Finding Baby Holly: Lost to a Cult, Surviving My Parents' Murders, and Saved by Prayer

by Holly Marie

Holly Marie was forty-two years old the day she found out she was missing.
 
At ten months old, Holly Marie was brought to the door of a church by three barefoot women in white robes and head coverings. Adopted by the pastor and raised in a loving Christian home, Holly nevertheless struggled with the ache of not knowing what had happened to her biological parents. She still felt their absence even as she married and started a family of her own.  
 
When two detectives showed up at the restaurant where she worked and informed her that she had a large family in Florida who had been searching for her for over 40 years, Holly’s past became the reality of her present, and she began the sometimes painful journey of discovering the truth about her Her parents had been brutally murdered, their case still unsolved.
 
With the help of law enforcement across four states, forensic genealogists, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and her newly discovered family members, the missing pieces began to come together. Except these— why had her parents been murdered? And who had murdered them? She soon found out that the truth leads not always to answers but sometimes to more questions, that it also brings healing and restoration, and that we must surrender our unknowns to God until, in His perfect timing, all truths are revealed.
 
Finding Baby Holly is the true, inspiring story of a wife and mother who was “missing” for over forty years after her parents’ murders, the persistent detectives who never stopped investigating, and the birth family who never lost hope in finding her.
 
 

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, True Crime, Audiobook, Crime, Biography, Mystery

288 pages, Hardcover

Published November 7, 2023

Reviews

[Betsy Solorio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story. Poorly written.

[♥Milica♥ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine finding out one day you've been a missing person for over 40 years. How would you feel? Well, Holly shows us exactly what went through her mind when she found out her parents were murdered and that she had family members who never gave up looking for her.

I'm continuously amazed at what generic genealogy can do, how many crimes it has helped solve already...I can't wait to see how it'll evolve in the years to come, and I sincerely hope that Holly's family will get justice.

I can recommend the audiobook, the narrator did a great job and it's a really fast listen.

Also, there are many references to God, prayer, faith etc which only made the book better for me, but I know some people don't like reading about that, which is why I felt like noting it.

[Lovely Day · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️

I OBVIOUSLY picked this book up because it had my name in the title! ;)

This is the autobiography of Holly Marie; the 10 month old baby that went missing, along with her parents….only for her to find out at 40 years old, that she had even ever been missing! 😳

The story was interesting, however it was the approach to telling the story that felt like it could’ve used work before being published. She didn’t tell the story linearly, so it kind felt disorganized jumping everywhere on the timeline. She also to her own experience, as well as everyone else’s individual experiences in first person which made it difficult to remember who was talking.

Holly Marie is Seventh Day Adventist, so I loved the faith, prayer and God content that was in here, even though I maybe didn’t agree with everything theologically.

Language: 1 hell as a swear, 3 abuses of God’s name

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I finished but probably skipped over 1/3rd of the book because of all the God, prayers, Bible, scriptures stuff. The actual mystery was fascinating but her constant proselytizing got on my nerves.

[Sonja Bristow · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I ordered the audible, it was based on hearing the brief synopsis of what happened to Holly and I was expecting more crime vs praise. I have no problem with the praise within the book. However, that is what it should have been billed as. In all honesty, there was maybe actually 30 to 45 minutes worth of material, yet she drug this on for 6.5 hours. I'm not sure if the narrator made this book less tolerable or what. Another reviewer indicated this book seemed like a 5th grader wrote it and I cannot disagree. The author's abuse of meth seemed to have possibly affected her writing skills, if they existed at all. She tried too hard to mark her life with parallels to that of her fathers ramblings in his youth. If this was more about the murder mystery and the investigation, my interest would have been held. I was trudging through this "book" thinking "why is it so long with all of this repetitiveness...I don't have a memory problem, do you?" I wanted to like this, but I didn't. There were very few bright spots in it, but I do appreciate how she found out her origins, and finding her birth family, but all the rest was fodder.

[Erika Johnson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Forced myself to finish it, all the while praying that it got interesting. Truly a terrible book. Could have been condensed to 20 pages and still been more interesting than it was at 250 pages. I didn’t mind the Christianity aspect of it actually. I just felt that this book’s existence in general was completely unnecessary. It is recounting a story that is really hard to care about unless you are personally involved (aka the family), there is no development to the story at all (no revelations in the case other than that the baby was found IN THE MOST BORING CIRCUMSTANCES EVER which obviously we all know already since it’s written by the grown up baby), and the writing style is that of a 5th grader. Like I’m very glad it all worked out, for the most part, for this Lady, but this is a story that should stay within the family and been told after dinner at holidays.

My suggestion: read the dust cover and move on with your life. You will gain no new information from the actual book - only frustration, disappointment, and anger at the fact that this book was even published to begin with.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't say enough good things about this book. It started off emotional right from the prologue, and it was a ride filled with feelings, faith, and family truth from there on out. The pace was fast, and Holly delved into all of the aspects of her life that made her the person she was. I was fascinated with all she had endured and dreamed. The various anecdotes and perspectives made this book an even richer reading experience.
Much like Holly and her family, I was left with so many questions, but this book was incredible.

[Lauren Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A while lot of God... and poorly written...

[Christina Close · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is good but it was a little slower for me to read, I normally don't read nonfiction so I guess that's part of that reason, but wow once I got into it I was so curious as to what Holly went through.

The fact that she missing from the age of 10 months old and it taking 40 years to put all of the pieces together of who she was, who her parents were, finding her parents bodies, and then reigniting her with her extended family.

There's so much going on in this book, Holly talks about how she grew up with her adopted father and the fact that he went through a few marriages that seemed to have caused Holly some trauma because all she wanted was a family. Then Holly talks about how she got into drugs and living a high risk life on the road with Troy while they were drugged out. After this is talks about how she came back to God and got her life straightened out.

You get to see some of the conversations she had with some of the people who were involved in finding out what happened to her after her parents were killed.

While it was a very heartwarming story to read, I felt like it could have been written a little bit better, but of course telling your own life story probably isn't an easy task to take on.

[Dawn Lainen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who am I to rate someone’s true story less than full stars? I picked this one from a list of audiobooks available now. I had no idea I was getting into a true story. Very interesting story although there was a large part of this that was not for me.

[Kate McKee · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many miracles!

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

After seeing Holly on 20/20, I thought the book would be intriguing. Very simply written. Holly is offered up for adoption to a church by 3 women from a cult. The minister himself adopts her. 40 years later, DNA reveals that her parents were murdered, leading investigators to the identify the remains of the parents. And then the search for Baby Holly is on.
This is Holly’s story, and it is full of faith, prayer and biblical references. It definitely shows the possibilities of DNA, and it might have been a better book if told from a scientific approach.
My sincere hope is that this book and all the surrounding media attention will bring justice to the families involved.

[Bianca Knoll Nakayama · Rating 2 out of 5]

I rarely write reviews, but phew was this one a stinker. What should have been a compelling true crime mystery was so larded with Christian doctrine and Jesus platitudes as to render it nearly unreadable. It felt like a disjointed, poorly written homily in which the reader had to fish for the disorganized snippets of the true crime narrative scattered throughout. Also, CW: drug addiction.

[Celeste · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a slow repetitive story. I had to skip pages from all the name drops. I found myself rolling my eyes, which feels like something that shouldn’t happen with a story about being found after 40 years of “being lost”.

[Nelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir is another example of the "truth is stranger than fiction" adage. In her early 40's, the author was visited at work by a couple of people who had been working on the cold case of the disappearance of her parents 40 years earlier. Holly's young parents had been murdered in Texas, and their unidentified bodies had been found in 1981 and buried in a potter's field type of cemetery, with no indications of who they were. Through the help of DNA analysis, that had not been available in the 80's, cold case detectives were able to identify family members in Florida and eventually find Holly. Holly was adopted at ten months old by a pastor in Arizona, on whose doorstep 3 cult members appeared, holding Holly. The three white-robed cult women told the pastor that Holly's mother, as a member of the cult, was not allowed to have a baby. The families of Holly's mother and father had prayed for years that the young couple and their baby would be found.

Holly talks candidly of her life and faith, even detailing her difficult, self-destructive teenage years. Through it all, God had his hand on her life and brought her the loving family she had so desired.

The case of her parents' murder is still unsolved.

[Darlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was worried about reading this. I thought it would add to the stress of the day. But actually, I found it relaxing and positive. Thanks to Libby for making so many books available to the poor for free.

If you don't mind a person expressing their religious points of view, this is a good book. But some might find it a bit heavy in the beliefs end of things. I always feel we see a unique person's point of view in an autobiography. The best way to understand others is to start with their belief system.

The narrator, Stephanie Richardson, was easy to listen to and displayed humor and love throughout.

The end of the book is a bit of a cliffhanger. Since there is no answer to what happened to Holly's parents, the ending that would be most satisfying would be someone out there who reads this and might get a spark of memory that they witnessed something they didn't know might be a clue to solve the case.

So bear with or enjoy the book, but you may be the key to solving this mystery.

[Tassiana · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Suddenly we had the court documents that included the home study conducted by Catholic Charities, witnesses, notaries, the handwritten letter from your father - I mean, we were just blown away. . . In working cold cases, that kind of thing just doesn't happen. . . And after that, it was 24/7 Holly Marie."

Especially being in a Forensics class, this was really interesting and so cool to see such a unique cold case. I was expecting this to be more tense and almost as if you were the one it was happening too, but it ended up being an explanation of what happened with Holly's story woven within.

Towards the end it definitely got kind of repetitive where I already knew what she was going to mention because she had already mentioned it over and over again, felt as though she just needed to fill pages. The writing also wasn't very good or structured, however I think the fact that we get to hear the story from her voice, the actual woman who went through all of this, makes it more meaningful and made the poor writing something I could look past.

Holly also brought so much glory to God through it all despite how hard her story is and I found that really refreshing! Overall not mad I read it, but also could have been done differently!

[Jewel · Rating 5 out of 5]

DEEPY MOVING, just wow. A 42 year old woman discovers on any normal day, that she has been a missing person for 41 years. Her “birth parents” (cult members) that dropped her off at a church, were NOT her birth parents. Her birth parents were murdered soon before she went missing. Due to not having ID on them, it became a cold case until the late 2010’s with new DNA research. This woman’s faith and story will bring you to tears. For years I have been anti on donating my dna to the ancestry sites. This story has possibly changed my outlook on it. If not for DNA, this woman would’ve never known she was a missing person- or her family would have never gotten answers or reunited with her.

[Cris · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

This book is hard to judge as it’s someone true story. I wonder as I read this about the saying I had always heard growing up, “The only thing worst than the teacher’s kid is a preacher’s kid.” She was loved by her adoptive father and yet the trouble she found. I don’t understand how her adoptive mother could just walk away? I know there are abandonment issues and such, but it dumbfounds me how she slid so easily into one life to slide so easily out of it. I pray now that she has found her extended family, she has found some peace.

[Ashley Kinnard · Rating 2 out of 5]

I always find it difficult to critique autobiographical works—after all, who am I to judge how someone chooses to share their life with the world? The story itself is truly remarkable; however, the writing leaves much to be desired. I think it would have worked better as a condensed article in People magazine. The book suffered from excessive repetition and unnecessary wording. I found myself eager to finish it, simply so I could move on to something with more lyrical prose.

[kenlee thomas]

i first heard of this story through a documentary i saw on the news. needless to say, this book super passed my expectations and was a moving story full of praising the Lord and finding strength through Him and Him alone.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was recommended to me by a library patron and I am so glad. It had so much, true crime, tragedy and miracles! Such a heartbreaking story, you would think, it couldn't have happened, but it did. Highly recommend!

[SheraPrincessofPower · Rating 2 out of 5]

I only made it about 20% in. How can this story be so boring? The nature if the story in interesting but its written in the most boring way possible.

[Leanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

It could have been condensed by about 20%. I was (pleasantly) surprised at how she shares her testimony and unwavering faith in God throughout the entire book.

[Miranda Campbell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to this book and I struggled. The story is interesting but I felt that I was bored throughout the whole thing.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️

I enjoyed it, but the voices were kind of hard to differentiate who was who 😕 still good tho!

[Anna Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not love this book. The story was inspiring, but the book was not well written.

[Ashley Hayward · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an unbelievable story! Her strong love for faith in Jesus is inspiring and what a crazy story that just shows you…you really never know what someone is going through! Great read!

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted more of the story that they don’t know, I didn’t know they didn’t know til the end.

[Janet Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an interesting story about what Holly experienced and the influence cults can have on people.Good read!