Therese Rose Vanderheiden-Walsh

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

Honolulu Police Department (HI)

Missing From:

Kailua, Hawaii

Summary:

Therese Rose Vanderheiden-Walsh was a 5-year-old white female missing since June 22, 1990, from Kailua, Hawaii, classified as a family abduction. She was abducted by her non-custodial mother, Merle Vanderheiden, from a daycare center where she had been enrolled. A felony interference with custody warrant for Merle's arrest was issued on July 26, 1990, but she has yet to be captured and Therese's whereabouts remain unknown.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Disappearance:

Francis and Merle met in Maryland in 1979 and were both assigned to U.S. Army intelligence units at the time. They married in 1980 and relocated to Hawaii with their daughter. Francis moved out of the family home in 1987 due to the troubled marriage. Merle accused Francis of sexually abusing Therese, but authorities investigated and found no evidence to support the allegations. Merle eventually moved back to the U.S. mainland while Francis and Therese remained in Hawaii. She made regular phone calls to Therese in 1990 while she was not permitted unsupervised visitations with the child. On June 22, 1990, Therese was enrolled at a day care center in Kailua, Hawaii. A woman wearing dark sunglasses and a hat was spotted on the center's property, and authorities believe that Merle was the woman who abducted her daughter from the grounds. A daycare center employee reported that the mystery woman grabbed Therese by the hand and ran off with her—first out of the building, then to a nearby gray station wagon.

Additional Details:

A felony interference with custody warrant for Merle's arrest was issued on July 26, 1990. Some people believe that Merle was aided in Therese's abduction by Children of the Underground, a controversial organization founded by Faye Yager. In the years after Merle took Therese, her social security number was used multiple times throughout Texas, including once in Houston when Merle set up a P.O. box under her real name, and again in November 1991 in Bridge City, Texas, near where Merle's relatives lived. Police discovered the family had purchased a Ford van for Merle after she vanished, with "Mary Jean Hamm" listed as the owner on the title—one of Merle's aliases. Merle later sold the van in 1994 to her sister-in-law. When police discovered the sale and investigated, someone had wiped the van clean of fingerprints. In 1996, authorities in Hawaii had someone on a plane waiting to take off for Colorado, convinced that Vanderheiden was living in Colorado as Marie A. Vanderheiden and speaking at an American Bar Association conference in Denver. Faulkner and Anne Clarkin compared photos and driver's licenses and believed the two Vanderheidens were the same person, but a fingerprint check by the Denver FBI came up negative. The FBI used the wrong fingerprints—used Therese's instead of her mother's. Francis helped found the Hawaii State Clearinghouse on Missing Children after his daughter's abduction. He died in 1998. Her stepmother, Janice Walsh, passed away in 2014. The case has been updated 6 times since October 12, 2004, with the last update on April 9, 2023 when the age-progression was updated.

Case Last Updated:

Nov 13, 2026