MOM DECLARED DEAD TURNED HERSELF IN 11 YEARS LATER

Brenda Heist, a Pennsylvania mother of two, vanished after dropping her kids at school in February 2002, then approached a deputy in Key Largo, Florida, 11 years later after living homeless. She told police she had been worried about her future during a divorce, left on a hitchhiking trip with strangers who comforted her in a park, and finally grew “tired of running,” according to the detective who spoke with her.

Heist was 42 when she dropped her son and daughter off at school in Lititz on the morning of February 8, 2002. By the time the children got home, she was gone, according to LADbible.

Police found her car in neighboring York County, but her personal belongings had not been taken. The children were eight and 12 at the time, according to 2013 reports.

Investigators looked at her former husband, Lee Heist, as a possible suspect. Later reporting said he had a tight alibi and had made efforts to find her.

A husband left with nothing

Lee said the disappearance wrecked the family’s finances. “We experienced the loss of a house and car, a job, and unemployment for over a year and a half,” he said at a press conference after she resurfaced. “Meaning we lost everything, we moved into assisted housing…It was not an easy issue.”

He later remarried and got a court to declare Brenda legally dead. LancasterOnline reported that a court order cited her absence without explanation or contact for more than seven years, and that Lee received a $100,000 life insurance payout.

Lititz Borough Police Det. Sgt. John Schofield told LancasterOnline he had believed Heist was dead and expected her remains might one day be found.

From a park bench to a tent community

On April 26, 2013, Heist, then 53, approached a Monroe County sheriff’s deputy in Key Largo, NBC Miami reported. She said authorities might be looking for her and that she was a missing person who had been using a different name.

She told police she had been homeless for about two years and was living in a tent community. She had also reached the end of her patience with it.

Heist said her divorce from Lee had been amicable, but she was worried about what came next. She had worked as a bookkeeper at a car dealership. After being turned down for housing support, she said, she sat crying in a local park.

A man and two women approached to comfort her and invited her along on a month-long hitchhiking trip to South Florida. She went.

She claimed she then spent about seven years living in a camper van with a man and doing odd jobs. After that, police said, she slept under bridges, scavenged food from bins and begged on the streets.

“She doesn’t know why she did it. She just left,” Schofield told Sky News, suggesting she had made a split-second decision. He also told reporters: “She said she was at the end of her rope, she was tired of running.”

Schofield told LancasterOnline the meeting was “very emotional” and said Heist seemed apologetic and ashamed.

Custody, apologies and a daughter’s answer

Heist was first placed in protective custody and was later held on outstanding warrants. The Miami Herald reported she was released on May 1, 2013, and was staying with a brother in northern Florida. Schofield said she faced no penalties for leaving Pennsylvania.

Lee said he was angry but was trying to forgive her.

Heist apologized to her children in an interview with Dr. Phil. “I would like their forgiveness, but I’m going to have hard time forgiving myself for what I’ve done,” she said. She also said: “I had my own problems believing what I was doing but I just kept saying to myself they’re [her family] better off without me.”

Her daughter, Morgan, was not interested in hearing it. She said she did not want a “sob story” and that she and her brother were “not ready yet” to reunite with their mother.

“We don’t think she should have contact with us,” Morgan said. “There’s no reason for her to. She doesn’t deserve it.”

Schofield said the road back would be long. “She has a birth certificate and a death certificate, so she’s got a long ways to make this right again,” he said at the time. “She’s got to take it slow with her family, I’m sure, and it’s going to be a long process.”