts."
Though Brenda Heist was legally declared dead, the investigation into her disappearance lives on, Schofield said after the hearing.
The Heists' former next-door neighbors in Lititz, Arlene and Bill Bingeman, often think about the friendly woman who played outside with her two children.
"Every time we hear of a body being found we perk up our ears and think, geez..." Mrs. Bingeman said. "You'd think she would have to have a job, and some record would show up somewhere, some Social Security number.
"I don't know. It's really strange."
Mrs. Copenhaver said she and her husband, who died nine months after his daughter's disappearance, did not leave the house for two weeks after Brenda disappeared.
"We didn't go to church, we didn't do anything," she said, because they were hoping and praying their daughter would call or turn up at their doorstep.
Mrs. Copenhaver no longer expects that. She hears about other missing women being found, and wonders someday if she will get that call.
"Maybe it was so horrible we're not supposed to know," she said. "That's one of my thoughts. I know whoever did it, they will pay. I'm a firm believer that there will be justice when they pass on from this world."
Staff writer Cindy Stauffer can be reached at cstauffer@LNPnews.com or 481-6024.
http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/238439