Community Corner
Long-Missing PA Mom of WCU Grad Found in Fla.
'She was selfish,' daughter says when asked about what her mother did in 2002.
Update: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that Morgan Heist is a student at West Chester University. That information was widely reported based on an Associated Press report. The AP now reports Morgan Heist is a student at Montgomery County Community College, not WCU.
The mother of a recent graduate of West Chester University has been found alive in South Florida, 11 years after walking away from her life in Lancaster County.
According to numerous media reports including the Action News/6abc and The Huffington Post, Brenda Heist dropped her two children off at school in 2002 and then hitchhiked to Florida with some homeless people she met in a park.
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According to the Huffington Post report her daughter Morgan, 19, told 6abc/Action News in Philadelphia, "she left me, you know. She was selfish and she left me and my brother and my dad. She just, she got up and decided she couldn't do it any more. That's not what you do as a mother."
Morgan has an older brother who is a WCU graduate.
Find out what's happening in West Chesterwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
A website called Missing Brenda Heist.com said when Heist left her children, then 8 and 12, and her home in Lititz there was no sign of a struggle or trouble. Heist and her husband were reportedly in the process of an amicable divorce.
Her ex-husband, Lee Heist, who collected on a life insurance policy after getting the courts to declare her legally dead in 2010 and has remarried, said at a news conference Wednesday that he was angry because of the effect her disappearance had on their son and daughter. Lee Heist was looked at as a suspect, but he cooperated with investigators, took a polygraph and was eventually cleared.
A Lititz Borough detective met with Brenda Heist in Florida on Monday. Detective John Shofield told The Huffington Post "she expressed shame and apologized for what she did to her family."
Read more about the story and see the video showing how Brenda Heist's appreance has changed since her disappearance:
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