Heidi's Legacy

Thank you all for your concern about my daughter and myself. We continue to live and have hope for justice. Shortly after Heidi was abducted the Heidi search Center was formed. “What started in tragedy continues in hope “ is the motto that appears on their website Heidi's Legacy

From the history section of the website:

According to the FBI, the search for Heidi was one of the largest and most expensive searches in our nation's history. Never before had so many people been involved in a search for one child over such an extended period of time. For 21 days over 8,000 volunteers searched each day, covering 1,200 miles and using over 50 miles of yellow ribbon as a symbol of the search. On August 11, 1990, then-mayor Lila Cockrell declared "Find Heidi Day", a day in which over 300,000 citizens of San Antonio participated in a joint effort to search.

The Heidi Search Center has been in service for 16 years and serves to

educate the community on abduction to try to prevent tragedies such as these from occurring again. We offer guidance, assistance and emotional support to families in and around San Antonio. We are a non-profit organization funded solely by donations from businesses and private individuals.

Since it's opening in 1990, the Heidi Search Center has assisted the

families of 2,328 missing persons. And this is only the number of cases

the Center has taken in. It is estimated that this many families or more

have turned to the Center for emotional support and advice, with their

loved one being located before there was even a chance to take in the

case. Knowing exactly how many families the Center has helped is simply impossible.

The following information comes from cases taken between 1990 and June of 2003.

2,328 total cases have been actively worked

This includes:

467 missing

1,664 runaways

146 parental abductions

35 stranger abductions

14 non family abductions

2 unknown or unavailable

Murder and Innocense Lost

It has been twenty years since her murder and innocence was lost.


My daughter and Heidi were best friends. Spend all day at school together and the weekends at each other’s house kind of friends.

The girl’s were looking forward to their first year of middle school and the days of that summer were winding down. My daughter wanted Heidi to come with us that Friday when I was getting my classroom ready for the start of school. How about ” Tomorrow” I said. For Heidi, Tomorrow would be too late, tomorrow would never come.

On August 4th,1990 She had spent the night at another friend’s house and was walking home that Saturday morning. She never made it home.

It soon became clear that she had been abducted. The entire family, the community, the city became involved in the search for Heidi. Phone calls, searches, prayer meetings, FBI interviews, counseling and candle light vigils.

My daughter would tearfully ask “Why would anyone want to kidnap her? She didn’t have any money?” I had to explain that there were bad people in the world who wanted something other than money, something only a little girl could provide. An idea that was hard for her and me to understand.

August 26th, a duct-taped and plastic bag wrapped body was found. It was identified as Heidi’s remains. There was a funeral, a closed casket and much grief.

Why and who we think we know. That is not enough for the law. Incontrovertible proof is what is needed.

Will I ever be able to think of August as the start of new things and not the end of innocence?

For more information on the murder go here:
http://voices.mysanantonio.com/briancollister/2010/08/new-info-in-heidi-seeman-unsol.html