Just like most of Omaha, Martha Hollis remembers the story of 12-year-old Amber Harris.
”Just an innocent, innocent little girl, and the story really hit me at the time,” she said.
Harris got off the bus in late 2005 and never made it home. Months later, her remains were discovered in Hummel Park.
"(Amber's mother) Melissa knows what I'm going through because she has been there,” Martha said.
More than a decade later, tragedy has now connected the two women.
"I never thought I’d wake up to something like this, " she said.
Hollis knew something was wrong Monday morning when her daughter, 34-year-old Camisha, didn't go to work and her grandchildren weren't at school. So her mother called police, and Hollis found her three granddaughters home alone.
The oldest, a 10-year-old, tells police her father, 36-year-old Marvin Young, beat her mother and then left with her mom early Monday.
"She never said she was scared of him,” Martha said.
Hollis said her daughter told her last week that she was finally leaving Young after 18 years.
”She said, ‘Mom, this is it.’ And she told him that, and I do believe that is what triggered it," Martha said.
Harris saw the story of Hollis' missing daughter on the news and knew she could offer support.
”Just gotta take it minute by minute,” she said, grieving mom to grieving mom. ”You have to be strong, but you have to release, and you have to get rest. I didn't do that."
With the support of Harris and an entire community, they’re not giving up hope.
"We going to find her. We are going to find her. I do believe that deep down,” she said.
