Family hopes DNA can find Anita Drake after 50 years

Anita Drake may be celebrating her 64th birthday Monday or her life may have ended a half century ago.

She turned 15 on Oct. 14, 1963. At 4:30 p.m. the next day, she left her Victory Avenue NE home, heading to a nearby teen hangout. About 11 p.m., her parents summoned police to report her missing.

She never was seen again. Her mother and father died unaware of her fate.

But technology may be catching up with her, or at least help investigators explain what happened to her.

Four of her 11 siblings still living are allowing lab technicians from Fort Worth, Texas, to take saliva samples, hoping their DNA will enable investigators to determine whether remains found in Delaware or anywhere else are Anitas.

Shes been gone a long time, said Anitas sister, Linda Boyd of Canton. But, she said, I talked to a lady that had a sister missing for 40-some years and they found her in Pennsylvania, and they had a big reunion. Theres always hope. If theres nothing else, theres hope.

Her brother, Leonard Drake, who was serving in the U.S. Army in Korea and then Vietnam when Anita went missing, said he would be happy just to know Anitas alive. Id like to say, Here she is not dead. She is sitting in Florida and not wanting to be contacted. That would be a wonderful, wonderful thing.

HOPE THROUGH SCIENCE

The DNA samples are being submitted to a laboratory at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. The results will go into the FBIs Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) and then the U.S. Department of Justices

NamUs or National Missing and Unidentified Persons System database.

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Family hopes DNA can find Anita Drake after 50 years