Missing Woman Found Alive In Cleveland Has Pittsburgh Ties
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – One local man with ties to one of the three women found after a decade in Cleveland, Ohio was overcome with emotion after learning she had been found Monday.
Monday night, 38-year old Dennis Bair broke down in tears, not long after hearing the news that three women – missing for nearly a decade – had been found alive.
Bair, a former minor league baseball pitcher and native of Munhall, heads a group called the BairFind Foundation.
The program – now in its 12th year – uses sports to draw attention to missing children, putting their photographs on posters of sports teams.
Bair has known the family of Gina DeJesus since 2004, the year the then 14-year-old girl vanished while walking home from school.
DeJesus was one of the three women found late Monday in Cleveland.
Bair told KDKA-TV's Ralph Iannotti that he spoke with DeJesus' mother on the phone, and she was crying, because she was so excited her daughter had been found.
Bair called it a miracle.
"I always wondered what it would be like l when I met Gina, and, now, I'm going to meet her," he said. "I might just break down and cry."
- Watch Mary Robb Jackson's report:
Bair says that through all those years the DeJesus family never gave up.
"The bottomline is they fought for their daughter - and they won, I mean they won big," he said.
In a couple of weeks, once the dust settles, Bair will finally meet DeJesus.
"Well, I kinda know what's going to happen: hugs," he said. "A lot of hugs."
Bair said the woman's family always held out hope for their loved one, thinking that she would be found someday.
A 52-year old man and his two brothers were arrested in Cleveland and charged in connection with the three women's disappearance.
The BairFind Foundation is funded through private donations, and corporate sponsors. For more information, visit the website here: BairFind.org
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