"Lorene Roberts" from Unsolved Mysteries Vera L Houtkin

Vera Lorene Roberts Houtkin, father Joe Roberts and mother Mary Magdeline Roberts, sister Ruby, married Norman Edward Cardinal on September 7th 1993 in Travis County Texas. Vera, who often went by the name Lorene, was the focus of an Unsolved Mysteries episode which aired first on December 11th, 1991. In 1949 she met a serviceman and within ten days were married. By 1956 she had three children and was living in Norman's hometown of New Jersey. Unfortunately, Norman's family really disliked Lorene and bought her and her children train tickets back to Austin. Eventually Norman and Lorene divorced. Lorene tried to keep the family (three children and herself) together while she worked and her eldest watched the younger children, but she was unable to support them as a waitress and gave them up for adoption. Being removed from her children had a traumatic impact on her mental state and she asked her sister Ruby to take her to the state mental hospital. From 1957 through 1961 she was admitted five times due to the stress of working as a waitress and the separation of her family. In 1959 she told her sister Ruby that she was engaged to a college professor and disappeared. Lorene stopped interacting with her family and was last seen on February 12th 1964 when she was admitted into a mental hospital. In 1985, her three children had re-united and one of those children, Debbie Russ, contacted Lorene's family discovering that Lorene had been missing. In 1988, Lorene's mother Mary Magdeline Roberts died leaving a $100,000 inheritance for each of her children. A court appointment attorney was searching for Lorene to give her the inheritance money. 3 years later, in 1991 Unsolved Mysteries aired an episode (Season 4 Episode 15) about "Lorene Roberts". After the television episode aired, Lorene actually called into the show. She explained that she had been going by the name "Vera" and was living in Little Rock Arkansas for the previous thirty years as a housekeeper. Upon hearing the news Ruby flew to Arkansas and brought her mother back with her to Austin where she collected her inheritance and after 3 months returned to Little Rock. She died at sixty four years old in 1997.