SPRING — Mark Hamilton spent the last month and a half trapped in a kind of hell.
We first reported on Mark’s search for his missing teenage daughter during our ‘Bring Them Home’ campaign highlighting missing kids across Houston and the nation.
Sixteen-year-old Alecia ‘Starr’ Hamilton vanished from her Spring home in mid-April and was thought to have gone as far away as Austin. Mark didn’t know if she was dead or alive.
“There’s nothing that can describe what a person goes through,” Hamilton said. “I guess the only ones who would know it are people who have been through it themselves.”
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While the authorities investigated, Mark hired a private investigator who tracked down leads and kept him going.
“He didn’t give up,” said private investigator Amber Cammack. “He didn’t wait for someone else to do something. He like hit the door running.”
Over the course of several weeks, Mark put up thousands of fliers of Alecia between Houston and Austin. But it only took one to bring about the break he needed.
Someone recognized Alecia’s face at a homeless hangout in Austin. Mark immediately hit the road for the Capitol City.
More: Missing kids database
“I ran down the river this way showing the flier,” said Hamilton, as he described asking people if they had seen his daughter.
Eventually he found her in an alleyway. He said she was strung out on drugs but alive.
“That moment was tears of joy,” said Hamilton.
He believes other parents with missing children can experience the same thing.
“I just never quit. And I can tell anybody, ‘Never give up hope. Never.’”
