Mum-of-two who vanished 11 years ago goes to police

Eleven years after she vanished without a trace, Brenda Heist approached police in Florida last week to explain that she had abandoned her two children on the spur of the moment, leaving behind her old life in central Pennsylvania to become a vagrant.

Her journey began when three strangers reached out to comfort her as she cried in despair in a park in 2002, then offered to let her accompany them.

Heist, a car dealership bookkeeper, was going through an amicable divorce and had just been turned down for housing assistance. She left the half-done laundry, the defrosting dinner and her daughter and son, then 8 and 12 years old.